I'm wobbling in my heels, so I thump my bag down on the table and stumble not too gracefully onto the chair. Silently curse the gentleman who designs wildly popular expensive shoes that are not made for human feet. We're in the outside veranda of the famous restaurant, beautiful vines dripping down and Joan Armatrading playing the background.
S gives my bag a look "Holy moly batman" she says eyeing the red patent.
"The color?" I ask, a little confused.
"Are you kidding?" M says from my other side
"What!" i say, not sure what they're on about.
"that bag is... gorgeous! it costs as much as a car" T says from across the table with an eyeroll.
"Yeah! You're always about NGO this and environment that. I never thought you'd stoop to descending into the bowels of consumerism, and with THAT" S laughs
"Oh! My parents got it for me. why is this even a topic of conversation! i want to hear about your trainer's obsession with your ass T" I nibble the salmon from the appetizers someone has helpfully already ordered, and change the topic. They howl with laughter and the conversation changes focus, and I'm relieved.
I hadn't used this bag in a while. It was a gift for being a good girl.
Nearly a decade ago now.
I had just left him for the third time. Escaped to Lahore. I had begged my parents to let me stay, to not send me back to the horror story that was my married life. The night before I had told them I couldn't do it anymore. The violent fights. The financial stress. The lying. The cheating. The awful awful in-laws. I cried at the airport. But they had been merciless. They both had murmured about being strong, about making a home, about growing up and making a life, and sent me off on my way. Strangers had offered me tissues on the plane, and at the airport bathroom I had put in eyedrops, buried my red nose and puffy eyes under Helena Rubenstien's super thick foundation and painted on a face that didn't show the emotional wreckage. And two months later I had conceived R, and my birthday rolled around to the red patent Chanel that cost as much as a car. A gift to the gods of conscience, for sacrificing their third born at the alter of a bad marriage. With my pregnancy and my car accident and delivery and the consultancies and the three jobs I was juggling with a six month old I had never had a chance to take it out.
Someone had packed it for me and send it with the boxes that I had smuggled out before I left for good.
I had found it at the back of my mothers closet, and then taken it out seven years later, and taken it to this lunch because it matched my stilettos, forgetting the memories I had pushed under the proverbial carpet.
They haven't gotten me anything like this since then. And while I outwardly laugh and talk about the party last night and how to cure a toddlers obsession with sugar, I can't help but feel the weight of parental disappointment that suddenly seems to have settled on my shoulders, like an invisible anvil.
S gives my bag a look "Holy moly batman" she says eyeing the red patent.
"The color?" I ask, a little confused.
"Are you kidding?" M says from my other side
"What!" i say, not sure what they're on about.
"that bag is... gorgeous! it costs as much as a car" T says from across the table with an eyeroll.
"Yeah! You're always about NGO this and environment that. I never thought you'd stoop to descending into the bowels of consumerism, and with THAT" S laughs
"Oh! My parents got it for me. why is this even a topic of conversation! i want to hear about your trainer's obsession with your ass T" I nibble the salmon from the appetizers someone has helpfully already ordered, and change the topic. They howl with laughter and the conversation changes focus, and I'm relieved.
I hadn't used this bag in a while. It was a gift for being a good girl.
Nearly a decade ago now.
I had just left him for the third time. Escaped to Lahore. I had begged my parents to let me stay, to not send me back to the horror story that was my married life. The night before I had told them I couldn't do it anymore. The violent fights. The financial stress. The lying. The cheating. The awful awful in-laws. I cried at the airport. But they had been merciless. They both had murmured about being strong, about making a home, about growing up and making a life, and sent me off on my way. Strangers had offered me tissues on the plane, and at the airport bathroom I had put in eyedrops, buried my red nose and puffy eyes under Helena Rubenstien's super thick foundation and painted on a face that didn't show the emotional wreckage. And two months later I had conceived R, and my birthday rolled around to the red patent Chanel that cost as much as a car. A gift to the gods of conscience, for sacrificing their third born at the alter of a bad marriage. With my pregnancy and my car accident and delivery and the consultancies and the three jobs I was juggling with a six month old I had never had a chance to take it out.
Someone had packed it for me and send it with the boxes that I had smuggled out before I left for good.
I had found it at the back of my mothers closet, and then taken it out seven years later, and taken it to this lunch because it matched my stilettos, forgetting the memories I had pushed under the proverbial carpet.
They haven't gotten me anything like this since then. And while I outwardly laugh and talk about the party last night and how to cure a toddlers obsession with sugar, I can't help but feel the weight of parental disappointment that suddenly seems to have settled on my shoulders, like an invisible anvil.
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