It took several minutes for Aminah to recover from the grogginess she felt from the nap she had taken after Fajr prayer Saturday morning a week after Tamika’s graduation and walimah. Even with the curtains drawn, sunlight had escaped into the room, however meekly, and coaxed her to consciousness. She sat up on her elbows, and squinted as she glanced around her room, finding comfort and sadness in the familiar surroundings. Her eyes paused at her dresser, and to her disappointment, she saw nothing there, at least not what she hoped would be.
Aminah threw the covers from her body and sat up completely, erecting herself with the backboard of her bed. She rubbed her eyes, now recovering more completely from the dream. Loneliness settled over her as reality set in, and she felt her heart, as if lead, grow heavy until her shoulders slouched. She ached for Durrah so completely that she feared she didn’t have the energy to get out of bed and confirm, more definitely, her loss. She felt the fullness in her ears and the dryness in her eyes, and she feared, though she had been counting down to this day for three weeks, even if her parents allowed her to marry Zaid, she would be dissatisfied still. She couldn’t be happy. She no longer knew how to be, and she couldn’t will herself to try. Not when she couldn’t share the good news with her best friend.
She squeezed her eyelids shut and pinched the space between her eyes and breathed, opening her eyes a moment later and staring at the dresser top again. Knowing it wouldn’t be there either, she climbed out of bed anyway to look inside the drawers. She pulled open the first drawer and peered inside, the sight of tousled clothes greeting her instead of the soft cloth cover of the book she had dreamt Durrah had left for her on the dresser of her room.
Aminah pushed the drawer closed and sighed, feeling her ridiculousness right then. If Durrah’s journal was in the house at all, it would be in the basement with the remaining boxes from college that Aminah had yet to unpack. But it didn’t make any sense to be there. The boxes had been sealed, she remembered, when Sulayman and Omar had come to move the things from Aminah and Tamika’s university apartment they had shared with Durrah that year. And Aminah remembered finding the diary after she finished packing and had already sealed the boxes that were stacked in the corner of the living room. She was stripping the beds, having brought herself to touch at least that much of what had been her childhood friend’s, when the book sprang from the bedding as she yanked off Durrah’s blanket and sheets. It sent her heart racing and she had let out a scream that lost its sound before it escaped her throat. She calmed a moment later as she saw the book lying open face down at her feet. She recognized the soft purple of the hardback cover immediately and hesitantly picked it up, flipping through the pages, her heart a nervous pounding as she realized what she held. She knew then she would claim it as hers. She knew Durrah wouldn’t mind. At least she knew Durrah, more than anything, would want to keep it from her family.
Aminah saw the familiar ink strokes of Durrah’s handwriting that had matured to an attractive, almost artistic penmanship over the years, a significant improvement over the illegible scribble-like writing Aminah had often made fun of. But Aminah had not read anything right then. She had closed the book, her mind racing in search of the best place to put it.
Aminah returned to her bed and sat there, realizing this was the part where she couldn’t trust her memory. She thought, was absolutely certain, that she had slipped it into her duffel bag. And she remembered keeping it with her. But maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she had just planned to.
There was a knock at the door, and before she could answer, the door opened and her mother stood in the doorway.
“I was hoping you were up. I need your help in the kitchen.”
Aminah left the room a minute later but stopped to go to the bathroom first. She met her mother downstairs and slid into a kitchen chair, deciding to observe before offering her assistance. Her mother’s back was to her as Sarah faced the counter where she was cutting carrots and tossing them into a large salad bowl. Sarah wore a red paisley handkerchief scarf tied on her head, and her blond hair spilled out underneath the triangle of the fabric. The off-white strings of her apron met at her lower back in a looped tie that made Sarah’s white T-shirt gather above her jeans, its cuffs meeting the heels of her bare feet.
The sound of the knife against the wood chopping board was rhythmic and Aminah found solace in the sound. She turned her head toward the patio where its glass was slid open exposing the slight tear in the screen that Aminah imagined mosquitoes would use to slip inside. The smell of cut grass drifted into the kitchen, and she saw her father in the backyard wiping his forehead with the back of his arm as he pushed the lawnmower to the side of the house until she no longer could see him. She heard the machine’s choppy motor hesitate then start, and seconds later its sound grew so loud she imagined him coming into the house with the mower. The noise then waned somewhat and Aminah knew her father was pushing the lawnmower back down the length of the house.
“I don’t like it,” Sarah said, and Aminah turned to look at her mother’s back again. Her mother had raised her voice louder than usual, most likely due to the sound of the lawnmower and chopping, but Aminah sensed an irritation in her tone that suggested the loudness was not circumstantial. “I’m only participating because he’ll be a guest in our home. Otherwise, I’d have no part.”
Aminah felt herself growing frustrated, but she bit her lower lip to keep from speaking. Her gaze rested on the lower cabinet door her mother was using to support her bent knee.
“Marriage is not something you sneak off and plan on your own. Your parents should know about it before you, if things are done right.”
“Things were done right,” Aminah said, unable to hold her tongue in the face of the false accusation. But she kept her voice as low as the outside noise allowed. She didn’t want to disrespect her mother.
“Things were not done right,” Sarah said, turning to face her daughter, inadvertently using the carrot stained knife instead of her hand to gesture her point. “If they had, I wouldn’t be standing here mixing salad for a meeting where I’m the one who will be the guest.” She turned abruptly and continued cutting, this time, more forcefully.
