Chapter 22
Broken Not a halal love story Complete · about 8 min read
he wedding vendors no longer brought samples to our house and the
wedding planner had stopped her search for a wedding hashtag. All
my appointments with stylists and trials with make-up artists were canceled.
What started as a busy year for Umma and my aunts became just another
regular one year until someone else’s wedding came up, and all of them
busied themselves again.
Afreen and Aunty Mami came by the house almost immediately. It was
one of those days I was laying in bed, crying quietly, when I heard the
knock. I started to wipe away my tears and when she opened the door and
saw me, her face fell. “Fa’iza am,” she whispered, “oh Ya Allah!”
I sat up on the bed as she joined me and engulfed me in a hug. Afreen
was behind her with teary eyes and seeing her, I started crying
uncontrollably again.
“Ki yi hakuri. Be patient,” she shushed me, rubbing my back. “You’ll
always be my daughter. You know I’m always going to be here for you.”
Her presence was calming and familiar, even though I had never felt so
disconnected from her as I did in that moment.
The best thing about Aunty Mami’s visit was that she didn’t quote the
Qur’an to me. That was what everyone else did – from Aisha to my uncles,
unknowingly adding to my intense guilt and increasing anxiety.
Afreen joined me on the bed with her mum and they just held space
with me, our silence punctuated by my loud sniffles. Even when it was just
Afreen and me alone in my room, I couldn’t bring myself to ask about
Ahmad. I wondered if he had really gone to Kano, but I didn’t want to even
cling to a glimmer of hope because I wasn’t sure I could survive another
disappointment if his trip ended up yielding no good news for us.
The worst thing about facing my family was that I had to be cloaked by
the cover of pretense every waking moment. Sure enough, my family was
being sensitive to my plight. I realized that when Atine knocked on my door
with breakfast, which was something that never happened, not under
Umma’s watch; None of the maids brought food into mine or my brothers’
rooms. It happened again at lunch and at dinner time. I knew that if I didn’t
want to raise suspicions about the true nature of my relationship with
Ahmad, I had to mask the hurt I was going through. It was terribly hard
because I was already drowning in the weight of my own helplessness. So
for days, before Atine came back for the plates, I would go and dump half
of my breakfast in the wastebasket in my toilet. I didn’t have the energy to
take a bath, but I changed my abaya after zuhr to look like I did.
In her own way, Umma showed me extra love around that period.
Whenever she grilled Abba’s special chicken that even the kitchen staff
didn’t have the recipe to, she would send some to me. The cooks were
always asking me if I wanted something different from what everyone else
was eating; I knew they were following her instructions. I had no appetite,
and I was still tossing most of my food in the garbage. On the weekends, I
kept myself busy by going to Umma’s room to help organize her closet, she
would always ‘find’ some jewelry or perfume she would tell me to keep.
Without fail, I would always pretend to be elated, even though I was dying
inside; the pain had refused to stop. My mental health was deteriorating
because I could not sleep at night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw
Ahmad; I felt his touch on my skin; I heard his voice in the hallway even
though I knew he was not there. My next breakdown was always around the
corner. Today, it was triggered by the scent of his oud on one of my scarves.
I was very relieved to leave the house for Umrah with Umma because
Ya Amin had become quite suspicious since Ahmad’s impromptu visit to
the house. I caught him staring at me a few times with an expression I could
not read. He also listened closely to my phone calls and insisted on
dropping me everywhere, even when I was just going to the store to pick up
a prayer book. I kept acting like I was only disappointed and sad that I
couldn’t get married. It was exhausting because I was battling major panic
attacks with no one to talk to.
I could not talk to the one person who could help me. After a week of
letting Ahmad’s calls ring out and go straight to voicemail, I switched off
my phone. Hearing his voice would break me entirely, and I was barely
hanging onto the thread of whatever was left of my sanity. I tried to delete
our texts and pictures, but every time I started reading and deleting them, I
would see something that sent me back to the edge of depression.
Sometimes, it was as innocent as a picture of a book he was reading, or a
picture of us together at an outdoor event with a crowd of people in the
background. Those were happier times.
The evening before we left for Mecca, Hajiya Uwani was on one of her
exhausting tirades of unwanted advice. We were sitting in Umma’s parlour
and the television was playing an Indian drama about unrequited love.
Umma was watching the show and eating her fruits silently. “This is not a
loss; just look at it this way, you’ve gained another big brother,” Hajiya
Uwani managed to make me feel worse every single day she came here.
I looked at Umma to bail me out, but she just stared at me quietly. My
eyes filled with tears as I remembered the way Ahmad would plant tiny
little kisses on the nape of my neck every time he walked up behind me. I
remembered his hands going around my waist and pulling me closer to him.
How could I think of him as a brother after everything we had done? The
thought alone left me nauseated.
“With time, you’ll forget him,” Hajiya Uwani continued.
I nodded. Everybody went about minimizing the situation and it was not
their fault; they could never have imagined what was between Ahmad and
me in their wildest imagination. No one ever thought their daughter would
engage in a haram relationship or a secret marriage. We were brought up to
know better.
