“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Joanna said softly. “Hm,” Nevin Hanım replied. “We’ll see.” Then they ordered tea.
The conversation dragged along under a layer of tension. Nevin Hanım asked questions—short, formal, chilly ones. Kasim kept trying to lighten the mood with jokes, touching Joanna’s hand and smiling.
But every smile of his now felt like a weak thread that could snap at any second. When the tea arrived, Nevin Hanım suddenly turned to her son and said something quickly in Turkish. She spoke low enough that the server wouldn’t hear, but loud enough for Joanna to catch every word.
Joanna didn’t move a muscle. She heard and understood all of it. “Why did you bring this girl?” his mother asked.
“There’s no polish to her, no proper upbringing. You can see the lack of money in every move she makes. Are you really planning to embarrass this family by bringing in someone beneath you?”
The tea burned Joanna’s hands. Her fingers twitched so sharply the spoon nearly slipped from her grasp. Kasim answered in Turkish, saying something meant to calm his mother down.
But Nevin Hanım just gave a dismissive little snort. “Watch yourself,” she told him. “Girls like this come for one thing—money.”
“She saw that you’re soft-hearted and decent, and she decided to take advantage of it.” At that, Joanna straightened in her chair. She wanted to stand up and leave right then. She wanted to toss her napkin on the table and walk out.
She wanted badly to say, “I understand every word.” But she stayed quiet. That silence was her one advantage. “Joanna, are you okay?” Kasim asked aloud, noticing how pale she’d gone.
“Yes. The tea was just hotter than I expected,” she said, forcing a smile. Meanwhile, the conversation in Turkish continued. And now Joanna heard it all clearly: every hissed remark from her future mother-in-law, every cutting observation.
“She’s too eager, and her eyes are too calculating,” the older woman went on. “She smiles like she’s hiding something. Foreign girls always bring trouble.”
Joanna sat still as a mannequin, while inside her emotions started to spin. Her heart pounded louder and louder, the sound filling her ears. She had expected Kasim’s mother to be strict.
But she had not expected her to be this cruel, this openly contemptuous. Joanna glanced at her fiancé. He listened, nodded, tried to object gently—but not once did he say, “Mom, enough.”
Not once did he stop her. Not once did he defend the woman he planned to marry. And in Joanna’s chest, something heavy rose up—a mix of hurt, clarity, and disappointment. It was the kind of clarity people don’t ask for, but once it comes, they can’t ignore it.
When the meeting finally ended, Kasim drove her back to the hotel where she was staying. The silence in the car wasn’t peaceful. It was tight and brittle, like a wire stretched too far. “Mom worries,” he began carefully. “She just wants what’s best.”
“Of course,” Joanna said gently. “I understand completely. She’s kind. Just very strict.” “Give her time,” he said. “Once she gets to know you, she’ll come around.”
“Sure,” Joanna answered, staring out the window. Streetlights flickered across the glass, slicing the night into pieces. Kasim didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. He was used to playing peacemaker, smoothing things over with words instead of action.
But Joanna noticed. She had already seen the first layer of truth, and she didn’t like what she found. When they pulled up to her hotel, Kasim leaned in to kiss her.
She let him, automatically, without feeling much of anything. But inside, something had already shifted for good. After he drove away, Joanna stayed standing outside for a moment, gripping her purse.
“All right,” she whispered, feeling something firm and steady take root inside her. “Then let’s see what happens next”….
