Page 101 of Savage Protector

“It’s not the same without you,” he argues. “Eid is for family; we need you to be here. Surely, they’ll give you the time off work.”

“I can’t be sure if we’ll be free, either of us.”

He gives up finally. “Well, if you can. We’d love to see you. It’s been a while…”

Over a year, to be exact. I visit my sisters regularly—well, as regularly as my schedule at work allows—but I generally manage to avoid him. It’s too awkward. I can’t forget the sight of him on that video, on that boat, letting me be thrown overboard like a sack of trash. I understand it wasn’t what he wanted, I do believe that much, but he was there all the same.

“I’ll see what we can do,” I promise. “Listen, Dad, I have to go.”

“Yes, yes, I understand. You’re very busy. I won’t keep you. Bye, love.”

He ends the call, leaving me to stare at my blank screen, my stomach in knots.

I twist my neck to regard Zayn over my shoulder. “You heard all that.”

“Do you want to go?” he asks me.

“I don’t know,” I reply. “ItisEid, and it would be nice to see my sisters…”

“But?”

“I know he’s sorry. He bitterly regrets what happened, his part in it. He’s told me often enough.”

“I know that. It’s easy to say.” Zayn has made no secret of his scepticism regarding my father’s repentance. Once a bastard, always a bastard in his view.

“I know that, and…it did happen, didn’t it? It’s not as though I really blame him anymore. I never did, actually. He was under my mother’s thumb, and my Uncle Abdul. He did as he was told, like he always had. It’s only since she left that he’s even tried to reestablish any sort of relationship with me.”

My mother moved back to Pakistan not long after her brother’s ‘disappearance’. She couldn’t face life in the UK without him and wanted to be with her family. Apparently, me, my sisters, and her husband didn’t count. My dad managed to gather together enough backbone to finally divorce her, and I heard she remarried. A wealthy cloth trader from Lahore, I gather.

My dad has blossomed since. According to Farah he’s actually happy. I’m pleased, I suppose, though I can’t recall a time I would have ever described any of us as being happy.

“We could go, just for a while,” I suggest tentatively. “See how it feels.”

His lips thin, but eventually he gives a curt nod. “Fair enough. We don’t have to stay long,” Zayn concedes, offering me his hand to help me back onto my feet.

“Do you think so? Really? I don’t know…”

He pauses. “What doyouwant, Leila? How do you want this to work out?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I get why you need to be in touch with your sisters, but what are you actually hoping for by being in contact with him? In a year’s time? Five, ten? Can you ever forgive, do you think? Do you even want to? Really?”

“Of course I do.” The suggestion otherwise jolts me into some sort of certainty. “That’s what anyone would want.”

“Is it? Okay, if that’s your agenda, you need to take the first steps. Small steps, certainly, but in the right direction. He’s reached out. Now it’s up to you.”

“I thought you couldn’t stand him,” I point out.

His derisive snort is all the confirmation needed. “This is not my call, though. Is it? I want you to be happy. I want you to have peace, enjoy your life, your career. Our life together.”

“We will. I do.”

“But I can see how confused, how conflicted you are.”

“I just want everything to be normal. Why can’t my family be like everyone else?”

“No family’s ‘normal’,” he counters. “We all just do the best we can. I doubt if I’ll ever warm to your father, or really trust him, but I can see when a man is trying.”

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