In Abuja, I gave out alms, I fasted. In Mecca, I completely surrendered
myself; I cried and prayed to God for forgiveness with my forehead to the
ground in sajda. I prayed to God to take away the feelings I had for Ahmad,
my sadness about how my relationship with him turned out, and my shame
about the acts I had committed that I couldn’t talk about.
The Holy City brought about honest reflections. On days I didn’t find
myself surrounded by people, my mind would wander, and I would think
about how I brought all this upon myself. This was the reason the Qur’an
warned us against engaging in sin – especially premarital affairs and
fornication. Now I was saddled with memories I couldn’t erase, memories
with a man who would never be mine. If only I had been patient, I thought.
If we had continued our halal relationship, maybe I wouldn’t be in this
much pain.
Two days before I went back to Canada in September, Abba called me
to go on a drive. We talked about the courses I was registered for in the
upcoming semester. When the car finally came to a halt, he asked me to
come down. I looked out of the window and realized we were now on the
outskirts of Abuja. I opened the door, my black abaya flowing in the humid
evening breeze. The sun was almost setting. We walked to an incomplete
two-storey building.
He walked in front and I followed behind slowly. On the way, he saw a
shovel by the steps in a dangerous position, bent down and changed its
position away from the entrance. “Look where the workers left this – very
dangerous.” That was imbibed in him, a part of who he was.
“What do you think?” he asked, as we walked around the incomplete
building. “For your Shelter?”
I widened my eyes in surprise. I had emailed him my business plan
when I was in school and he’d reviewed it and made suggestions, which I
implemented in the final document. But since I’d been back, we hadn’t
really spoken about it. I’d assumed he forgot. “Abba…?” my eyes welled
with tears as I gave him a big hug, unable to come up with more words.
“I’m proud of your initiative, Fa’iza,” he said as he patted my back.
“The construction should be completed by your graduation, insha Allah,
and you can start running it immediately.”
On the plane to Canada for the Fall semester, I finally restored my
phone to factory settings to erase all the content. With the reset, I was
starting afresh; all the texts, pictures, videos and voice notes were gone. At
the university, I buried myself in my studies. My study sessions with Ada
and Sara continued, and we were even busier than usual; most of our
sessions ended around 5 pm, and I always went back to the residence
immediately.
Imagine my surprise, one chilly evening, when I returned to the rez,
went through the sliding doors and found Ahmad in the quiet lobby. He
looked at me silently as I stood rooted by the entrance.
A
wedding planner had stopped her search for a wedding hashtag. All
my appointments with stylists and trials with make-up artists were canceled.
What started as a busy year for Umma and my aunts became just another
regular one year until someone else’s wedding came up, and all of them
busied themselves again.
Afreen and Aunty Mami came by the house almost immediately. It was
one of those days I was laying in bed, crying quietly, when I heard the
knock. I started to wipe away my tears and when she opened the door and
saw me, her face fell. “Fa’iza am,” she whispered, “oh Ya Allah!”
I sat up on the bed as she joined me and engulfed me in a hug. Afreen
was behind her with teary eyes and seeing her, I started crying
uncontrollably again.
“Ki yi hakuri. Be patient,” she shushed me, rubbing my back. “You’ll
always be my daughter. You know I’m always going to be here for you.”
Her presence was calming and familiar, even though I had never felt so
disconnected from her as I did in that moment.
The best thing about Aunty Mami’s visit was that she didn’t quote the
Qur’an to me. That was what everyone else did – from Aisha to my uncles,
unknowingly adding to my intense guilt and increasing anxiety.
Afreen joined me on the bed with her mum and they just held space
with me, our silence punctuated by my loud sniffles. Even when it was just
Afreen and me alone in my room, I couldn’t bring myself to ask about
Ahmad. I wondered if he had really gone to Kano, but I didn’t want to even
cling to a glimmer of hope because I wasn’t sure I could survive another
disappointment if his trip ended up yielding no good news for us.
The worst thing about facing my family was that I had to be cloaked by
the cover of pretense every waking moment. Sure enough, my family was
being sensitive to my plight. I realized that when Atine knocked on my door
with breakfast, which was something that never happened, not under
Umma’s watch; None of the maids brought food into mine or my brothers’
rooms. It happened again at lunch and at dinner time. I knew that if I didn’t
want to raise suspicions about the true nature of my relationship with
Ahmad, I had to mask the hurt I was going through. It was terribly hard
because I was already drowning in the weight of my own helplessness. So
for days, before Atine came back for the plates, I would go and dump half
of my breakfast in the wastebasket in my toilet. I didn’t have the energy to
take a bath, but I changed my abaya after zuhr to look like I did.
In her own way, Umma showed me extra love around that period.
