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