Barakah

- True Hate

1/09/2024

Barakah

Sleep dissolved to the sharp sound of a wailing child. Barakah Amal only rubbed at her face, her body and mind chasing, craving for the rest. She managed to sit up, the sun rays were wan from the bay window so she deduced she had been out for some time. And that only meant he was home early. She only got to nap when he was home early.

Stepping out, she found Munah tugging at her brother. Fuming with child anger. And Jalal, his attention seemed divided between his kids and his phone. He turned at the sound of her steps.

"You're just letting her tug at Farouk like that? She can be stubborn." She spoke only for his ears.

"She wouldn't hurt a fly."

"And your son?" She remained him.

"He'll be fine."

She only moved to gather Munah into her arms. It didn't help that she was a big child with meat on her. Chubby and tall for a child her age. And a mysterious mess too. Barakah wondered what the green splotch on the palm of her feet were. It was precious and peculiar, how the concavity within her chest wrung the blood in her circulation in both awe and pain, that she was growing healthy and strong and so quick.

"I'm not. She hits me all the time." Farouk glared at Munah who looked towards Jalal with a cry about to burst.

Jalal rushed for Munah, the familiar scent of him permeating her air. She let him take her because she calmed quicker with her father. Barakah was not fond of how much he indulged Munah but decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Normally, whenever she raised the topic, the roof in their home could barely contain them.

"She wanted to play with you and you kept ignoring her. She's frustrated and doesn't understand what she's feeling. You made your sister feel unwanted."

Farouk grew teary-eyed and it took all the patience in the world—she could not find any in herself— to not defend the boy. He was just a child. He didn't know all that. Barakah just knew better than taking sides. Family dynamics with multiple children were so delicate.

She did however sit him next to her and rub his back, "You're the best big brother in the world, it's why she always wants to play with you all the time."

He sat straighter then and told her coyly, "I like playing with her too. I just don't like it when she hits me."

"If she starts hitting you, come to me. You're a good boy for not hitting her back. I'll teach her to stop making my good boy sad."

She visibly watches his spirit mend and it's what makes her day. She knows it and she's scared everyone can tell. It's silly but it's who she is. She had been afraid once if Farouk would pale to her own child out of her own volition. How she let herself forget you love what you nurture as you love yourself. You love them more even because they give you purpose. They need your existence.

Farouk came into her life when she had no one and a history stamped with deceit. He was so much more than a child when they met. Farouk was the hope she could never summon back then. As she realized much later on when Yahya had asked her how it felt raising someone else's child now that she had her own. That those early days of her marriage she got out of bed for Farouk. She dressed to present herself to Farouk. She laughed and smiled for Farouk. She never sank for Farouk.

She only asked  Yahya what kind of a question that was? Do mothers forget their first born? Did her own mother forget them after she was born? Maybe it was an insecurity that shadowed him. But it wasn't her responsibility to change his narrative. But her mother did not fail him. Maybe she was now insecure too that Farouk would one day ask someone else that kind of a question.