Their Last Season

The sun rose again in all his glory, painting the sky in its colours.

Creating a new painting.

Cascading rays replaced the dusk with a bright morning.

Marking a new chapter in people's lives.

A ray of light fell upon her.

Sumaiya was the first to stir. She glanced at her side and saw Hamza sleeping peacefully.

Her lips curled up.

Flashes of last night played before her eyes.

Her heart grew heavy for him.

She realised, how much pain can a person carry behind their beaming smile?

Without disturbing his sleep, she rose from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom.

She came out with a towel wrapped around her head.

Looking at the mirror, she saw her husband sleeping peacefully, without any worry in the world.

She wore an emerald-green Anarkali.

Clasping a pendant around her neck.

She applied lip balm, completing her look.

She glanced at her husband again.

Sumaiya was descending the stairs when she saw a familiar red dupatta.

"Amina Aunty is back?"

The thought popped into her mind.

She hurriedly descended the stairs and reached Aunty, who was going inside the kitchen.

Sumaiya abruptly stopped at the threshold of the kitchen.

"Does she know how to console a grieving mother?"

"Does she have words that can act as a balm on the wounds inflicted upon Aunty's heart?"

"What does she have to offer a mother who had bid farewell to her daughter forever?"

She had no words.

Her eyes welled up with tears.

She gulped the lump forming in her throat.

She didn't know what came over her.

She started walking slowly towards her.

She stopped inches away from her. Mustering up the courage, she placed her hand on her shoulder.

Amina Aunty turned towards her.

Her face looked tired.

Her clothes had wrinkles.

She looked far older than her age.

Her lips were dry.

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.

The spacious kitchen felt as though it were shrinking under grief.

"Is the woman standing before her really Amina Aunty?"

Her mind wandered.

She was anything but the woman whom she had seen sixteen days ago.

She was someone else.

A woman who had grown far older than her age.

A woman who looked tired in a way as though she hadn't rested for a decade.

Amina Aunty's orbs met her black orbs, and the world stilled for Sumaiya.

Those once-radiant eyes were now nothing but an abandoned canvas.

Eyes singing the same song of melancholy she had heard when she saw the woman who had kissed her forehead.

The same tiredness.

The same grief.

The same helplessness.

Sumaiya felt as though she was hallucinating.

Amina's eyes were replaced by the eyes of the woman with the envelope.

"Choti Bahu, do you want something?"

Amina Aunty's voice snapped her out of the world she was in.

She looked around.

The aroma of cardamom and tea leaves filled the kitchen, not the fragrance of pink roses from the Muh Dikhai.

She realised where she was.

Who was standing before her.

She didn't know what came over her.

She simply hugged Aunty.

Aunty stilled but still caressed her back in a motherly gesture.

Neither of them said anything.

Just two women.

One consoling the other for reasons she herself didn't even know.

The other simply being consoled and receiving what no one had offered her.

Sumaiya pulled away.

She pressed both of Aunty's hands, silently assuring her of her support.

Aunty's eyes shimmered with tears.

The corners of her lips lifted.

She took Hamza's and her breakfast and went towards their room.

She slowly opened the door and saw an empty bed.

She heard water running in the bathroom.

She glanced towards the window where the leaves were swaying to the rhythm of the wind.

As though matching its frequency.

She smiled.

She placed their breakfast on the table and sat down on the sofa.

Simply waiting.

The bathroom door creaked, announcing his presence.

Hamza stepped out in a white Pathani suit, his hair still messy.

His eyes were red, yesterday night's tears being their alibi.

He looked towards her, searching her eyes for pity.

Instead, he found warmth.

A woman radiating warmth.

Her eyes were saying, It's okay to grieve.

His features softened.

He walked towards her and sat beside her on the sofa.

She took out two plates, but he held her hand.

Her brows furrowed.

Then she saw him serving food onto only one plate.

Later, he picked up the first morsel and held it towards her.

She blushed.

Oh, Sumaiya and her blush.

Hamza's favourite pleasure.

He never understood how a fiercely bold woman like her,

Who could shut people's mouths with one glare,

Could blush at such small gestures.

But he didn't know.

A woman in love becomes a white palette,

Showing different colours when her lover's frequency matches the symphony of her heart.

He fed her.

Then himself.

They completed their breakfast in silence.

He stood up, kissing her forehead.

Gently tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Green is your colour," he whispered.

She averted her gaze.

Smiling shyly.

He left for work.

