The Pact We Made. Layla AlAmmar

       1

       The Marriage Pact

      We were eight years old in my first memory of the marriage pact. Mona and I were at Zaina’s house. Her oldest sister had just gotten married, and we were bursting with talk of all that we’d seen and heard at the wedding. We looked like mummy brides, wrapped in her mother’s headscarves. Mona had found ribbons and flowers which she’d braided and pinned into our hair. We took turns being the bride while the other two played the parts of sisters, supporting the train, giving admonishing smiles during the Yelwa, and bobbing up and down in exultant dances.

      ‘When she came through the door, everyone was so quiet,’ Zaina said, standing at the door to her room, holding a bouquet of fake roses. ‘All the lights went out and there was just a spotlight on her, and then “Heb AlSa’ada” came on and she started walking. Like this.’ She took solemn steps forward, her feet drowning in the heels we’d pilfered. Mona held and re-draped her train as she walked. I was supposed to sing the song, but I was imagining walking down a long aisle with a spotlight on me while everyone stared. It wouldn’t be like weddings we saw on television where the man stood at the end. It would just be me and a never-ending aisle leading to an empty settee. I could trip and fall, walk too slow or too fast, forget to smile at the photographer or drop my bouquet. Anything could happen.

      ‘Dahlia!’ Mona whined, drawing out all the syllables in my name. I started singing, but Zaina had already reached the desk chair we were using as a kosha. She turned to look over her shoulder while Mona metamorphosed into photographer, snapping shots of Zaina smiling, laughing, and looking coy. I knew what was coming next; I always got the groom’s role.

      ‘Yella ya mi’ris,’ Mona hissed, waving me back towards the door.

      I obeyed, hurrying down our makeshift aisle. Mona immediately sprang into action, chanting the groom’s song as I walked back towards them. The man had it easier; he didn’t have to milk the moment. He was encouraged to walk as quickly as possible to his bride. I got to Zaina and gave her a kiss on the forehead before taking the chair beside her. Mona re-draped the train and continued to snap fake photos as we interlocked our arms and mimed sipping juice from tall, flutey glasses.

      ‘We should get married together,’ Zaina said, sighing up to the ceiling. ‘All three of us, on the same day.’

      ‘Yeah!’ Mona cried, clapping her hands together. ‘And we can have one big party!’

      ‘We could all walk down the aisle together,’ I offered.

      ‘No!’ Mona and Zaina shouted, frowning at me. ‘We’ll take turns,’ Zaina said with a nod.

      ‘Who goes first?’ Mona asked.

      Zaina chewed her lip and picked at a scab from where she’d scraped her elbow. ‘We’ll go by the alphabet.’

      ‘Yeah!’ Mona exclaimed, linking fingers with Zaina and waiting for me to join.

      My stomach clenched into something hard and tight and unfamiliar, but I added my fingers to our ‘promise’ link and we shook on it.

      We were terribly young then, and they were only words.

      The pact changed, evolving as we matured: at ten, we dismissed the alphabet idea as stupid and decided the eldest should go first; a few years later we would sometimes draw straws or have a competition to see who could flick their marble the furthest. We chose arbitrary ages that seemed far off in some unseeable future—twenty, twenty-two, twenty-seven. By fifteen I wanted out of the pact, but was kept in by Mona and Zaina’s un-wavering enthusiasm. At nineteen, Mona decided the pact wasn’t cool and joined me, but in our early twenties the