“Mom?” Reyansh calls, taking steps towards their room. My eyes widen as we take the scene in, music filling in the unusual silence.
“What are you guys doing?” I ask, looking at our moms’ who have a tissue in their hand, wiping under their eyes while looking at the TV screen in front of them.
“Oh, you guys are home,” Mom says, andMaaquickly wipes her tear-stricken face.
“What’s going on?” Reyansh asks.
“Meher found your wedding album,” Mom says, and my stomach falls. “We were just going through them.”
“Why?” I ask.
I try to keep my voice steady and not show what kind of effect just the mention of our wedding tapes has on me. For the longest time, I have kept them buried in a corner of our house, where even I wouldn’t go to, just because I didn’t want to see them again.
They were my most prized possession at one time; now they are something that bring up a reminder of a life we failed to sustain. A dream that shattered painfully.
“We wanted to revisit the good memories,”Maasays, coming up towards me, and there is this warmth and pain in her eyes that I am too familiar with. She had the same look in her eyes when I once told her that I will not go to London for further studies because I wanted her close to me.
When I look at Reyansh, it looks like he has been frozen. The same distant look is in his eyes, and I am not that good at deciphering it anymore.
“You guys have focused on the bad for so long,” she adds. “Why don’t you guys try to look at the nice parts for once? Look at these videos; you guys were so happy.”
I want to emphasize the fact that we were happy. We are not at the moment. But I hold back because I don’t want to hurther or Mom. They are doing what any other mothers would do—trying to fix their children’s broken marriage. What I don’t know is how successful they will be in doing that.
“Come watch this video with us.” Mom looks at me with a small smile, the one I always find hard to resist. It is the same smile she gave me during wedding shopping when she made me buy a ridiculously expensive pair of heels. I have never worn them again because they are so damn expensive.
“Ah—” I start, and Reyansh cuts in.
“We appreciate the effort, but not tonight,” he says, and I don’t know whether to thank him or be upset that he doesn’t want to watch the videos. I don’t even know if I should be upset or not.
After all, even I don’t want to watch them. But I am sure my reason is entirely different from his, and that doesn’t give me any relief at all.
“Yes,” I add with a short, forced smile. “I had a long day at work. I can’t sit in front of a screen anymore.”
“Just for 10 minutes,”Maasays. “It is a tape from yourmehendi,and we are about to finish it. Just for us, please.”
Whoever taught moms to use emotional blackmail as their biggest weapon needs to be punished because how the hell am I supposed to say no when they say the words“Just for us, please”?
It is so unfair. And when we say these words back to them, they don’t listen.
“Fine,” I say. “Let me go change first. I can’t sit in these outside clothes.”
* * *
I dab my face twice before coming out of the washroom. I gave myself a solid pep talk. I let myself know that it’s okay, it doesn’tmean anything, and that it won’t bring us any closer.
I don’t know how much of that pep talk worked, but at least I tried.
When I walk back into their room, Reyansh is already seated between them, and I wonder how he can act so unaffected by all of this. How does he manage to be so nonchalant all the time?
“Come, Aisha.” Mom pats the space beside Reyansh. “We were waiting for you.”
I smile as I take place beside Reyansh, trying to keep my emotions in check. It is just a video. Just a video. Nothing else.
I am as stiff as ice whenMaaresumes the video, and I am sucked into the past that I thought I had escaped.
“This is my favorite part,”Maasays excitedly as the music plays in the video.
Our wedding was full of my favorite Bollywood songs from my wedding playlist I had made years ago. I was never that keen on the idea of marriage, but I was delusional enough to think that maybe I could get lucky. And for a moment of time, even if short, I did.
