Under the Olive Tree

32. Itnan Wa'Ishrun

No word had come from the Occupational Forces regarding neither Muhsin nor Fayza. Nobody knew if the silence was good or carried dreadful news that would come in the back of a silent ambulance. Every time Um Muhsin or Amani would visit the detainment center to request a visit with either of them, they would be turned away with no reason of why.

Amani's family had extended their visit indefinitely until Muhsin and Fayza returned. For the time being, Amani spent her days and nights at Um Muhsin's house to help. She'd never been in the home while Fayza and Muhsin were around but Amani still felt the emptiness their absence created.

It was silent.

Sometimes, it was scary.

Um Muhsin hadn't eaten anything. She refused to sit at the dinner table at all. Amani knew the two empty seats would tear the woman apart, so she let her eat in the room.

Amjad and Ezzo did not fight as much. In fact, they never wanted to leave one another's side. She took them to play with her brother and visit the playground. Every time she did, it reminded her of how much more enthusiastic they were before. How their smiles hardly ever left their faces and their feet could not step carrying them around. Now, they barely wanted to leave their home as if their temporary absence might cause their mother more pain.

Amani couldn't even visit the graveyard anymore.

The streets felt colorless and boring.

At night, she would put Amjad and Ezzo to bed with a bed time story she dragged out as long as she could to make sure they fell asleep in fleeting distraction. When that happened, the home become ghostly. She'd been given Muhsin's bedroom. Part of her questioned its cruelty, but she knew there was no other place for her to stay.

On her way there, Amani would hear Um Muhsin weeping in Fayza's bedroom. At first, she would listen by the door to the mother trying to keep her cries quiet so nobody would hear her broken heart. Amani had to fight her own tears every time she heard Um Muhsin try to even her breathing and muffle her sniffles in her handkerchief. She wanted to enter and hold the mother who couldn't stop crying for her children, but Amani knew she couldn't.

Instead, she started going directly to Muhsin's bedroom and closing the door before she could hear the quiet sobs. When she did that, Amani began feeling her own heartbreak more and more. With every night that passed, the chances of Muhsin coming back seemed to grow fainter in the distance.

His scent left the pillow after a while and Amani could no longer fall asleep imagining him beside her. One night, she opened his wardrobe in hopes of finding something with the faintest trace of him so she could stop her racing thoughts and fall asleep.

Instead, Amani was met with a blast of his scent. It entered her nares and sat deep within her lungs, stronger than any scent she'd ever smelled on him before. Whereas she'd been searching for even the faintest breath of his existence, his clothes had given her a world of his presence. As she reached forward to touch the clothes, Amani recognized each thobe.

The black one he'd worn when they first met in the graveyard.

The brown one that matched his hair so well.

The white one she'd dreamt of....

The same white one he'd married her in.

And Amani found herself feeling every inch of longing and hopelessness and pain Um Muhsin must have felt all this time. She clapped her hand over her mouth as her lungs involuntarily contracted in reaction to the sudden weakness in her legs. Amani dropped onto the floor in front of his clothes, gripping the bottom of the white thobe in front of her.