Layla started crying the moment she saw her husband. He was hooked up to a tube that pumped air into his throat. His chest moved up and down as if he was breathing. His skin was yellow and blistered. His face, swollen. His hands and feet, his toes and fingers, too. But what startled her were his bruises. A patchwork of blue and black all over his body as though he had been in a boxing ring last night, not a farm field. She grasped the railing on his bed. Suddenly, she began to tremble. In her mind’s eye, his bruises became her bruises, her broken face.

She couldn’t believe he had done that to her. She slept in Ashif’s room that night and for many nights after, trying to forget the truth. But her body wouldn’t let her. The pain of a reopened cut on her lip, a bruise on her cheek, her swollen eye, reminded her daily. How could he have done this to her? Was it her fault? Mansoor never said it was, but she could feel it. He blamed her. So did everyone else who saw her. The stares and whispers. She must have done something to deserve that! She started believing it, too. A deep shame washed over her. She stayed home, hid herself from view.

Shamma and Almas said she should leave him. But where would she go? She did not have the money and, more than that, she refused to break her family apart. Instead, she hoped he would never do it again. Told herself he wouldn’t. But she constantly worried he might and a new fear settled into her stomach, like layers of sediment at the bottom of a lake. She was now more careful about what she said, more careful about what she did. She made herself smaller and smaller. Quieter and quieter. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust herself, either. What if she made the same mistake again?

She looked at her husband’s limp body. “No!” she suddenly blurted out. He couldn’t hurt her. Not anymore. He was powerless. “It wasn’t my fault. It was yours!” She shook with anger. “You had no right to do what you did to me. I didn’t do anything wrong. I was only telling you my opinion. I have the right to do that. I am your wife. The mother of your son. You broke my body that night, but you remained broken for years.” Hot tears dripped down her face. “What you did to me was wrong. Very wrong. And nothing justifies it. Nothing.”

Arzeen inched open the door. “May we come in, Aunty?”

Layla took a few moments to compose herself. “Yes.” She was exhausted. But she felt lighter, too. As though the sludgy fear had somehow been drained from her body.

Arzeen walked in. Mukhi Sahib, as well. In his hands, he held a bowl of holy water.