The Olive Branch

Chapter 40 – The Olive Branch

The olive branch didn’t look like a verse or a speech.

It looked like a washing machine.

It broke on a Tuesday.

Half-spun shirts. A puddle on the kitchen floor. Isabelle’s mother holding a mop like a soldier holding a flag after the war.

“Call the service man,” her father muttered.

Isabelle hesitated.

Then she said, carefully,

“Aleem fixes this kind of thing for his mum sometimes… I can ask him to take a look first?”

Her father didn’t like asking for help.

He liked paying for services, not owing favors to boys who wanted to marry his daughter.

But the water dripped.

And the service slot was three days away.

Her father sighed.

“Fine,” he said. “Ask him.”

Isabelle texted.

Isabelle: Emergency. Washer died. Can you…?

Aleem: On my way.

He arrived with a small toolkit and no hero face.

“Uncle,” he greeted. “Aunty.”

Her father grunted.

Her mother hovered like a raincloud.

Aleem knelt, unplugged, checked the hose, caught the leak, replaced a brittle clamp with a new one he had somehow predicted to bring.

Twenty minutes later, the washer hummed like a tired auntie who had been given kopi.

Aleem wiped the floor.

He didn’t leave the mess for anyone else.

Her father watched the whole time with crossed arms and eyes that missed nothing.

When the machine settled into its steady rhythm, Aleem stood.

He didn’t ask for praise.

He just said, “Should be okay. But if it drips again, we call a tech.”

Isabelle’s father cleared his throat.

“Drink water,” he said.

In her house, that was a thank you.

Aleem nodded. “Thank you, uncle.”

He drank like a guest, not like the owner.

He placed the cup carefully back on the coaster.

Isabelle’s mother stared at the fixed machine as if it might confess a religion.

Then she said something small.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Aleem’s eyes softened.

“You’re welcome, aunty.”

After Aleem left, Isabelle’s father stood in the doorway a long moment.

He didn’t look at Isabelle when he spoke.

“He’s useful,” he muttered.

Isabelle bit a smile.

In her father’s dictionary, useful was the first step toward acceptable.

She only said, “Mm.”

Her father didn’t want celebration.

He wanted normal.

So Isabelle left it there.

The next olive branch came a week later.

Isabelle’s father sat at the dining table with a scrap paper and a pen.

Numbers.

He pushed the paper forward like a police statement.

“What is mahar?” he asked.

Isabelle froze.

She had been reading about it privately, shy to bring it up.

“Dowry,” she said. “A gift from the groom to the bride. It’s not a price. It’s… a promise.”

Her father’s eyes narrowed.

“Money?”

“Can be,” Isabelle said. “Money, gold, something agreed. It belongs to the bride. Not the parents.”

Her father snorted.

“Good,” he said. “At least some things make sense.”

Isabelle blinked.

He circled a few figures. Crossed them out. Circled again. He was not calculating a price for his daughter. He was measuring a man against the weight of his responsibility.

“What is ‘proper’ amount?” he asked, trying to sound bored.

Isabelle swallowed.

“No show-off,” she said softly. “Within means. But meaningful.”

Her father nodded once, like a judge pretending to be a clerk.

Then he asked, low,

“Who stands for you? This… wali?”

Isabelle hesitated.

“Usually the father,” she said. “If you consent.”

Silence.

Her father pushed the paper away.

He rubbed his face once.

Then he said, voice rough,

“I’m still not happy.”

“I know,” Isabelle whispered.

He exhaled.

“But if we reach there,” he said, not looking at her, “I will be the wali.”

Isabelle’s breath hitched.

Her fingers tightened around the chair.

He continued quickly, as if to deny tenderness,

“Don’t make me regret.”

Isabelle swallowed the rising tears.

“I won’t,” she whispered.

He stood.

“Tell him,” he said, already walking away. “Ma–har. Not stingy. But don’t act rich.”

Isabelle laughed wetly.

It was the most her father had ever spoken to her about marriage as if it might be real.

That night, Isabelle texted Aleem.

Isabelle: My dad asked about mahar and wali.

Three dots.

Then:

Aleem: …Are you serious?

Isabelle: He said if we reach there, he will be my wali. He’s still angry. But… he said it.

A longer pause.

Aleem: Alhamdulillah. I will do it properly.

Isabelle: He also said: not stingy, don’t act rich.

Aleem: 💀 noted.

Isabelle laughed into her pillow.

Even her emojis felt like small rebellions of joy.

On Sunday, the house smelled like her mother’s sesame oil chicken (now cooked with halal ingredients because Isabelle’s mother had quietly checked labels and chosen a different brand).

No announcement.

Just… a new bottle on the shelf.

Isabelle noticed and said nothing.

Some olive branches were so fragile, naming them too loudly made them snap.

They ate together.

Halfway through the meal, her father asked without looking up,

“Your prayer time what time?”

Isabelle blinked.

“About twenty minutes,” she said carefully.

He grunted.

“Eat first,” he muttered. “Then go.”

Isabelle’s mother glanced at Isabelle’s plate.

“Take more vegetables,” she whispered, voice not quite steady but not breaking either.

Isabelle did.

After the meal, she stood.

“Excuse me,” she said softly. “I’ll pray.”

Her father didn’t answer.

Her mother nodded once, quick and awkward–

permission wrapped in discomfort.

Isabelle went to her room and prayed.

And when she returned, her father had left the dining table but two oranges were placed on the ledge of her door.

A Chinese habit.

A parent’s way of saying: I cannot follow you into new rituals, but I can leave fruit.

Isabelle picked them up and bit her lip.

She texted Aleem a photo of the oranges.

Isabelle: My dad can’t say “I’m proud of you,” so he gave me Vitamin C.

Aleem: In his language, that’s louder than a speech.

Isabelle: I know.

That evening, ABIX met for supper.

Crystal arrived with a tote bag of snacks “for future in-laws’ negotiations” and Ivan brought a notebook titled Risk Register: Wedding Edition.

“Scope creep,” he said, deadpan, pointing at Crystal who was already suggesting a combined Chinese-Malay dessert table.

Isabelle laughed until she cried.

When they quieted, Ivan asked the question he always asked.

“You okay?”

Isabelle inhaled.

She thought of the washing machine hum.

The scrap paper with numbers.

The word wali caught between her father’s teeth.

The halal sesame oil bottle.

The two oranges.

She nodded slowly.

“I think,” she said, “we are building a bridge. Plank by plank.”

Crystal sniffed dramatically.

“I will be the glitter on the bridge,” she declared.

Ivan didn’t look up from his notebook.

“Unnecessary,” he said.

Crystal kicked his shin.

Isabelle leaned back and watched them bicker, her heart steady.

Because love, she had learned, wasn’t only a confession in a Hokkaido café or a whispered Bismillah in a bedroom.

Sometimes love was a clamp for a leaking hose.

Sometimes it was a number on scrap paper.

Sometimes it was a new bottle on a shelf.

Sometimes it was two oranges placed quietly at a door.

Small olive branches.

Everyday mercies.

A bridge built of ordinary things–

stronger than speeches.