A Place for Us

by Fatima Farheen Mirza

she would work hard, she would study, and she would find herself a new family. A new house that never got angry, a home where weeks would pass without a voice raised.

the promise of a formerly unfathomable life? One Hadia had worked for and longed for, but never allowed herself to fully picture, never allowed herself to honestly believe that a life where she abided by her rules and hers alone, picked up a guitar if she wanted to, learned a chord to play, could be hers. She would become a somebody—a doctor. She would live a five-hour car journey away from this very street, this little leaf that blew right by her, the sight of the sun setting behind the tips of houses across her street.

And maybe it was the least important reason, but it was the day-to-day aspect of her life with Tariq that truly mattered to her. How, with him, even trips to the grocery store felt like an event, tasks as mundane as lifting up apples and pinching avocados before placing them into their basket.

She would be a wife. What a strange and archaic word.

She remembered watching brides cry during their ruksati as a child and fearing her time would come and she would not shed a tear. Now she cried like a little girl.

In that moment, Hadia had wished for exactly this, exactly what was being granted to her now: a new family. Her own. A new window from which to look out and think, I am home.

Because you could not breathe easily, I could not either.

what happens in this life is not final. There is another. And maybe there, we will get another chance. Maybe there we will get it right. I will see you again someday. I believe that. If not in this life, then in the next, the angel will blow into the shell, the soul of every being that ever lived will rise, and our sins will be accounted for, and our good deeds too. You might have made mistakes in life, but you were kind