Chapter 1
The knock at the door was impatient, almost childish.
"lady Amal? Lady Amal!"
Amal sighed, set down her cup of camellia tea, and went to open the door herself. She hadn't expected her husband to actually follow through with his idea of a "distraction by interview."
The young woman at the door was all Curious energy and wide eyes. A notebook pressed to her chest, a recording device dangling like a talisman, she blurted out before even entering the house.
"Oh my God! I can't believe I'm actually here. You don't know what your jasmine case meant to me. Do you know how many of us well, okay, not many of us, because everybody else was too scared, but I was following it every day! The whole country said hands off, the families involved were too powerful, and then you just took it! Why? Aren't you scared? Tell me, was it because of your daughter? Everyone online thinks you only saved her because of the daughter."
Amal motioned for her to come in. "You're late," she said evenly.
"Traffic," Nina, the assigned interviewer, giggled nervously. "But I'm here now. Oh my God, this place is so calm. You have trees everywhere, and is that mint? Wait, sorry, sorry, I'm talking too much. I'll just sit. May I?"
"Please." Amal said, signaling to a seat.
Nina dropped into the chair as though she'd been running for miles, then flipped open her notebook like a fangirl clutching the autograph page of her dreams.
"So why did you do it? Why pick that case? Why risk "
Amao's lips curved faintly, not quite into a smile. "It was no act of courage, Nina. It was a distraction."
Nina blinked. "Distraction? From what?"
"From myself, from silence, from time." Amao leaned back. "People always want to believe there is a grand motive. That I saved her because she reminded me of my daughter. That I wanted to be a hero. The truth is less flattering. I simply wanted noise. And it is not every time that people escape with what they want."
The room stilled. Even the trees outside seemed to pause.
Nina scribbled furiously, then looked up. "You're not what I expected. I thought you know Olivia Pope vibes. Ice queen lawyer. But you're…" She searched for the word. "soft-spoken."
Amal's eyes darkened, though her voice remained calm. "Soft words could cut sharper than iron."
"Right, right." Nina chewed on her pen cap, then blurted: "You know, I always thought like karma was going to catch up with those people. But then you said something in court that shocked me. You said, 'Karma is unreliable.' What did you mean by that? Don't you believe in karma?"
Amal shook her head. "I do dislike authors who sell people fairy tales, reincarnation, karma, second chances wrapped in pretty lily. They write like life is a balance sheet. That good people will bloom again, bad people will be punished accordingly. It is comforting fiction. Nothing more."
"So you don't believe"
"In karma?" Amal interrupted gently. "Karma closes its eyes to much evil. And reincarnation is the lullaby people sing to themselves so they can wake up tomorrow and keep breathing. Death, however…" She looked at Nina directly now, her gaze level and unflinching. "Death is the great equalizer. Death judges with a straight line. Death is the only honest measure we have left. Even the richest men fear it. Even the most powerful cannot bribe it."
Nina swallowed. Her voice came out softer, hesitant. "And do you respect death?"
"Yes." Amal replied plainly.
"Then did you " she hesitated "did you ever, you know, try to"
Amal's answer was immediate. "Because of that respect. You do not offer yourself to what you revere. You bow before it, you acknowledge it, but you do not throw yourself at it like a beggar. I chose to wait."
The silence after that was heavy. Nina shifted uncomfortably, suddenly aware of her own heartbeat. She had come expecting gossip, courtroom drama, maybe even tears. Instead, she had been handed philosophy.
Nina leaned forward, chewing her lip. "So you don't think karma's real?"
Amal shook her head slowly. "Karma is a bedtime story, Nina. They whisper it to keep you still, to make you swallow life without fighting. The promise that bad people will suffer and good people will bloom again it helps you sleep. But in the morning?" She spread her hands, graceful, resigned. "The wicked eat, the greedy expand, and the good bury their children."
Nina's pen froze.
Amal's eyes softened, not cruel, not pitying—just steady. "I don't say this to make you hopeless. I say this because hope tied to lies is poison. Karma will close its eyes to the worst things. Karma will look away when a man beats his wife and then sits in the mosque or the church like a saint. Karma will walk past when a girl gives her whole heart and body to someone—only to be discarded. I have lived enough to know. I have sinned enough to know."
Her voice dipped quieter, almost confessional: "When I was younger, I joined an au pair program. I thought I was showing love. I thought I was valuable. But in truth, I was sleeping with another woman's husband. I don't erase that. I don't excuse it. That was me. That was my weakness. I am not karma's judge, nor its example. I am only me."
Nina blinked, surprised at the bluntness.
Amal gave a small shrug. "So, no, I don't wait for karma. I respect death instead. Death is the only one that doesn't negotiate, doesn't take bribes, doesn't need you to clap or fast or light candles. It comes, and when it comes, there is no escape. That is why I never tried to call it. I wait for it to call me."
The room stilled again. Even Nina, obnoxious as she could be, had nothing to say.
After a long pause, Nina tried to recover, her voice hesitant. "Okay… so if you don't believe in karma, why am I writing this? Why let me write about you? Why not just stay silent?"
Amal's lips curved faintly. "Because once, as a girl, I tried to write my autobiography after some inspiration. But I stopped halfway. I thought who will ever read this? Who would care? I wasn't beautiful. I wasn't popular. Every time I stood in pictures, people said I ruined them. I was the shadow friend. The plain one. And still, I needed to hear I was pretty. I needed to hear I mattered. But no one ever said it. So I put the pen down."
Nina whispered, "And now?"
"And now," Amal said softly, "a publishing house sends you to my doorstep to write the book I once abandoned. Life is full of ironies." She leaned forward. "You want to know me, Nina? Then know me fully. Know the parts I am ashamed of, the mistakes, the betrayals, the silence, and the noise. Because if you are to write my life, it cannot be the fairy tale the world prefers. It must be the truth."
Looking deeply into her eyes Amal asks "Nina lay what would you want to know first"?