Aminah drew in a breath and exhaled. “Abi knew.”
“I said parents, not parent.”
“But, Ummi, I didn’t do anything.”
There was a brief silence as Sarah set down the knife and scooped up the carrots from the board and dropped them into the bowl. Aminah saw her mother’s hands reach back to untie the apron before pulling it off and tossing it on the counter. A second later, Sarah sat across from her daughter, separated only by a glass vase filled with freshly cut flowers.
“And that’s exactly the problem. You should’ve done something.”
“But, Mom,” Aminah said, reverting back to the English term for mother as she often did, “why should I be the one to say something? He called Abi, not me.”
“And did you know he called?”
“When Abi told me.”
“Then that’s when you should’ve told me.”
Aminah felt herself growing more upset. She wondered if this was really about what her father should have done. Wasn’t it his responsibility to tell his wife, and not his daughter’s? Yes, Aminah knew that they wouldn’t talk to her mother about it, but it was more a silent understanding of what was best than a conspiracy. Her mother’s every waking moment seemed to be dedicated to the ins and outs of Sulayman and Tamika’s walimah, and even small talk between them, including between her father and mother, was a rarity during the preparation. If Aminah wanted to go somewhere, she was allowed, as if being waved off and out of the way so Sarah could run her errands, talk on the phone, or just have time to think so that the menu would be accurate, the tablecloths the precise color, and the awards printed and shipped on time. Even if her mother hadn’t been so preoccupied, Sarah wouldn’t have given Aminah, or Ismael, any ear about the proposal. Since meeting Faith, Aminah’s mother had decided that Abdur-Rahman would make a perfect son-in-law. But Aminah, though she would never vocalize it, was leery of him. He made her uncomfortable. Who went around carrying their best friends in cages?
“And don’t turn this into pointing fingers at your father.” Sarah’s brown eyes met Aminah’s. It was as if she were reading her daughter’s mind. “That is none of your business.”
Aminah lowered her gaze and toyed with the place mat before her. She didn’t know what to say. Perhaps her mother was right. But it being none of her business didn’t change the obviousness of it.
The lawnmower’s noise picked up, and a second later Aminah heard it grumble and silence itself. The kitchen grew uncomfortably quiet, and she heard the distant sound of a dog barking. A moment later, she heard the squeaky wheels of the lawnmower being pushed toward the shed, and she turned to see her father putting it away.
“Do you really want to do this?” Sarah said, her voice softer now.
Aminah looked at her mother and saw the laugh lines around her eyes, and the aged freckles across the bridge of her nose, in that moment seeing the humanness of the woman sitting opposite her. Aminah’s eyes fell to her hands again, unable to confront the love, fear, and experience-born exhaustion she saw right then. She nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I do.” She didn’t always use the formal term ma’am when she spoke to her mother, but it felt right to say then.
“Why?”
She had no idea how to answer that. She thought of what she knew of Zaid, and what she admired most was his commitment to Islam. Her mother’s biggest concern was his family, and for Aminah it was the biggest attraction, given that he was the pioneer in a mostly non-religious household. Most of his relatives didn’t pray. His mother prayed only on Eid. His father prayed on Eid and Jumu’ah, the latter of which was in itself a sign of religious devotion in Zaid’s family. None of his sisters or cousins covered in hijab, though some of them, like Zahra, prayed regularly, but even they were few.
“I don’t know.”
Aminah heard her mother draw in a deep breath, and she lifted her head to find her mother’s gaze on Ismael, who was approaching the screened patio now.
“Sounds like the lawnmower’s due for a repair,” Ismael said, sliding open the screen and stepping inside. “I was able to do the lawn,” he said as he slid the door closed. “But I’m gonna take a look at it sometime this weekend, inshaAllaah.” He pulled the work gloves from his hands, seeming then to notice Aminah sitting across from his wife. He smiled.
“As-salaamu’alaikum, pumpkin.”
“Wa’alaiku-mus-salaam.”
Ismael walked over to the kitchen sink and picked up the bottle of dishwashing liquid before squeezing a small amount into his palms. His gloves were now tucked under an arm, and he turned on the water to wash his hands. His white T-shirt hung damp with sweat, and his beige work pants were smeared with grass and dirt stains from their frequent use in the yard.
“Ismael, please,” Sarah said, an edge of tired frustration in her voice as he walked over to peer into the salad bowl before withdrawing a carrot and popping it into his mouth.
“I washed my hands.” His voice was slightly muffled by his chewing.
“But look at you.”
“I didn’t put my clothes in the bowl, sweetheart.” He grinned and winked at Aminah, who turned away, suppressing a giggle.
“Go shower. You smell like a burger,” Sarah said.
Aminah laughed.
“Seems to me that goes well with the meal.”
“Ismael.”
“Alright, alright.” He was still chuckling as he served himself a glass of water before removing his Timberlands and disappearing up the steps.
Sarah exhaled and shook her head. “Just make sure you make Istikhaarah if your father should decide he likes him. Islamic commitment is not a sufficient reason to marry someone.”
Aminah started to say something, but Sarah lifted her palm to stop her.
“It’s a prerequisite,” Sarah said. “Just like good character is. Once you’re sure he has both, then it’s time to see if he’s good for you.” She laid her hands flat on the table and stood. “You think about that. Think about you, then think about him. In that order. Then see if this is something you really want to do.” She rested her hands on the back of the chair she had been sitting in and leaned forward to meet Aminah’s gaze. “If you don’t know what I mean, I suggest you not marry him until you do.”
