I continue lying down, looking at the ceiling. I still don’t like her being so enthusiastic, but now at least I understand it more. She’s just excited because he’s a good person.
“When I first met Dad, I thought we were similar, but—” Mom stops talking. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
I sit up too. “No, tell me. Please? I want to know.”
“When I met Dad, he was just getting into Islam. Uncle Bilal got him into it, actually. And Dad was all excited about it—super excited. And I got excited, because you know I come from a very religious family.” Mom strokes my head again. I’m going to let her pet me all she wants if it keeps her talking. “He kept it going for a while, his interest in faith, but then a year after we got married, he started to lose his commitment to the deen. By then we’d already had Muhammad and we tried for a bit; then you came along, and we had this truce where we wanted to provide a stable family for you guys… but then our different beliefs caught up with us. Like he didn’t want me to wear hijab, be visibly Muslim, or even take Muhammad to Jumah or make sure you guys learned deen. That wasn’t the way Dad grew up, those weren’t important things to his own family, and, ultimately, he didn’t believe they were important for ours.”
I wonder if I should ask. About what Muhammad told me previously, about Dad and Linda starting their relationship before our parents divorced. When Mom thought they were still trying to save the marriage. “And then Linda happened?”
“And then Linda happened,” she says, and at this, her eyes close briefly and her mouth presses together a bit more tightly, and I feel horrible.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” I fling myself into her, throwing my arms around her waist to wrap her like I’ve never done before. So she knows I’m sorry. For saying Linda happened? and for her going through all that with Dad, and me not even knowing that she’d felt such pain. My shoulders heave, and then I’m crying.
“It’s okay. Janna. Stop.” She removes me from her and looks at me still sobbing. “I’m not sad about it. It’s been seven years since the divorce, and if you want the truth, four years since I stopped feeling sad about it all. Don’t cry. Because I’m not.”
I wipe my eyes, still streaming tears, and lean my head on her shoulder. She wraps her arms around me and we stay quiet and it’s really warm and comfortable and my heaving slowly subsides until I can breathe without a catch. “I’m so sorry I brought it up.”
“I’m glad you did. Because now you know more,” she says. “And I’m happy that Dad and Linda are happy. Truly. Look at this house, their adorable kids, Dad’s ability to host the nikah with such generosity. And Linda being so hospitable.”
I tilt my head to look at her face, to check for the truth.
I see no tears or sadness.
I nod like I get it, but—I don’t know—if I were Mom, I wouldn’t want to be okay with it all.
I’d want Dad to pay. I’d want to have all the things that Dad has too.
And not have a life like Mom has now, renting a small apartment, with fewer kids than she’d wanted.
Alone.
A sudden thought invades my attempt to collect my emotions: Is that why she’s so excited about Uncle Bilal?
Should I ask? About the weird vibes I got yesterday?
There’s a hard, rhythmic knock on the door that can only be Muhammad. “Mom? Breakfast is ready, and Sarah’s here too.”
“Let’s go. If I remember Dad properly, he’s got a good breakfast ready. His breakfast game was always on point.” Mom strokes my hair once more, for good luck, or maybe for strength—for me… and her?—and swings her feet onto the floor.
I better go wash my face and get it arranged so it looks like I still like Dad.
* * *
Checking my phone, I see a ton of messages from Tats and Soon-Lee and Sandra and even Sausun (Make sure there’s some kind of wudu facility okay? I like to refresh my wudu before every prayer! To which I reply, Dad has two entire restroom trailers set up! And you’re personally invited to use *my* bathroom!) but nothing from the person I really want to see a text from: Nuah.
Chapter Fourteen
On the pretense of letting Mom use the bathroom in my room, I go shower and get ready in the alcove bathroom.
There’s a tiny part of me that wants to see what Haytham’s been up to.
The mirror holds verses again.
Some bloom with much care
But I need only your glance
To fill a garden
Wow. I wonder who he’s thinking of when he writes this stuff.
I count the syllables in the poem, remembering that the first one I’d seen was similarly short.
A haiku.
He writes haikus.
How is it that I’m getting to learn more about Haiku Haytham in this short little while than Nuah?
Why is Nuah suddenly hard to get ahold of?
I erase the poem with one sleeve swipe of the mirror and look at my reflection in the cleared glass.
I look startled, my eyes enlarged, my mouth slightly open.
Or is it sadness? Or worry?
Like my gut is starting to whisper something?
* * *
In the shower, I wash the startle/sadness/worry away.
I’m going to be spending all day around Nuah and then the evening with Mom at the henna party, wearing our special clothes. That’s enough to wash all the bad feelings away.
After I get dressed, I post a pic on Instagram of my henna-free hands, a before, and promise my friends an update tonight after the henna party, for which Dad hired professional henna artists.
I see that Dania and Lamya have requested to follow me. I click accept, follow back, and check them out.
Sure enough, both their accounts are beautiful. I click like on some posts and then am about to close Instagram when I get two notifications.
Two more requests to follow. Simultaneously.
Haytham.
And… Layth? Dania and Lamya’s smirky cousin?
I’ve already checked out Haytham’s account, but when I give another peek now, I see that he’s posted a new poem:
Some bloom with much care
But I need only your glance
To fill a garden
Ah, so the mirror is his sketchbook. For his instapoet auditions.
I click like on the poem and then go check Layth’s account. But his is private, with a very Zayn-like unsmiling profile pic commanding the space above his ninety-eight followers. He follows twenty-two people.
Weird that he wants me to be his twenty-third follow.
If I approve him, then do I request to follow back? Because it feels kind of weird if he can see my stuff and I can’t see his?
I decide to not approve him. He’s a guy I saw once in my life and am going to see a second time tomorrow, and then he’ll disappear from the face of my earth. Plus he’s kind of cranky. So nah.
I approve Haytham, though, and become his six thousand and seventeenth follower.
We’re ice-cream-truck comrades.
Before I leave the bathroom, I look in the mirror again.
I think I look good. I’m in my favorite color head to toe. Black jeans, thin black oversize shirt that’s short in front, with sleeves that reach almost to my fingertips, and falls off one shoulder but then has this false second shirt peeking underneath, also black, and, to top it all, my only scarf that sits amazing on my head even when casually thrown on. I think this black scarf knows my head the best, so it just molds to my skull in the best way.