After fury, what do you do with the remains?

— Maya Phillips

The sky is the canvas of God. How the day meets night and night meets day, one sinking into another, fading into fainter and coloring into darker shades, until art is created. How can one not love such art? Ain't the soul a crafted thing itself? Every human is different. Every art is beautiful as the artist of them all is magnificent. But His magnificence extend beyond colors and art.

She watches the sky change hues as the clouds sway around lazily, playing with the sun. She sits in the swinging chair at her house beside the window, lulling her melancholy. But heartache has no cure besides love and time themselves, both of which she cannot afford.

"Lily?"

She looks at Mustafa who's sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room with Gulalai; she's helping him paint. Leyla smiles at him.

"Yes, jaan?"

"Which flower is beautiful?"

She eyes all the different colors of flowers he has painted. "All of them, darling."

"But which one do you want? I'll write your name with it."

Leyla chuckles and looks at them again. "How about the yellow one?" she says, thinking of his golden eyes.

Mustafa beams as Gulalai knowingly glances at her. "Is yellow your favorite color, lily?" he asks.

"Ah, it's golden. But yellow is close to it."

"Let's add some golden glitter for your aunt, shall we?" Gulalai ruffles Mustafa's hair who nod excitedly and gets to work.

Gulalai turns to Leyla who smiles, feeling her face warm up a bit. "Great work." She gestures towards the painting.

Gulalai smiles back, amused, and shakes her head. "Just call him, Leyla."

She sheepishly tucks back a strand of her hair. "I did."

"Just once."

"Waleed told me he didn't want to talk to me." Leyla shrugs. "That man is allergic to phone calls anyways."

"Then go to him."

She sighs and focus her attention on Mustafa's tiny, paint stained fingers. "I'm scared, Gul, of losing him again like before. Even if he finds out the whole truth, I'm afraid what if he still might not trust me?"

"It's worth a shot."

"I gave it a shot after we got married. He said I could trust him as a friend and I did, told him everything about myself. Yet he called me a loose woman the first chance he got." She blinks and looks out of the window, hiding away her tears from Gulalai. "I don't have a heart to hear him call me any such words again. From the world I can take anything and bear it, but I cannot bear him hurting me like this. Or maybe I've fallen deeper than before for him. Maybe this time even my shame won't be enough for me to leave him again."

Gulalai is silent for a while before asking, "But what will you do when you'll actually have to leave him? You'll be leaving for Pakistan soon."

"I'd rather die then than die now. I can save as many days I can to live with him."

Gulalai takes another long pause before finally replying, "Then go back to him, darling. The loss of a loved one is tragically devastating. Don't give up on him, for your own sake."

Leyla meets her eyes again, finding her orbs glossy too. Despite her apparent pain, Gulalai smiles at her. She nods and returns her smile.

"I've to meet our lawyer today." She stands up and begins to walk towards her room. "And Asfandyar too. If I survive that, maybe I'll go to meet Burq tomorrow. It's been two weeks."

And she misses him, she thinks.

She meets her lawyer in a café during the afternoon. When she arrives, he and Spogmay are already waiting for her. She undoes her coat belt and sits beside her sister, opposite to him, at the table, placing her bag on the floor beside her.

"Farhang." She smiles at him. "Salam, and welcome back home."

He chuckles lightly and returns her greetings. "Salam, and thank you. How have you been?"

"Anxious waiting to hear from you."

"Then let's not waste any more time and get to the business."

Spogmay leans forward curiously. "Tell me you've good news for us."

"Patience, little one," Farhang jokes and Spogmay scowls at him.

"I'm barely a few years younger than you."

"Spogmay," Leyla shushes her and focuses on Farhang again. "Tell us everything."

His face instantly loses any humor as he sobers up. "The last few months I've spent in Pakistan, I gathered everything I could about the incidence with Lawangeen. Asfandyar is a powerful politician and has wiped his record clean of any involvement in the murder. Sadly, we still have no eye witness."

"I am the eye witness," Leyla interjects. "Everything happened in front of me."

"You being alone bearing witness isn't enough, Leyla. We don't even have a solid prove against him." Farhang locks his fingers in front of him on the table. "Lawangeen was your brother. The court sympathies might lie with you, but they won't necessary favor you. The case remains neutral. Everyone still believes Lawangeen committed suicide, even your own family. Asfandyar accused of culpable homicide isn't going to be supported by anyone. This leaves us in a weak position."

"You can't seriously have come here to tell us this?" Spogmay interrupts irritatedly.

"Sadly, I'm trying to be realistic here."

"What are our alternatives?" Leyla asks.

"Either you convince Asfandyar to confess his crime, or we find another witness."

"The only other witness we have is Zarbakhta," Leyla mumbles, pinching the skin between her eyebrows.

"Zarbakhta is out of the question," Spogmay speaks. "If Asfandyar doesn't kill her if he finds out anything, knowing that monster of a man won't care about his own sister, then her family surely will disown her. No matter how much she loved lala, she'll never take the risk."

Farhang looks at Leyla. "I'll be honest. The stories he spread about you and your brother aren't good. They think Lawangeen had an affair with a woman here who bore him a child and he had no option but to marry her, and that's why he had to break up with Zarbakhta. Also, that you and Asfandyar had an illicit relationship before marriage; his servants saw you going to his quarters at night and leaving early in the morning. Under the circumstances when I met your uncle, he clearly stated he has cut all ties with you."

Leyla listens to him calmly but Spogmay besides her vibrates in rage. "How can they believe all these lie about us?" she hisses. "They saw us grow up in front of their own eyes. That's not how our parents brought us up."

"Lawangeen kept his marriage to Gulalai a secret for a long time, until Mustafa was born," Farhang points out. "Your family has doubts."