Alika laughed from where she sat a comfortable distance from Faith on the couch in Faith’s living room. “Freddie and Freda?”
“Yes,” Abdur-Rahman said, lifting the other cage. “And this is Charlie.”
“Well, hello, Freddie, Freda, Charlie.” She nodded at them then looked at Faith amused, who smiled back at her.
“I used to have a dog, Nels,” he said, sitting down on the loveseat across from them. “But he died on our way back from a trip five years ago.” Alika noticed the sadness in his countenance as he spoke with his eyes cast down toward the cages he had set at his feet. She couldn’t help feeling sad too. Abdur-Rahman crossed his arms across his gray T-shirt that bore the fading black of “GAP”, and he tucked his hands under his armpits. “A German shepherd. I had him for ten years. Mom and Dad said I should replace him.” He shook his head, forcing a smile apparently for Alika’s benefit, because she could tell he wasn’t happy. “But how could I replace Nels?”
Alika nodded. “That’s how I felt when I lost my cat.”
“What was its name?” he asked.
“Princess.”
He smiled and nodded as if he had known her himself. “How’d you lose her?”
“Got hit by a car.”
Abdur-Rahman winced and shut his eyes momentarily. He shook his head. “Damned roads.”
“I know. All I could think was, what happened to ‘look both ways’? It doesn’t apply only when you’re outside of the car.”
“I never had a cat.”
Alika’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Really?”
He shook his head. “I wanted one. But I always had this fear Nels wouldn’t get along with him. And I didn’t want that.”
She nodded. “That’s why I never got a dog.”
“You had Princess here?” Faith asked.
Alika shook her head. “In Virginia, before I left for college.”
“You moved to Atlanta for college?”
She nodded. “But only for my master’s. I went to UV for undergrad. I didn’t want to be too far from my mother.”
Faith smiled and looked at her son. “It’s good some children think like that. You’d think the girls would stay put. But Teddy’s the only one who didn’t run off.”
“You have other children?”
“Four girls. Teddy’s the second oldest. My oldest is thirty-one this year.”
Alika lifted her eyebrows in astonishment. “You look so young.”
Faith laughed. “I do not. Besides, Teddy here is a dead give away.”
Alika smiled. “The girls are in college?”
Faith nodded. “Two are. One is married, and the other is…,” she shook her head at a loss for words, “finding herself.”
“They’re Muslim?”
She laughed. “No. They wouldn’t dream of it.”
A smile creased a corner of Alika’s mouth. “I know that feeling.”
Faith licked her lips and folded her arms. “I do too. So I don’t blame them.”
“Mostly they’re just stubborn,” Abdur-Rahman said. “Maybe not Liz, but the rest of ‘em are.”
“Oh, Teddy,” Faith said with a smirk, “leave your sisters alone.”
“Truth is truth, Mom. I think Liz is the only one with her head on straight.”
“She’s the one who’s married?” Alika asked.
Faith shook her head. “No, Liz is the youngest. She’s a freshman in college in North Carolina.”
“She coming home for the summer?”
“She’s considering it. But she has this internship a DC company is waving in front of her. I think she’ll take that.”
“What’s she studying?”
“Psychology is her plan so far. But she wants to go to med school and become a psychiatrist.”
“Is that what you did?”
“No, I did my doctorate in psychology. I’m not really interested in the medical field.”
“Mom hates blood.”
Faith grinned. “I like it under my skin, and that’s how I like it on other people.”
Alika laughed. “But you won’t be exposed to a lot of blood with psychiatry.”
“But you still have to get through medical school, which includes a lot more blood than I care to see. Besides that’s not my forte.”
They were silent as the birds fluttered their wings and the hamster scurried in the cage.
“You ever consider working as a social worker for the Muslims?”
Faith narrowed her eyes in thought. “I’ve considered it, but I’d rather wait until I’m more openly Muslim.”
Alika knew what she meant. Faith’s dark hair was colored with gray strands and hung below her ears, where it was neatly tucked and curled up slightly toward her earlobes. Right then, Faith looked like the average American woman. With a khimaar on her head, her innocent white face and dark brown eyes would be transformed to reflect an unwelcome foreigner.
“You find it hard for others to accept?” Alika asked.
Faith placed a hand on top of the other and massaged the back of it mindlessly as she considered the question. “I don’t think it’s so much hard for others as it is for me. I’m still adjusting to the title Muslim woman. It hasn’t sunk in yet, I guess. So most of my colleagues don’t know.”
“I haven’t told anyone either. But I think I’ll tell my father first.”
“Why not your mother?”
“I think it will hurt her too much.”
“You have any siblings?”
Alika paused. It was always an awkward question for her to answer. Most times she simply said no. What did it matter that she had three brothers and four sisters from her father’s second wife who lived in Nigeria? No one would ever meet them. Besides, what would she say if someone met her mother and asked about the other children? It would break her mother’s heart to have to give complete strangers a window into the reality in which she lived, a reality that she had managed to deny for more than twenty years. “I’m my mother’s only child.”
Faith nodded, but Alika could tell Faith caught the evasiveness in her answer. “Then it probably would be difficult for her to accept.”
“What about your father?”
Abdur-Rahman’s question startled her, and she turned to him too quickly, her eyes slightly widened that he would actually ask about her father’s other children. When she met his gaze, she realized that he only meant how would her father deal with the news of her conversion.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. “I think he wouldn’t mind as much.”
