Sequoia Valley: Risk (Free Preview)

21

“Done,” Jannah Muhammad, the Arab henna artist ’‘ishah had hired, told Yâsmeenah, moving the henna cone away. “Are you sure you don’t want to do your feet? Most brides do.”

“I’m sure,” Yâsmeenah said, admiring the floral patterns on her hand done with the camphor dye.

Jannah nodded. “Okay then.” She stood up to move to the next woman, but before walking away, she added with a smirk, dark eyes dancing with amusement, “I put your husband’s name in the design. He’ll have fun finding it.”

Horror and embarrassment coursed through Yâsmeenah as she watched the young woman move to sit by Sumayyah to start on her next. She’d thought nothing of it when the woman had asked her husband’s name. She started down at her hands to see if she could find where it was.

“You won’t find it,” Jannah called from across the room, laughter in her voice. “Unless you can read Arabic. It blends in really well.”

With an inward groan, Yâsmeenah gave up the endeavor. Jâsim had promised to teach her how to read, but with how busy she’d been with wedding preparations, she hadn’t even seen him long enough for him to start. She would have to wait until the wedding was over.

The thought of Jâsim finding his name in the design on her hands was embarrassing. Hopefully it was blended in well enough that he wouldn’t spot it. At least the design wasn’t permanent. It would fade away eventually.

The paste sitting on her hands was itchy and it took a strong dose of willpower not to give into the urge to scratch. Instead, she remained seated, hands suspended by the arms of the armchair she sat on so the design wasn’t smudged, and patiently waited for it to dry.

It was Maghrib by the time the paste had dried to a hard, crumbling texture that was greenish in color. By then, Jannah had finished up, been paid, and had left.

“You can rub it off now,” ’‘ishah told her after looking at her hands. “Scratch it off and then you can pray. Do you still have wûdhû?”

Yâsmeenah nodded.

“Good. Try to keep it. It’s better if water doesn’t touch it until tomorrow. Pray and then put some moisturizer on your hands. It will get darker that way.”

Yâsmeenah was shown to a bathroom, where she scratched off the paste and was left with a bright orange-red stain on her hands. After washing the dried paste down the drain, she left the bathroom. When she returned to the den, ’‘ishah gave her a container of moisturizer for her hands and then showed her into a bedroom to pray—a different one than earlier.

Even though her mother-in-law didn’t say so, Yâsmeenah knew it was Jâsim’s bedroom. The familiar scent of his preferred cologne lingered, despite him spending more time at the apartment than his parents’ house since the nikkâh.

“You can rest in here if you’d like,” ’‘ishah said after setting down the sajâdah in the direction of the qiblah.

Before Yâsmeenah could reply that she’d rather head home—to her own room and own bed, where she would be comfortable—the door closed and she was alone. She sighed, adjusted her clothing to ensure her ’awrah was covered, and then stepped on the sajâdah.

After she’d completed her prayer, Yâsmeenah opened the moisturizer and rubbed it over her hands. After recovering the container, she didn’t immediately return to the den. Instead, she explored the bedroom curiously. The way Jâsim kept his room might give her a deeper insight into the husband she barely knew, yet was growing to trust more and more.

His bed was queen-sized. There was a desk on one side of the bedroom, and bookshelf against the wall opposite to it. She wandered closer to the desk. On it was a laptop and some stacked recent publications of medical journals. Sitting on the swivel chair behind the desk, she flipped through them curiously, but the medical jargon soon had her head spinning and she gave up trying to understand anything, closing the volume.