Whenever she grilled Abba’s special chicken that even the kitchen staff
didn’t have the recipe to, she would send some to me. The cooks were
always asking me if I wanted something different from what everyone else
was eating; I knew they were following her instructions. I had no appetite,
and I was still tossing most of my food in the garbage. On the weekends, I
kept myself busy by going to Umma’s room to help organize her closet, she
would always ‘find’ some jewelry or perfume she would tell me to keep.
Without fail, I would always pretend to be elated, even though I was dying
inside; the pain had refused to stop. My mental health was deteriorating
because I could not sleep at night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw
Ahmad; I felt his touch on my skin; I heard his voice in the hallway even
though I knew he was not there. My next breakdown was always around the
corner. Today, it was triggered by the scent of his oud on one of my scarves.
I was very relieved to leave the house for Umrah with Umma because
Ya Amin had become quite suspicious since Ahmad’s impromptu visit to
the house. I caught him staring at me a few times with an expression I could
not read. He also listened closely to my phone calls and insisted on
dropping me everywhere, even when I was just going to the store to pick up
a prayer book. I kept acting like I was only disappointed and sad that I
couldn’t get married. It was exhausting because I was battling major panic
attacks with no one to talk to.
I could not talk to the one person who could help me. After a week of
letting Ahmad’s calls ring out and go straight to voicemail, I switched off
my phone. Hearing his voice would break me entirely, and I was barely
hanging onto the thread of whatever was left of my sanity. I tried to delete
our texts and pictures, but every time I started reading and deleting them, I
would see something that sent me back to the edge of depression.
Sometimes, it was as innocent as a picture of a book he was reading, or a
picture of us together at an outdoor event with a crowd of people in the
background. Those were happier times.
The evening before we left for Mecca, Hajiya Uwani was on one of her
exhausting tirades of unwanted advice. We were sitting in Umma’s parlour
and the television was playing an Indian drama about unrequited love.
Umma was watching the show and eating her fruits silently. “This is not a
loss; just look at it this way, you’ve gained another big brother,” Hajiya
Uwani managed to make me feel worse every single day she came here.
I looked at Umma to bail me out, but she just stared at me quietly. My
eyes filled with tears as I remembered the way Ahmad would plant tiny
little kisses on the nape of my neck every time he walked up behind me. I
remembered his hands going around my waist and pulling me closer to him.
How could I think of him as a brother after everything we had done? The
thought alone left me nauseated.
“With time, you’ll forget him,” Hajiya Uwani continued.
I nodded. Everybody went about minimizing the situation and it was not
their fault; they could never have imagined what was between Ahmad and
me in their wildest imagination. No one ever thought their daughter would
engage in a haram relationship or a secret marriage. We were brought up to
know better.
In Abuja, I gave out alms, I fasted. In Mecca, I completely surrendered
myself; I cried and prayed to God for forgiveness with my forehead to the
ground in sajda. I prayed to God to take away the feelings I had for Ahmad,
my sadness about how my relationship with him turned out, and my shame
about the acts I had committed that I couldn’t talk about.
The Holy City brought about honest reflections. On days I didn’t find
myself surrounded by people, my mind would wander, and I would think
about how I brought all this upon myself. This was the reason the Qur’an
warned us against engaging in sin – especially premarital affairs and
fornication. Now I was saddled with memories I couldn’t erase, memories
with a man who would never be mine. If only I had been patient, I thought.
If we had continued our halal relationship, maybe I wouldn’t be in this
much pain.
Two days before I went back to Canada in September, Abba called me
to go on a drive. We talked about the courses I was registered for in the
upcoming semester. When the car finally came to a halt, he asked me to
come down. I looked out of the window and realized we were now on the
outskirts of Abuja. I opened the door, my black abaya flowing in the humid
evening breeze. The sun was almost setting. We walked to an incomplete
two-storey building.
He walked in front and I followed behind slowly. On the way, he saw a
shovel by the steps in a dangerous position, bent down and changed its
position away from the entrance. “Look where the workers left this – very
dangerous.” That was imbibed in him, a part of who he was.
“What do you think?” he asked, as we walked around the incomplete
building. “For your Shelter?”
I widened my eyes in surprise. I had emailed him my business plan
when I was in school and he’d reviewed it and made suggestions, which I
implemented in the final document. But since I’d been back, we hadn’t
really spoken about it. I’d assumed he forgot. “Abba…?” my eyes welled
with tears as I gave him a big hug, unable to come up with more words.
“I’m proud of your initiative, Fa’iza,” he said as he patted my back.
“The construction should be completed by your graduation, insha Allah,
and you can start running it immediately.”
On the plane to Canada for the Fall semester, I finally restored my
phone to factory settings to erase all the content. With the reset, I was
starting afresh; all the texts, pictures, videos and voice notes were gone. At
the university, I buried myself in my studies. My study sessions with Ada
and Sara continued, and we were even busier than usual; most of our
sessions ended around 5 pm, and I always went back to the residence
immediately.
Imagine my surprise, one chilly evening, when I returned to the rez,
went through the sliding doors and found Ahmad in the quiet lobby. He
looked at me silently as I stood rooted by the entrance.
A