“Has he traveled much?”
“His mother is from Nigeria, so he goes there often.”
Abdur-Rahman nodded. “Then he probably won’t mind. Islam is pretty common there.”
“Yes,” Alika said, “but the Christians and Muslims aren’t exactly the best of friends. And they’re very family oriented. I don’t think they’d take it too well.”
“You’re close to your family there?”
It was Faith’s question that made Alika realize she had said they instead of he. “Yes. I go there a lot. At least I used to.”
“Is that where you got the bulk of your research about the African and African-American relations?”
“Yes.” She was relieved the subject had moved to why she had come. “I took advantage of my trips there.”
“Do you think that made it easier for you to accept Islam?”
“My trips or my research?”
“Your trips.”
Alika ran a hand over the soft of the white khimaar she had chosen to wear today, considering the question. “It was more my research than my trips, honestly.”
“Really?”
“I was interviewing an African-American Muslim someone referred to me, and he ended up telling me more about the impact of Islam in his life than his struggles with race.”
“That must’ve been something.”
Alika laughed. “Yes, it was. I was really moved.”
“Have you been able to interview other non-African-American Muslims?”
“Not indigenous Americans. I’ve interviewed some biracial ones though.”
“Well, I’m honored to be the first.”
Alika smiled, now reaching into her bag to pull out her notebook and pen. “And I’m honored that you agreed.”
Zaid pushed thoughts of Zahra’s words from his mind as he settled himself behind the steering wheel of his Camry and started the car. He didn’t want anything to ruin his meeting with Aminah. He had thought that, out of everyone, Zahra would be the one to support him. She was friends with Aminah’s sister-in-law Tamika, and she openly admired their family. But perhaps that made her too close for comfort. He had called his cousin that morning for support, having not told anyone in his family about the meeting. He did not expect a browbeating. He had only wanted her to make du’aa, a special supplication to Allah that everything would go smoothly.
“I cannot believe you are going through with this,” she had said to him in Urdu after he told her about the meeting. “You know what your mother and father will say. They will never support it.”
“I didn’t think they would. But they have no basis for their opposition.”
“They are your parents. That is a good enough basis.”
“No it is not. What happened to the Sunnah?” He was referring to the living example set by Prophet Muhammad as to how Muslims should implement the injunctions and guidance of the Qur’an.
He couldn’t see her, but he imagined her rolling her eyes. “The Sunnah? Do you really think upsetting your parents is what the Prophet would want you to do?”
“How can you say this? You know that my following the Sunnah itself is upsetting to them.”
“That doesn’t mean you should go out and marry someone they do not like.”
“They do not even know Aminah. How can they not like her?”
“She is American, Zaid. You know how they would feel if you even married someone who is not Behari.”
“But that’s not Islam, Zahra. You know that. This is culture. It has no place in our religion.”
“It has a place in our family. And family has a place in Islam. Think about that.”
Zaid was beginning to get frustrated. He started to say something, but his cousin continued.
“I want you to understand that this has nothing to do with Aminah or her family. I know they are good people and good Muslims. But you do not go and marry people because they are Muslim. Look what happened to Anjum.”
Even before she said the name, Zaid knew Anjum would be brought up. Her name was mentioned so frequently in Pakistani circles that one would think she was the object of admiration instead of condemnation. She had managed to become the epitome of the failure that awaited someone who went against her family’s wishes.
Like many Pakistanis, Anjum came from a relatively non-religious family. No one prayed or covered, and she was the first in her family to do either. When an American brother who had converted to Islam came to her parents and proposed marriage, her parents refused on grounds he wasn’t Pakistani. Feeling that their decision was unjust, she went to the imam of the masjid who ultimately overrode their decision on grounds that they had no Islamic objection to the proposal, and the imam married Anjum to the brother under his self-appointed guardianship. Three years and one child later, the marriage ended, and Anjum was forced to go back home to live with her parents, who would care for the child while she completed her undergraduate degree that was interrupted by marriage and pregnancy shortly thereafter.
“Gi. Look at Anjum,” Zaid said. “If her family had accepted the brother into the family like Muslims should, maybe their marriage would not have ended at all.”
“Why not marry Shanaz?”
“I do not want to marry Shanaz.”
“She is religious.”
“Praying does not make someone religious.” He decided against saying he wanted his wife to wear hijab.
“Stop being so selfish.”
“I am not the one being selfish. Look at our family. We are being selfish.”
There was a long silence before Zahra spoke again.
“I was not talking about our family,” she said finally. “I was talking about Aminah. Think about what you are doing to her if you do this.”
Zaid drove silently as he reflected on what Zahra had said. He could dismiss everything she had argued, except her last point. He didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize Aminah. What if the pressures of his family were too much for her? He had already accepted what marrying her would mean for him, but what would it mean for her? He had warned her via e-mail about his family, but there was no way to really make her understand. Everything about his culture was so intricate, so intimately woven into the fabric of everything he did, everything his family did, that there was no way to pick it apart, examine it, and show it to someone else. Even a big sister wasn’t referred to by name. She was called Baji. How could an American understand that? It would be like asking her to walk in his shoes, see with his eyes, and feel the blood pumping through his heart. And that would be impossible.
