Fractured Vows

NOORA

I lay on my mother's couch, sprawled out with a pout fixed on my lips, drumming my fingers against my swollen belly. It was the only thing that kept me from fully turning onto my back, but I had enough irritation to not care at the moment.

"Mama, I need a new car," I whined, pulling at the sleeves of my dress as if the fabric itself was conspiring to annoy me. "The last one is trashed."

Mama looked at me from where she was folding laundry, the same look she always gave me when I was in one of my moods: half-annoyed, half-amused. "Noora, I told you to be more careful. You crashed the last one, and you only had it for three months."

"I know," I groaned. "But it wasn't even my fault. The guy in front of me stopped out of nowhere!"

"You were probably on your phone."

"No, Mama, I wasn't," I protested, even though I might've been texting at the time. "Anyway, Baba was furious. I thought he was going to have a heart attack with how much he was yelling."

Mama chuckled softly, shaking her head. "He told Fawaz not to buy you another one."

I huffed and sat up a little, leaning on my elbows. "But Fawaz always listens to Baba. I need you to talk to him."

"Why don't you ask Fawaz yourself? Sweet talk him, and he won't tell your father. You're his wife, Noora. Use that to your advantage," she said, giving me a knowing look.

"Sweet talk him?" I turned onto my back again, ignoring the slight discomfort. "Mama, please, Fawaz doesn't deserve any of that. He's been annoying me more than usual lately."

"Turn onto your side!" she scolded, wagging a finger at me. "It's bad for the baby to be on your back like that. And, Noora, sweet talking is part of being a wife."

Reluctantly, I shifted onto my side, adjusting the pillow beneath me. "I don't know how you expect me to play the doting wife when I can't stand the man."

Mama sighed and folded the last of the laundry, setting it aside. "You're not making things easy, Noora. You're about to have his baby, and you've been nothing but difficult. He's been trying."

I rolled my eyes and let out a heavy sigh, unwilling to hear another word about how I was the problem. "Well, maybe he shouldn't have put this baby inside me."

"Kai, Mardiya," Mama muttered under her breath, but before she could launch into one of her lectures, my phone buzzed with a message.

I grabbed it quickly, seeing a text from Anisa: Come over. I'm cooking dinner for Zakariya, but I can squeeze you in.

I glanced at Mama, whose face had already shifted into the "I've said all I can say" look. She wasn't going to help me with the car situation. And honestly, I was over the whole thing already. "I'm heading to Anisa's," I announced, slipping my feet into my sandals.

"Don't stay out too late," Mama called after me, but I was already out the door and ordering an Uber.

When I arrived at Anisa's, the smell of spices hit me before I even stepped into her kitchen. She was standing over the stove, stirring a pot of something fragrant, with an apron tied neatly around her waist.

"Oh my God, Anisa, why do you even bother?" I groaned as I walked in, plopping myself onto one of the stools at the counter. "Men are not worth this much effort."

Anisa glanced over her shoulder at me and sighed, her eyes sparkling with that familiar mix of pity and exasperation. "You never change, Noora. Besides, I love Zakariya. This isn't an effort—it's what I enjoy doing."