She glanced at the wall clock.

Her heart was strangely heavy today.

She performed ablution and offered two rak'ahs of Nafl (a voluntary prayer).

The heart can only find solace when the soul surrenders to its Creator.

She raised her hands for dua.

"Ya Rabb, please forgive the sins I commit intentionally and the ones I commit unintentionally.

I am a very weak servant of Yours who may lose her path, but please guide me.

Ya Allah, make me someone who can change the lives of those associated with me, and mine too, in a positive way.

Ya Rabb, please forgive Shanaya and grant her Jannat.

Ya Rabb, give Amina Aunty and that woman solace.

Ya Rabb, give Hamza the peace he deserves.

May all his sorrows be mine.

Ya Rabb, for Hamza and me, be it Fi Dunya wal Akhirah.

(In this world and the Hereafter.)

Ameen."

Concluding her prayer, she felt as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

She decided to spend some time with her grandmother-in-law.

She reached her room and knocked on the door.

"Come," came the elder woman's reply.

She went inside.

"Assalamualaikum, Bi Jaan," she greeted.

A woman in her eighties.

Wrinkled skin, yet glowing.

Almond eyes, devoid of anything.

A cream cotton suit, with jet-black hair, suited her.

"Kajal would suit her," she thought.

"Walaikum Assalam, Choti Bahu," Bi Jaan replied warmly.

She sat beside her.

A motherly aura engulfed her.

They talked for a while.

"How is Hamza doing?" Bi Jaan asked worriedly.

"He is good," Sumaiya shrugged, not understanding her implication.

"Bitiya, I mean... how is he doing after Shanaya's death?" Bi Jaan reframed the question.

It clicked for Sumaiya.

She sat straight.

"He has both good and bad moments. He is grieving, Bi Jaan. The old stitches on his wounds have reopened too..." Sumaiya said warmly.

Bi Jaan nodded.

The silence in the room could be cut with a knife.

Sumaiya looked at Bi Jaan.

She was lost.

In what thought, she didn't know.

"Did he talk about Ayla?" Bi Jaan asked in a slow voice, staring at the wall.

It clicked for her.

This was what Sumaiya had meant by the old wounds reopening.

Sumaiya nodded.

Bi Jaan was lost again.

Seeing her silence, Sumaiya began,

"Are you also missing Aapi?"

Bi Jaan looked at Sumaiya, and for a second, when Sumaiya saw her eyes—

At that moment, they weren't Bi Jaan's eyes.

They were Amina Aunty's.

The woman with the envelope's eyes.

The same song of melancholy.

The same paradox of living.

"Sumaiya," Bi Jaan called, breaking the spell.

She gulped the lump in her throat.

"Yes?"

"I have been calling you for a minute. Where were you lost, Bitiya?" Bi Jaan asked, with a hint of worry in her voice.

"Nowhere," she shrugged.

"You were saying something," Sumaiya said, changing the topic.

"Yes... I miss her. I miss her every day. When she was a newborn, I dressed her up for her Aqeeqah. And when she grew up, I dressed her in the white clothes of her kafan."

Bi Jaan smiled sadly.

A tear escaped her eye.

The irony of life.

The one we raise with all our love.

The one whose voice echoes through the house.

The same person, one day, sleeps silently forever.

Sumaiya bit her lip.

"Hamza was her world, and she was his," Bi Jaan reminisced.

"When she slept forever, her Hamza couldn't sleep for a while. It took him two years to accept that Ayla was no more," she told her, remembering those days.

"Wasn't her illness diagnosed earlier?" Sumaiya enquired.

She had this question ever since she had heard that her appendix had burst.

Bi Jaan stilled.

Sumaiya noticed the stillness.

The clenched fist tightened.

The other hand grabbed the bedsheet.

A shadow crossed Bi Jaan's face.

"Gallbladder stones were not common back then," she heard Bi Jaan say.

Gallbladder stones?

Wasn't it her appendix?

Sumaiya was puzzled.

"Bi Jaan, are you sure about her illness?" she asked carefully.

"Yes, Bitiya," she h

eard Bi Jaan reply, but her face was expressionless, as if she herself wasn't convinced by what she was saying.

"Okay, Bitiya. I need some rest. We'll talk later," Bi Jaan said warmly.

Sumaiya nodded.

But despite the warmth in Bi Jaan's tone, she felt shivers run down her spine.

She didn't know why.

She felt as though Bi Jaan wanted her to leave.

And that unsettled her.