Aminah would have to learn Urdu, Zaid already knew. But he hadn’t mentioned this to her. Most of his family didn’t speak English, and even those who could did not in family gatherings, or at home. It would be almost sacrilegious to do so, especially in the presence of elders who spoke only Urdu. Even if it were not disrespectful or unacceptable, he knew his family would not speak English for Aminah’s sake. They would make sure they did not, if for no other reason than to show Zaid they would not bend just because he wanted to be hardheaded, thinking his miniscule knowledge of Islam he learned at the masjid made him wiser than his elders who hadn’t attended such classes.
He hated the way they scoffed at his reading of Islamic books, attending Iectures, and spending his free time in the masjid. The only newfound love they approved of was his Qur’anic memorization, but even that approval was conditional. They urged him to dedicate more time to his job as a computer engineer instead of what they considered a form of extremism. To most of them, anything beyond praying five times a day was going overboard. It saddened him that Muslims had come to that. At times he felt that new Muslims understood Islam better than those who had Islam in their countries for generations.
Sarah heard the doorbell ring as she stood before the mirror in her bathroom tucking the fabric of her khimaar under her chin. She stalled as the muffled sounds of the front door closing a minute later and Ismael greeting the brother were carried up the stairs and through the open door of her bedroom and the closed door of the bathroom. She didn’t want to go downstairs right away. She had already put out the food, having planned to take her time. She doubted Ismael or Aminah welcomed her presence in any case.
At the thought of Ismael and Aminah planning this meeting behind her back, she felt the familiar knotting of anger in her chest. She placed her hands on the end of the cold white fiberglass of the sink to calm herself. Her eyes rested on the crystalline knobs bearing the red and blue circular labels to indicate hot and cold water on either side of the stainless steel faucet. Wudhoo’ calms anger. She turned the knobs and let the water run through her fingers before quietly saying, “Bismillaah.”
As she pushed up the sleeves of her outer garment and filled her left hand with water, she recalled when Sulayman wanted to marry Tamika. It pained Sarah to see her confident son defeated by insecurity. He would sit for hours in silence, she knew, hoping, fearing, and wanting all at once, tormented and confused by the desires of his heart and afraid he would be compelled to silence them, but even more afraid of their release. It was the planting of the seeds of what the world would call love. In reality it was but heart-felt hope that bordered on desperation. It was the natural human longing for completeness.
There was so much Sarah had wanted to tell her son, so much she was inspired to share from her own life, her own experiences. Her own heart. And soul. But she withheld, and it pained her to be a bystander in one of the most significant moments of his life. She did not withhold out of volition, but compulsion. She had no other choice. He was discovering the paradox of manhood, strength and weakness at once. He was confronting a deeply personal battle, and she, although his mother, was a woman, and thus on the other side. Had she offered her help, he would have withdrawn from her, and this she could not risk. He lived bearing the shell of strength, and he needed her to confirm that it was indeed there. So she did, and he continued to wear the mask of strength, unaware that his fragile heart was reflected in his eyes.
When Sulayman was breaking, and it tore Sarah apart to see him that defeated, he surrendered to the reality of man’s frailty, unable to continue carrying the burden of masculine strength. But it was not Sarah who would become his confidante in his need for reassurance of self. It was his father, a fellow sufferer in man’s battleground of life. Sarah ached to be of assistance, of benefit to her firstborn, and she felt worthless being compelled to silence instead of bestowing advice.
Sarah had mentioned her concern to her husband, saying she felt left out. But Ismael had reassured her that it was only because Sulayman was a man that he sought his father’s guidance instead of his mother’s. It was a woman he coveted, Ismael told her, and their son wanted to know how Ismael knew he should marry her. That she had not been completely forgotten reassured her, but she couldn’t help feeling slighted for missing this part of her son’s life.
“When Aminah’s ready to get married,” Ismael had said, “I’m sure I’ll be the one feeling left out.”
It had been consolation, not a promise. But Sarah had taken it as one. So she couldn’t help feeling betrayed as she turned off the water in her bathroom and stared at her water glistened face. For a moment, she considered calling her husband upstairs to remind him of his words, of his consolation that day, in hopes that the memory would force him to sit through the meeting plagued with guilt.
But she wouldn’t. She could not. She knew none of this was planned. Had she not been so busy planning the walimah, she would have seen what her husband saw, what any mother should have seen, a daughter in need. Maybe Ismael was right, Sarah thought studying the brown irises of her eyes. Maybe she just wasn’t ready to let Aminah go. She had only two children. And they had grown so fast, too fast. It was as if she were nursing them one day and sending them off to college the next. It wasn’t fair to hold someone in your arms, coddle them, kiss their foreheads and read them stories at night—make them a part of you, only to hand them to someone else, a stranger, unable to ever take them back.
No, even if it were Abdur-Rahman, Sarah would be unable to let go. She wanted Aminah to stay put, needed Aminah to stay put, if only for a little while. She couldn’t handle two leaving at once. It was more than she wanted to bear. Sarah wouldn’t have sensed Aminah’s sadness, her loneliness, even if she weren’t preoccupied. Because Aminah’s mere presence had soothed her own, precluding any awareness of sadness outside herself.
Ismael knew this, felt this, even before Sarah herself knew. He knew her too well. It wasn’t selfishness that inspired his decision to plan this meeting without her, but selflessness itself. She knew him well too. And more than anything, he valued her—them, their openness, their friendship, their ability to talk about any and everything without fear or shame. It was this that cultivated their enduring commitment to one another, their sojourn that had evolved to true, unadulterated love. He was protecting her from herself, and for that she should be grateful.
Yet, still, there was this burning sensation that, even so, he didn’t have that right.
