Barakah

- Heads Or Tails

4/10/2022

The explanation at the end of this chapter is for everyone that was confused about the last one. It is long and if you think it would be tedious to read through, you can just skip it. But I took all the time to write it so everyone that's confused can understand what was going on in the last chapter. I genuinely appreciate every reader and it wouldn't seat well with me if I don't communicate when a reader is asking for it.

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Jalal

It infuriated him how much they depended on her. How much she shouldered her family. Jalal would have mocked them in some type of way, had it not been her family and had he not known his own family. And as her eyes searched the living room for comfort in him, he could only compensate her by shouldering her. Even if it meant indulging her family.

To a point.

Her father was asking too much of her now. Of them. Jalal had prevented the arrest of her father and he was willing to cover her brother's scandal but what her father had just asked of him, Jalal would not allow it.

Barakah greeted her father and her brother and because she was no fool, she held the stance of a boulder. Firm and withstanding. Her eyes a window of scrutiny. Trying to figure them out. Jalal and Barakah were both aware, Mutalib and Muhammad as a front were rarely good news.

He didn't expect her forwardness when she took a seat beside him. So close, the smell of her passed through his inhales and her warmth a constant vibration of how important her life was to him.

"I've discussed it with Jalal already because when we arrived, you weren't here. But it's a thing you must know." The father spoke as if they had come to an understanding.

"You have my full attention Baba." Every bit of her focus on him.

"Ameenah has lived with a disorder all her life. An antisocial personality disorder. I suspect she's inherited it from my mother. Everything is still well in the dark because she can't be labeled as anything until she's in her twenties."

Jalal couldn't look at his wife to read and feel her out. Mutalib was the ace in the hole. It wasn't just for company he came. Jalal suspected Muhammad was too high and mighty in the head for a promising confrontation with him. So he bought his most negotiable son to hold the axe between them. Mutalib was there to serve as the barrier between Jalal and Muhammad. And should the axe fall, Mutalib would step in his father's steed and confront Jalal.

Her neck shifted and from his side vision, Jalal could feel the suspicion she faced her older brother with. She was becoming more Jali in the way that she no longer spoke if she felt it wasn't necessary.

"Only your mother and grandfather have known. We had our reasons. The primary one being your sister doesn't have a label yet. Not until she hits her twenties. And that she wasn't a helpless case with impulses. We've helped her as much as we can. She cares about you most of all." Ah, they were going for the heart.

"What was my grandmother?" She was yet to ask the most important question. But she was still asking the right things.

"Psychopath. Your sister's a psychopath."  Jalal would not allow them to bait her. All that beating around the bush because they were in trouble and were looking for any port in the storm to stifle the consequences.

The father seized him with a hard stare. His wife getting on edge.

"She's not been labeled one yet." The brother soothed. Hopelessly.