She rolls her eyes before choosing to ignore my words.
“If you are thinking I will let you go this late at night? Then you’re undeniably wrong, Aisha.”
“You can’t stop me; I am an adult.”
“Yes, I can tell.”
She stomps her foot on the floor before walking towards the closet and making a mess of my clothes too.
“Aisha,” I say softly this time. “Don’t leave, please. Especially when our mothers are coming to visit us.”
She stops with whatever she was planning on doing further, but I do see a leather belt in her hands, and I am glad she is not planning on using it on me.
At least, I hope she was not. You don’t want to meet the angry version of her. She turns into violent Punjabi moms, and I say that as someone who has witnessed that firsthand. First through her and then once when her mother was scolding her because she hid our relationship from her.
“What?”
I curse myself inwardly as I wonder why, out of all the things that I could say to her, I decided to come up with this. But I also know that nothing I would say would work at the moment.
This was my best bet.
“Are you for real, or is this your way of keeping me here?” she questions, mirroring my posture, and I just know there’s no way she for real wants a divorce.
She is mad at me. I think that might be a small word for what she might be feeling towards me, but there’s no way she hates me or this marriage.
“I am not bluffing,” I say, trying to school my face. “It was supposed to be a surprise, but I guess now it’s not. Both of them love you—and us, Aisha. I know you are upset. Fuck, even more than that, but please. Stay.”
Her forehead wrinkles enough to tell me that she is thinking hard about this. Analyzing and re-analyzing every aspect of this.
But I know she cares about our parents, and I know she is not ready to tell them the messy and ugly truth about our relationship. Not yet, at least.
“Fuck it, fine.”
I bite my inner cheek to control myself from smiling out loud. But my heart does a little happy, unhinged dance inside my chest. At least I got her to stay for now.
As I watch her take out her clothes from the bag and throw them inside the closet rather harshly, I try to come up with something that might make this mess a little better.
I got her to stay, but now I have to figure out how to get both of our moms here.
* * *
Turns out asking for our mothers to come here instantly was a bad move. They either keep assuming she is pregnant, one of us is sick, or that something bad has happened.
So I asked Aarav for help. He cursed me in Hindi, calling me shit I would much rather not tell anyone. I asked him to tell the truth to Aisha’s mom because there’s no way I could handle two of these women alone and not tell them the truth too.
So now, here I am. Sitting on the front steps of my house as I get yelled at by Mom for messing up the one good thing in my life.
“I can’t believe it,” she says, and I can just picture her shaking her head in disappointment. “I am so hurt and disappointed.”
“I know,” I sigh. “I am too. I know I messed up, Mom. I know it all too well. But I am trying to fix it. I just need you to help me too.”
She grumbles profanities under her breath on the phone, and I look up at the sky in the meantime, wondering how the hell I am going to fix this all.
“Fine,” she says. “I am coming.” Book my flights and Meher’s too. I can’t believe we have to step in to save our almost-thirty kids’ marriage.”
“Sure, Mom,” I smile a little. “I will send you the details.”
“And Rey?”