“She’s beautiful,” Abdur-Rahman said to his mother after their maid showed Alika downstairs to the bathroom. His gaze had followed the path she had taken, and still rested there.
“Yes, she is.” Faith lifted her teacup from the table in front of the couch and took a sip.
“I wouldn’t mind marrying her.”
She laughed with the cup poised at her lips in preparation to take another sip. “I’m sure you wouldn’t.”
“I’m not joking.”
Faith sipped her tea and set down her cup, her expression now one of pleasant calm. She sighed. “I know, Teddy. But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
She took a breath and exhaled. “For one, someone that beautiful is most likely already taken, or if not taken, battling a thousand proposals a day.”
“That’s always a possibility for anyone,” he said, now looking at his mother with his arms folded in his usual manner.
Faith was silent as she studied her son with a gentle smile on her face. She wanted to tell him that she sensed Alika was not the type to marry across racial lines, but she knew he would not understand what she meant. He would think she was being judgmental, assuming without knowing the facts. He often accused her of that, and perhaps, at times, he was correct. But Faith had lived long enough, met enough people of color, enough people, to know when a person was just being polite. She recognized it in her own race, in herself, so how couldn’t she detect a reflection of the same in someone else?
“You’re just saying that because she’s Black,” Abdur-Rahman said.
Faith shook her head and reached again for her teacup because she didn’t want to face her son. She drank the hot liquid in slow sips, letting her thoughts settle as the tea slipped down her throat and settled in her stomach, creating a warm nest there. She loved her son’s philanthropy, his wide-open heart, but she feared for his naïveté that still permeated him at twenty-nine years old. At one time she thought it was his skipping grades that made him so unaware of the cruel reality of the world in which he lived, and she blamed herself. But she now knew it was simply an attribute of Teddy, a necessary part of the wrapping on the extraordinary gift God had given her in him.
Faith wanted to tell her son it had nothing to do with Alika being Black, and yet it had everything to do with her being Black. And even more to do with him being White. The races’ shared history made it difficult, and for some impossible, for Black and White to overcome the melanin or lack thereof in the other’s skin. As a relationship counselor, Faith knew that even intimacy, or marriage, did not guarantee color blindness, and at times precluded it in the perverse irony of fate. Often inter-racial relations themselves stirred a persistent color awareness in the partners that did not allow one to heal. There were always those invisible yet visceral wounds the world had inflicted on those who were both innocent and guilty at once. There was really no one to blame, yet there was everyone to blame. But how to explain that to Teddy, her son?
“What about Sarah’s daughter Aminah?” Faith’s question was a peace offering, a surrender, and her selfish proof that this wasn’t about race. A couple of months before, Sarah had mentioned that she thought Abdur-Rahman would be good for Aminah, so the question was not completely irrelevant.
Abdur-Rahman’s face contorted slightly though he tried to conceal his disapproval. “Aminah?” He shook his head, glancing momentarily at his birds. “She’s too uptight.”
Faith nodded, relieved that they could change the subject. “I can see that. But still, she seems nice.”
He huffed, and Faith noticed his eyes in deep thought, as if something was hurting him that he didn’t want to express. “She can’t see past my pets. Why would I waste my time with someone like that?”
“Because she’s Muslim. She’s beautiful. And she has a big heart.” She paused and smiled. “Just like you.”
He shook his head. “And thinks I’m a walking nutcase with only birds and hamsters as friends.”
Faith laughed. She started to say something but heard Alika coming up the stairs.
“Sorry about that,” Alika said with an embarrassed laugh as she took her place on the couch with Faith. “I drank so much water this morning, I felt like I was going to explode.”
“At least you drink a lot of water,” Faith said. “Most of us don’t.”
Alika shook her head. “I’m usually pretty bad, but exercising in this heat dehydrates me so much, I can’t afford to go without.”
“You exercise regularly? That’s fantastic.”
She smiled. “I wouldn’t say regularly, but I can’t last too long without my morning run. I’m just not myself.”
“I used to exercise all the time, especially after the children. But I guess I just got lazy.”
Alika picked up her notebook and reopened to where they had stopped. “That’s what I’m afraid of. But I learned to take it one day at a time.”
“Yes, for sure. Just keep it up when you have children, inshaAllaah. It’s a good example to set.”
Alika laughed. “That’s something to consider.”
“Having children or setting an example for them?” Faith asked, seeing her son pick up his hamster cage and set it on his lap. It was his way of dealing with the discomfort of knowing what his mother was doing and being too ashamed to openly display his eagerness to hear Alika’s response.
“All of it, I guess. It just seems like too much to digest right now.”
“I suppose it is,” Faith said with a nod. “Marriage must be the farthest thing from your mind right now.”
Alika’s eyes widened slightly, a grin still on her face as she shook her head. “No, it’s not that.”
“Is it closer than you’re saying?” Faith teased. Abdur-Rahman reached into the cage and stroked the hamster.
Alika lifted her shoulders in a shrug as she toyed with her pen, a smile tugging at her lips. “I have no idea.”
“No idea? What does that mean?”
“Let’s just say, there is someone, but the whole thing is so complicated, I have no idea if anything will come of it except headaches and stress.”
They both laughed.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Faith said, “even if something does come of it, there will only be more headaches and stress.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.”
“I counsel people in crises, especially in their relationships. And part of my job is to let them know they’re all a pain.”
“Men or relationships?” Alika joked.
