6

“You know how busy I’ve been lately, Suad, my dear. I’ve been busy with the girls’ wedding preparations. I married two of them at once, after all…”

Suad sat in the chair opposite her, immediately understanding the hidden meaning behind her sister-in-law’s words.

She sighed patiently.

“May God bless their marriages, dear. Hopefully the youngest will be next.”

“Haidi? Haidi has suitors coming and going all the time. We can barely keep up with them. But her father says she’s still young—she’s only in her second year of university. Just the other day, an officer came to propose. Mashallah, the young man is practically flawless, from a respectable, well-connected family. But Hamdy told him he doesn’t intend to marry her off yet.”

Suad sighed.

She knew perfectly well what her husband’s sister was implying.

She was talking about her daughter, Ghalia, who had reached twenty-six without getting married.

Suad fell silent, unable to find anything to say.

Elham continued, asking maliciously, unable to hide the jealousy and bitterness in her voice as she slowly sipped her juice.

“But tell me, Suad, my dear sister… Has no one proposed to Ghalia after what happened? She’s almost thirty now. May God punish whoever was responsible…”

Pain overtook Suad’s features.

She wanted to end this particular conversation immediately.

“No one was responsible for anything, Elham. It was fate. My daughter’s fate simply hasn’t arrived yet. And as for what happened, I believe it was God’s way of saving her from the pit she was about to fall into. Besides, dear, I’d rather have my daughter remain unmarried beside me than marry someone she isn’t comfortable with and spend the rest of her life carrying that burden. Now, let’s close this subject.”

Elham curled her lips mockingly and looked at her with condescension.

“Yes, dear. Of course, everything is fate…”

She paused before adding,

“I actually came to talk to you about something. I’m sure it’ll make you very happy.”

Suad clenched her teeth in irritation.

“What?”

“Something good, God willing. My neighbor, Om Atef, has a son named Atef. He divorced his wife three months ago, and he’s looking for another bride. I recommended Ghalia. She’s better than a stranger, after all…”

That was enough.

She had crossed the line.

Suad suddenly rose from her chair, her eyes red with anger.

“What exactly are you saying?! Are you even listening to yourself?! You want me to marry my daughter off to a divorced man with three children?! Why, exactly?! Would you accept that for your niece? No—forget your niece. Would you accept it for one of those daughters you’ve been bragging about all morning?”

Elham jumped to her feet as well, standing face-to-face with her.

“What are you being so picky about?! Especially when your daughter’s groom left her on her wedding night while she was still wearing her white dress and ran away! Who exactly do you expect to marry her? A doctor?!”

She said the last word mockingly before continuing bitterly,

“And then you compare Ghalia to my daughters? My daughters, who are highly educated, mashallah, and married to men everyone respects! One is an engineer and the other is a lawyer!”

Her poisonous, cutting words pierced Suad’s heart as though Elham were talking about some random girl off the street rather than her own niece.

Tears gathered heavily in her eyes.

She struggled to hold them back and spoke in a trembling voice.

“Of course not. How could I possibly compare my daughter to your daughters? My daughter is better than any girl in this world. The house is yours, Elham. If you’ll excuse me…”

She finished speaking, then left Elham standing there and walked into her bedroom.

Once inside, she finally allowed her tears to fall.

She cried over her daughter and thanked God that Ghalia hadn’t been home at that moment.

She had gone to visit Samar, the daughter of her cousin Heba.

If Ghalia had been there and heard her aunt’s poisonous, hurtful words, a wound she had worked so hard to close would have been torn open again, dragging the past back into the present.

❈-❈-❈

That evening

Omar finally finished work at around five in the afternoon.

He decided to go up to his room and rest after a long day.

It had been his first day on the job, and it had been filled with tasks he needed to learn and master.

He walked with a slightly exhausted body.

As soon as he reached the second floor, where Haj Helmy’s apartment was located, he happened to cross paths with Ghalia as she was coming out.

The moment she saw him, she looked him up and down with obvious disgust.

He couldn’t understand what that look was supposed to mean.

Her strange expression left him standing completely still.

She was glaring at him with intense annoyance and irritation, as though he had committed some terrible crime against her.

Yet he had only seen her once before, yesterday morning on the rooftop.

Her expression suggested that she wanted to say something, but she seemed hesitant.

He noticed it.

She finally ended the silent battle of stares that had lasted for several seconds and walked past him, intending to head downstairs.

But after descending only two steps, she turned around and came back.

She finally said the words she had been hesitating to say from the beginning.

“When you’re standing around laughing and joking on the stairs, keep your voice down a little. People are going up and down.”

She threw the words at him and immediately hurried downstairs before he could utter a single word.

Omar stood there speechless.

He stared after her in utter bewilderment, dozens of questions spinning through his mind.

What did she mean by telling him to lower his voice when laughing on the stairs?

Surely, she couldn’t have been talking about him.

He hadn’t done anything like that.

At least, he couldn’t remember doing anything of the sort during the three days he had been staying there.

And even if he had… who would he have been laughing with?

He didn’t know anyone there except Haj Helmy and his nephew, Waleed, whom he had only met a few hours earlier.

But who else could she possibly mean?

There was no one else standing there.

She must have been talking about him.

❈-❈-❈