"Their suspicions don't mean my brother was corrupted," Spogmay insists. "He loved Gulalai; he married her. Their son is no bastard. And lala never led Zarbakhta into believing anything. He was honest with her; she knew he didn't want that relationship."

"I know, and I believe you," Farhang states coolly. "But I'm an outsider. My faith in you can't lift up the accusations put upon you. I can do my best to bring Lawangeen justice and make Asfandyar pay for his crimes, but I can't change anyone's mind about Lawangeen or Leyla."

"Their minds will change on their own once Asfandyar's crime is proven." Spogmay leans back in her chair. "You're our last hope."

"And I won't disappoint you." Farhang holds her gaze confidently. "It's a promise." He shifts it to Leyla. "I'm only here for a month. I'll be flying back to Pakistan soon. I've a friend who's in politics too and knows Asfandyar well enough. I'll take his help and try to do whatever is possible to beat him at the court. If God wills, I'll prepared before you're back home."

Leyla nods. "May God be your helper."

"Ameen."

"We'll never forget your favors, Farhang," she says.

He shakes his head. "I owe Lawangeen so much, this is very little I can do in return for his family. He wasn't a friend but a brother. And it's no favor but my duty."

"Thank you," Leyla says.

"Don't embarass me, please." He smiles.

Leyla returns his smile, so does Spogmay.

➳

"I'm glad that you came."

"I'll stay only for a little while," Leyla announces, sliding opposite to Asfandyar in the booth. "We'll only talk about what we're here for."

"Then let's talk about it." He folds his forearms on the table. "Come home with me."

She stares into his steely orbs calmly. "Not yet, Asfand."

"Then when?"

"Soon."

"That's not a satisfactory answer, Brekhna. I can wait if you give me a definite time to take divorce from that man and come with me. But if you think you can play me by lying to me, this isn't going to work."

"I'm not lying to you. I'm giving you my word."

He smirks mockingly. "Your words hold no value. You're Lawangeen's sister— same blood. If he couldn't honor your father's words by keeping them, what do I expect of you?"

"You've no faith in me yet you want to marry me? Such love," she mocks back.

Asfandyar glares at her. "As if you've ever loved me, have you, my dearest?"

"Once, maybe I liked you," she answers honestly. "My friends would tell me how lucky I was to have a man like you: good-looking, rich, powerful. But is that what every woman wants? Cause I never did." She copies his posture and folds her forearms on the table. "I admired you a great deal, Asfand. You know why?"

He appears lost, searching her face, asking almost subconsciously, "Why?"

"Because you were once a kindhearted boy who put others before himself. You weren't authoritative but humble. Your eyes weren't so cold but warm. Because you didn't own Brekhna but respected her." She gazes a long moment into his eyes before blinking. "Remember that night of Zarbakhta and Lawangeen's engagement?"

He only nods.

"I watched you all the time from behind that pillar in the veranda as you laughed and danced around the fire with others. No one could match you. Maybe for a flicker of a second I actually found myself lucky to have you, because I saw a glimpse of a man inside you I was fond of. But as you changed with time, all my feelings for you faded, Asfand." She leans towards him, tilting her head. "What is this face and body if a heart I cannot love, for it is a heart I love with?"

"Brekhna," he says her name in a yearning. "I wish I could fix things and be the man you once admired— liked. But..."

"But it's too late already," she completes for him. "You became what most men become after acquiring power: heartless beasts."

He scrubs his face with his hands. "I know I'm a bad man. I know I wronged you. But I just can't lose you. I just can't."

She exhales slowly and digs her fingers into the seat. "I'll give you something else to make you believe me."

He raises an eyebrow in interest. "What?"

Leyla pulls out a brilliant sapphire ring from her purse and holds it across the table to him. "You remember this?"

"Lawangeen's ring?"

"Yes, our family's signet ring. This was my baba's before Lawangeen. Now this belongs to Mustafa. Take this and keep it with yourself until I return to take it back from you. Consider this my promise that I'll come back home to you."

He looks at her in puzzlement and skepticism. "But why?"

"Because that's my condition to face my family: you dignify us against how you've undignified us," she declares daringly. "You'll take back all the accusations you've put upon me, my late brother, and his wife. Gulalai is pious, Mustafa is Lawangeen's rightful son and he'll claim our family's name. Lawangeen didn't have a stained character. And you and I," she stresses her words, "never shared a bed. You'll come clear to everyone about that night you made me spent in your room. Nothing ever escalated between us, we know that's the truth. Make everyone believe that. You can't bring back my brother, but you can return our lost honor."

Asfandyar remains silent.

"That's all I ask for," Leyla continues. "I'll stay with my husband until you go back home and do what I've asked of you. I'll return to you once I'm assured you've done the job."

"Your husband will divorce you?" he asks.

"Yes."

"How so?"

"That's up to me to worry about, not you. Do you want another chance or not?"

Asfandyar takes a moment, thinking, before finally reaching out to take the ring from her hand. "You'll hear again from me soon."

"I'll wait for it."

"I've one more question for you."

"Ask away."

Asfandyar curiously edges forward. "Who helped you escape my quarters the night of our wedding?"

"I don't know when I'll be able to see you again. May God be with you. Go now, run away as far as you can, and don't look back."

Leyla hugs her friend one last time. "Thank you. I love you."

She hugs her tighter before pulling away. "Me too. I'll miss you." She gently pushes her out of the back door. "Leave now before anyone finds you missing.

Leyla gives her a final glance before disappearing into the dark, cold night.

She smiles at Asfandyar. "God's angel."

He scoffs. "I know it was someone from the staff. I replaced them all after your escapade."

She doesn't answer and looks out of the window to the evening sky. What does he know? Asfandyar can never imagine his own sister betraying him.

Zarbakhta was her angel.

➳

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