First Comes Marriage by Huda Al-Marashi

Author:Huda Al-Marashi
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781633884472
Publisher: Prometheus Books

Hadi blamed the physical distance between us for the tension during our phone conversations. He insisted that all we needed was one day out, one day to prove that our lives together could be fun. His mother was planning a reception to welcome his sister Jamila's new baby in January. Since my family would be coming for the occasion, he had asked his parents that we be allowed to go out alone the day before the party.

I told him he had to plan everything, hoping that this day would capture my heart and, once and for all, quiet my mind's incessant chorus of regrets. It never occurred to me that this was too much to expect from one day, one moment, one man. Our wedding date had been set for the end of July, and I needed something to reassure me that my decision to stay with Hadi hadn't been a mistake, that even though Hadi still hadn't gotten any interviews to medical schools and I had no idea what he was going to do after he graduated in June, there was something so romantic and wonderful about us that we were meant to be together.

My family and I arrived at Hadi's house on a Friday night. We would be taking over Hadi's room, my parents on the bed, Lina and I on a stack of blankets on the floor. That night, Hadi walked me to the door of his room and told me that he was looking forward to tomorrow and that I should dress casually. My body let go of tension I hadn't realized I'd been holding. Hadi had put thought into this. He'd planned.

The next morning, I slid into the kind of outfit I rarely wore but Hadi said I looked cutest in—jeans, tennis shoes, and a sweatshirt—and then I repacked my bag because our families would stay at the Ridhas’ beach house in San Diego that night. I expected to find Hadi waiting for me in the kitchen, but only our parents were seated at the marble slab table, sipping their tea, dipping pita bread in lebne, or wrapping it around slices of Syrian cheese and bundles of mint.

“Sit down and eat,” Dr. Ridha said.

And because Hadi was nowhere to suggest otherwise, I sat and felt some of the day's excitement fizzle. There were girls whose boyfriends picked them up from their homes and whisked them off to fancy brunches and dinners, and then there were girls like me, who had breakfast with their future in-laws on the day she had come to think of as her first and last date before getting married.

When Hadi showed up in the kitchen a half hour later, he was dressed but not ready to leave. He whispered something in his mother's ear. A moment later, he was in the garage. Then he was out of the garage and saying, “It's not there.”

After more directions from his mom, Hadi went back into the garage and returned with a cooler in hand.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.