Faith laughed. “Both.” She noticed Teddy’s half smirk as he played with his hamster, a sign that he didn’t like the joke.
“Well,” Alika said with a sigh and grin, “thank God my mother taught me the adage, No pain, no gain.”
“Yes, thank God for that.”
Sarah hesitated at the entrance of the living room, the wall that connected it and the foyer concealing her from view as she listened to the sound of laughter, from Ismael and the brother, and Aminah. For a moment, she considered going back upstairs. She didn’t belong in this gathering, she could sense it. Then again, the meeting would lose meaning, lose purpose, if she did not participate. Ismael could have had the meeting somewhere else. He could have continued to hide this from her. His and Aminah’s secret. But he didn’t. Inviting Zaid into their home was not her husband’s way of opening his arms to the brother. But to her.
She emerged and stood at the beginning of the carpet, smiling politely. Zaid sat on the loveseat and Ismael and Aminah on the couch. He was short, Sarah noticed, no more than two inches taller than Aminah’s 5 feet 2 inches, if he did not share her same height. This she could tell by the height of his shoulders and the way his feet barely grazed the carpet. His tan complexion held a hint of auburn that was characteristic of people of his region. His face was that of a boy, his smooth cheeks offering no indication, or chance, of facial hair. At least not yet. His dark hair hung a few inches below his ears and ironically gave him the appearance of a man despite his youthful countenance. Sarah wondered at his age and was inclined to ask, except she remembered that she hadn’t yet introduced herself.
“As-salaamu’alaikum,” Ismael said, standing to greet his wife. “This is Aminah’s mother,” he said after Sarah’s reply.
Sarah noticed the way Zaid turned his head in her direction and gave a slight nod without ever lifting his head, or his gaze, to her. It was a gesture of respect, of honor, and she felt her heart soften toward him. He had been brought up well, from a family of strong character, and the power and pull of his customs pulsated in his veins. It could not be helped. If Aminah married him, she would soon learn the bittersweet reality of what that meant.
“The food is on the dining room table,” Sarah said, pointing in the direction of the room. “Feel free.”
“Thank you,” Zaid said, his eyes still lowered.
“Join us,” Ismael said. “Aminah and Zaid were just exchanging questions with each other.”
Sarah sat down and watched the exchange, hardly recognizing the shy, giggly girl Aminah had become. Perhaps it was natural. Aminah had not seen what her mother had, did not know what her mother had known at her age. How could she? She never dated, and she did not talk on the phone to men. It was not an act, a face for the moment, put on to impress the young man. In the face of obvious attention, and flattery (by his mere presence), Aminah really didn’t know what to do with herself. She was not used to being the center of attention if it was not academic or Islamic in nature.
Sarah noticed how Zaid could not keep from gazing at Aminah, a smile of awe and admiration on his face, and how Aminah could not lift her eyes to meet his, even as she spoke. Sarah felt a tinge of envy as she watched them. She wished she had had this innocence, this bashfulness before marriage. It was so beautiful to witness, to actually see, even if only a hint of what it meant to follow the Sunnah. Her heart ached with happiness for her daughter, for the purity Aminah had been able to preserve. The public school, four years of college, America itself, none of it had tainted her chastity, and for that Sarah was grateful, and proud.
“No,” Zaid said in response to an inquiry by Ismael about his family knowing about the meeting, “they don’t know. But they know I want to marry Aminah.”
“How will you handle the pressures of your family if you marry?”
“I know it will be difficult, but I don’t know what else to do but trust in Allah.”
“Is there someone else they want you to marry?”
“Yes, she’s a cousin.”
“Why don’t you want to marry her?”
“She’s not as religious as I prefer. She doesn’t cover, and she listens to music.”
Sarah was not impressed by his answers. They were superficial judgments, and she could only imagine that the same superficiality was in place when he chose her daughter instead. Certainly, hijab was important, but given his culture, even Sarah knew that covering in Islamic garb, especially as the girl still lived with parents, was a lot to ask. And although Sarah didn’t listen to music herself, she would not consider its shunning a prerequisite for marriage. Did the sister understand the obligation of hijab in Islam? Did she ask Allah’s strength to one day be able to cover? Did she have a strong love for Qur’an? Was prayer the foundation of her life, her day? The answers to these questions would be a better indication of her religious commitment.
“What made you see the importance of these things in your life?” Ismael asked.
“My family doesn’t really practice, and I felt like my life was empty. I started to pray and read more and—”
“When was this?”
Zaid squinted his eyes. “About three years ago, shortly before I graduated from university.”
“What do you mean by empty?”
He drew in a deep breath and shook his head in thought. “I guess it was like someone had closed the lights, and I realized it after all this time.”
“So how did you know it was a spiritual emptiness?”
“I just had this feeling, like I was wasting my time. And I remember seeing some of the MSA members praying after an event, and that’s when I knew what was missing.”
“And did you pray with them that night?”
Zaid shook his head. “No, I wasn’t in wudhoo’. But I wanted to.”
“When did you start praying?”
“The next day.”
Sarah watched as her husband leaned forward with his bent arms resting on his thighs, his hands clasped. It was as if he were awestruck by the story. “How did it feel?”
Zaid smiled. “Like someone had opened the lights.”
“I don’t like him,” Sarah said that night. She stood brushing her hair in front of the mirror of the bathroom in her room. The door stood open to where Ismael sat with his back propped against his pillow at the headboard. Their room door was closed.
Ismael folded his arms and chuckled. “That’s pretty harsh, don’t you think?”
