Three Years Later
Faruq came into the living room with a kid on each leg, Faruq Jr. on the left and Tig Jr. on the right. His shirt was stained with muddy fingerprints and scorch marks on the sleeves. Someone had been practicing magic. Badly.
“That’s my husband. Half djinn, half dead, half ‘geist and all mess.”
“Only two halves in a whole, sweetie. How are my girls?”
“Don’t get cute. And we’re fine.”
Faruq’s shimmering finger rubbed the cheek of their nursing daughter. One of the more unusual side effects of his death and reanimation was that he’d carried a hint of translucency. Not much and not all the time, but enough that it gave the family a laugh now and then. He kissed both their cheeks, then gave each leg a shake. “Off! I’m done being corporeal for the next few hours.”
Faruq Jr. dismounted first and started making purple stars in the air. Her nephew, however, didn’t move. “Auntie C, do you think my sister is here yet?”
“I do and as soon as you wake up in the morning, we can go to the hospital to meet her.”
The prospect of sleep set off a wave of grumbles. Rather than fight it, the five of them curled up on the couch and she resigned herself to a night of cartoon movies. Sometime between the hundredth song and the hundredth-first, the boys’ snores matched that of the baby in her lap. Cassia eased off the sofa and handed their three-month-old daughter to Faruq, who’d just turned to a cricket match.
“I’ve been avoiding the scores all afternoon.”
“Next time, we’ll wish them to sleep.”
“You can’t force a djinn to do anything to himself, hamdullah.”
“I know.”
And that spoke to the other great loss. Wishes meant nothing to Faruq these days. He heard them, but couldn’t answer. As a ‘geist, he’d been able to get back inside the lamp though, and it made things that much more palatable.
That and their family. Their son had inherited the best of both parents. It’d be up to Junior and Tig to keep them afloat.
Afloat. Who was she kidding? Rich.
Tig, riddled with secondhand loss, burned down their old house and built a new one...all in the same hour.
She, burdened with guilt, left it to Faruq to design and manage. Again, in the same hour. He’d done a marvelous job with a home that suited their new life. Half of it spoke to old Algiers with minarets, high ceilings and an enclosed square.
Her side spoke of old Galveston, complete with trellises and ivy crawling up the sides. He’d wished her a garden for food and another for magical herbs and a pool just because. She looked out over it now and smiled at the memories they’d made there over the past few years.
Faruq came up behind, enveloping her in his arms. “Your place or mine?”
“Ours.”
“Wish it, just for old times’ sake.”
“Faruq, there’s no point.”
“Yes there is. I want to hear it. Say it.”
She whirled around and latched her hands behind his neck. “I wish...”
“Hold that thought.” He reached out, grabbed the baby monitor and grinned. “Go.”
“Ahem. As I was saying, I wish I were in the lamp, making love to the man who owns my heart.”
Then she closed her eyes and there she was.
*