SLANDER AND TRUTH

Suitors kept coming to our house one after another.
Yet my heart did not warm to any of the marriage candidates.
Maybe it wasn’t their fault at all.
To be honest, I didn’t feel ready to run a household, to be someone’s wife.

That evening, more matchmakers came.
They’d already been turned down once — why did they come back? Didn’t they understand?
My poor mother looked at me pleadingly.

— Mother, I’ve already said no! Tell them not to come again!

— My child, — my mother replied calmly, — matchmakers come to a house with a daughter. How can we just slam the door on guests? That’s not our custom, my dear. Your fussiness is wearing me out. Now I swear, whoever next knocks at our gate asking for your hand, I’ll give you away and be done with it. That’s it.

You’re already twenty. Do you still think you’re so young?
Your peers are building happy families. And you? You’re being picky, turning your nose up at everyone.
“Be careful not to keep choosing and end up with something far worse,” she warned.

Seeing how serious my mother was becoming, I felt trapped, torn between my own wishes and hers.

The next morning, my aunt came over. Mother told her everything.
— Don’t worry! — said my aunt, as if she had been waiting for this. — Leave it to me. I’ll see your daughter married. Of course she’ll agree.

Not long after, I was engaged to my aunt’s son. There was really no other way — there were family ties between us. It was decided that we would have the wedding in three years…

After the engagement, I worked tirelessly, day and night, like an ant, trying to win over my parents-in-law.
They treated me like their own daughter.
But my sisters-in-law couldn’t stand it. They’d say openly to my mother, “Well, she is still just your sister’s daughter, after all.”

Little by little, their attitude toward me changed. Sometimes I was bewildered.
No matter how hard I tried to please them, they always found faults, whispered behind my back, tried to turn others against me, and humiliated me quietly.

One day we went out to the fields to plant tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons, and melons. By noon, we had finished planting all the seedlings…

At one point, when my mother-in-law finally had a moment to breathe, she asked:
— Have you seen the scissors? Anora wanted me to sew a small quilt if I had time. I’ve searched everywhere but can’t find them. Did you happen to see them?

It was as if my sister-in-law Khadicha had been waiting exactly for this. She raised her voice so my mother could hear clearly:
— Why bother searching? Your precious bride has them at her house, under her quilt. I’ll fetch them right now. You see how sly your dear daughter-in-law is? Even when she hears this, she just sits there pretending to know nothing. There’s much more to her than you’d believe.

I was stunned.
I didn’t even get the chance to defend myself — as soon as one stopped, the other picked up. I had worked day and night alongside them, never once needing those scissors. I couldn’t imagine how they ended up at my place.

From that day on, even my father-in-law and mother-in-law stopped trusting me.
— Why did I ever take an old maid like you for my daughter-in-law? You’ve brought nothing but trouble. Get out of my sight, — my aunt finally spat one day.

Truth is like air. You breathe it in to live, but you cannot see it.
My husband, too, began straying down the path of betrayal. Still, I swallowed it all. For life’s great sorrows, I found courage; for the small ones, patience.

The fights grew worse day by day. At last, unable to endure it, I returned to my parents’ house and poured everything out to my mother. She scolded me.
— It must be partly your own fault. Go back to your husband’s house.

Three days later, I returned.
But my father-in-law and mother-in-law only mocked me:
— Couldn’t you fit into your mother’s tight womb, yet can’t seem to fit into our big house? Leave the way you came. We don’t want a daughter-in-law like you.

They themselves took me back to my parents’ home.

Three months later, I gave birth. I waited so long, hoping that now, with a child, they’d come and take me back. But no one ever came.

Never throw away your self-worth under someone else’s feet just to win their favor — they won’t see it anyway.

Brides, too, are someone’s daughters, raised with hardship by their parents.
I don’t so much pity myself as I do my mother’s years of sacrifice.

Maybe if I’d agreed to those other suitors my mother suggested, my life would have turned out differently.

Life is like riding a bicycle — you have to keep moving to maintain your balance. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself in situations you never expected.

Life is a journey. And how we travel it is entirely up to us.

My biggest mistake was living with my husband without officially registering our marriage.
Sometimes I blame fate for it. But what fault is it of fate?
It was all because of my own impatience, my failure to look ahead and think wisely.

People are easily charmed by sweet words.
But when your trust shatters into pieces, that’s when you realize the depth of the tragedy. You pour out your tears, but nothing goes back to how it was.

Even before my little girl was born, it seemed her destiny had already been marked — a life without a father.
After she was born, we needed to get her a birth certificate.
But since we didn’t have an official marriage paper, we were forced to register her under my father’s last name.

Sometimes I wonder: if we had at least formalized our marriage, maybe we wouldn’t have divorced so quickly.
I kept trusting him when he said, “We’ll register after the wedding.”
Then it was one excuse after another, until we ended up like this.

Now my daughter is growing up never knowing a father’s love.
At night, thoughts of her future steal my sleep.
Even when I took him to court, I couldn’t get her his surname. He denied his paternity.

How wretched is powerlessness — I couldn’t even defend my rights.
My daughter is older now. She keeps asking me, “Why did you and Dad separate? Why do I have Grandpa’s last name? What’s the reason?”
But I have no answer, no words that could soothe her.
For some reason, I can’t even look her in the eye.

I’ve learned — though too late — that when young people start building a family, they must pause and truly think it through. Because regretting later is pointless.
And oh, how deeply I’ve regretted it…

At times like this, my teacher’s words echo in my mind:
“First, don’t make a mistake when choosing your profession — it should give you both honor and bread.
Second, don’t make a mistake when choosing your life partner. Let him be your shoulder to lean on.
Bind your fate to someone who will never become a burden you’ll regret.”

I understood all this only too late.
Now, what would regret change? Nothing.
I must keep moving forward, find the strength within myself so that my daughter can be happy.

So to all the future brides out there, to the young girls who can’t yet see beyond today —
“Dear girls, don’t rush. Before you marry, think deeply.
Because happiness is in your own hands. It’s like a delicate bird trembling in your palm — if you’re careless, it will fly away.”