“Okay,” she said with a sigh, pulling hair strands from the brush, “maybe don’t like is too strong an expression. He’s just so—.” She shook her head and exhaled audibly. “I don’t know, Ismael, he just seems so simple-minded.”
“He’s young, Sarah,” Ismael said, raising his voice slightly to carry over the distance between them. “Don’t forget that. And so is Aminah. I know what you saw, and I know what you’re thinking. I saw the same.”
“Then you can see why this can’t work.” She balled the strands in a fist and tossed them into a wastebasket near the sink. She opened the medicine cabinet and took out a large cloth ponytail holder.
“No, I can see what we have to do to make it work.”
“I can’t believe you’re actually considering this.” She brought her hair back behind her head and pulled at the elasticity of the cloth to secure her hair in a bun.
“I don’t see how I have any other choice.”
“You can say no.”
“On what grounds?”
“That he’s too immature for marriage.”
Ismael laughed and shook his head. “Do you hear yourself? Too immature for marriage? He’s twenty-four years old, sweetheart. He’s immature, yes, but not for marriage. It’s his age.”
“You can make that argument about anyone, Ismael, and rationalize them for Aminah.”
“No, I can’t, actually.”
“Then what would be your grounds to refuse?” She now held a small container of face cream open in her hands and stood at the bathroom doorway, facing him.
“Sarah, please just—”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s a fair question, Ismael. Why not answer it?”
“Sweetheart, you know—”
“Don’t change the subject, Ismael. You just don’t want to admit that this isn’t about anything except you wanting to please Aminah.”
“What?” Ismael furrowed his brows and stared at his wife with a look of shock and confusion.
“Yes, isn’t that what this is about?”
“No, it is not.”
“Or maybe you and Aminah have already said yes and hid that from me too.”
Ismael started to laugh but could not. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t act like you have no idea. All this time I’ve been planning this walimah, for our family, for our son, and you take the opportunity to marry off our daughter, my only daughter, the same one—”
“Sarah—”
“—you said would come to me and leave you out when she wanted to get married.”
“What?” Ismael threw the covers from his legs and got out of bed. “What are you talking about?” His voice was full of concern and hurt as he met his wife at the doorway of the bathroom.
“I sat and watched as you and Sulayman talked and talked and talked,” Sarah said as her eyes became glassy, “and you said, you promised, it would be different with Aminah. You said it was because he was a man and needed to talk to a man. But I’m a woman, Ismael, I’m a woman. So why doesn’t Aminah talk to me?”
Ismael grasped his wife’s arms to calm her. “Sweetheart, look at me.”
Sarah shook her head, feeling her eyes well but she willed herself not to cry.
“Sweetheart, the brother called me, not Aminah,” he said, now holding her hands even as she tried to pull away. “I was the one who made a decision to delay talking to you, not Aminah. I’m sure Aminah would’ve come to you if it wasn’t for the walimah.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve wanted to be there for her.”
“Sarah, you know you were too distracted for that. If she asked you for anything, you shooed her away.”
“If I would’ve known—”
“And had you known it was marriage being considered,” Ismael finished for her, “it would’ve been worse. You couldn’t take that right then. Perhaps if it were Faith’s son, but not Zaid.”
“Why do you keep bringing up Abdur-Rahman? This has nothing to do with him.”
“Sarah,” he said, letting her hands go as she pushed past him to sit on the edge of the bed, “I only mention him because I know you like him and wanted him for Aminah.”
“I didn’t want him for Aminah. I just mentioned him as maybe being good for her.”
“But this wasn’t Abdur-Rahman. This was Zaid, a Pakistani-American. And I knew how you’d feel about that.”
“Don’t paint me as a bigot. I have no problem with a Pakistani in my family, you know that.”
“Yes, I do know that.” Ismael walked over to the bed and sat next to her. “What I meant is that because the marriage would be cross-cultural,” he said, leaning his head forward slightly as he emphasized the word, “and because you already knew Faith’s son, the situation itself would be too complicated to address in the middle of preparing Sulayman and Tamika’s walimah.”
“And what was so wrong with considering Faith’s son? Why do you keep mentioning him as if the mere idea of Aminah marrying him is some wild, crazy idea swimming around in my head?” She looked at him with her eyes narrowed.
Ismael chuckled and rubbed a hand over his face in mental exhaustion. “Sarah, no one’s thinking the idea is wild and crazy.”
“Then why are you laughing?”
“I’m laughing because you’re talking nonsense.”
“I am? Because I’m mentioning Abdur-Rahman again?”
“No, because you can’t see the impossibility of your own words.”
“Then help me,” she challenged sarcastically. “Help me reach into the depths of my mind to connect with my impossible, irrational self.”
“Please, Sarah. Stop being so dramatic and making this about us against you.”
“I’m not the one who put us on opposite sides.”
“But you did.”
“How? How could I possibly be to blame because I casually mentioned a good young man for my daughter?”
Ismael forced laughter and shook his head. “You don’t want me to answer that.”
“No, no, I do. Please.”
“Because there’s one major point regarding Abdur-Rahman you’re overlooking.” He looked at her directly. “Or maybe you’re just refusing to see.”
“What’s that?” She folded her arms in defiance, waiting impatiently for his answer.
Ismael met his wife’s gaze with a smile tugging at a corner of his mouth, and in that look Sarah sensed the compassion they felt for each other even as they often disagreed.
“He never proposed.”