A Place for Us

by Fatima Farheen Mirza

Despite the disappointment, he cannot deny how his garden is changed just by her being there. The air, changed. The charge of his body moving through it, changed. There is even delight in knowing that Huda and Abbas noted that change within him. So she does not speak to him, she does not even lift her eyes to his, so she does not smile, it is still a pleasure, feeling this way, inhabiting this space he has lived in for years without a modicum of enchantment. For once, he does not wish that everyone would leave as soon as possible. But as the sun begins to set they gather their coats and adjust their scarves and approach his mother to thank her for a wonderful afternoon, and one by one they go. The last moments of the day always make him uneasy, the changing color of the sky, the empty feeling of knowing another day is about to be swallowed by the dark. Even in this, he is so separate from his father, who waits for dusk to step out for his walk, either around the backyard or to the horse pasture streets away, looking up at the world as though its wonders were made to be beheld by him alone. Her family leaves and she leaves with them. The garden is just a garden. The living room just a living room. The long haul up the staircase. The sound of the door shutting behind him. Alone again in his bedroom that is just a bedroom.