Just Make Du'aa

• t h i r t y • o n e •

Farouz

    Amity’s resume was way more impressive than Dina said it would be. She didn’t only work for her father during high school. She worked at the financial aid office for the university and at multiple banks over her time in college. “How did you have time for all of this?” I asked, looking across my desk at my interviewee, “this is really impressive.”
    She waved her hand as if it was nothing, “have to pay off those loans somehow, right?
    I nodded, “this is really great, thank you.” Amity’s interview went smoothly, better than I expected. She knew her stuff, and the level of professionalism shocked me. I’ve been going through interviews for the past week, and I can honestly say she’s in my top three. “Okay,” I set her file down, “would it be okay with you if I kept this, I’d like to look over the recommendation letters again before I make a decision.”
    Amity smiled, “of course.”
    “Alright, I’ll let you know as soon as I make a decision.” She stood up as I did, and didn’t shake my hand. A lot of the women I interviewed did, and I couldn’t stop them. But Amity knew about my religion and my beliefs, so she nodded her head respectfully as I did. And excused herself before leaving.
    Both she and Dina had told me time and time again over this past week not to let our personal relationship affect my decision. As I thought about it though, I remembered having to explain my religion and all the limits to Kassandra. The thought of doing all of that again exhausted me. Of course I could hire a man, but my top three were all women; they had the best interviews and resumes. The more I thought about it, the more appealing Amity’s interview looked. She really did have a lot of experience, and from seeing her outside of a professional environment I knew she had the personality needed for dealing with patients like mine.
    My decision was made by the time I pulled up to my house.
    “Assalamualaikum,” my voice traveled through the house and no reply traveled back; weird, because I remember Dina saying she’d be leaving her internship early today to prepare dinner for tonight. Last week I suggested we have our friends over for a low key night in. It’s been too long since we all got together, and we were the only ones with a house people could meet in, so I thought it would be cool. Of course, when I suggested that, what I had in mind was some snacks and nothing more. Dina, however, insisted she cook a full dinner. She immediately started planning all the food she would cook. Then last night she got a call from her supervisor asking her to come in today. My wife seemed a little stressed about it, but she said we could still pull it together if she got off early enough. I even decided to leave work early so I could help; but a quick check around the house confirmed that she wasn’t here.
    The panic started to set in after I called her twice and she didn’t pick up. I knew how much this meant to Dina, she wouldn’t just drop it! And even if she did, she’d tell me. I called Amity, and she also didn’t know where my wife was.
    About an hour and a few more attempts at calling her later, I decided to go look for her. I didn’t really know where to start but anything was better than just sitting around! As I was about to leave, my phone rang, and when I saw the caller ID I practically dived for the phone. “Dina? Are you okay? Where have you been is everything okay?”
    “Hey baby,” she said casually, “everything is fine? Why? Are you okay?”
    “Yeah I’m fine, where have you been? You haven’t been answering my calls and you said you’d be home early and it’s already 3! God, Dina, I’ve been so worried.”
    “Okay, deep breaths Farouz. I’m sorry, I got pulled into a meeting that went a bit late. They didn’t really give me a choice,” she huffed at that, clearly annoyed. “I didn’t tell you because I figured I’d be done before you got home anyway. You said you were working until 5, remember?”
    Now I felt stupid, “ugh, yeah. Wow I’m dumb. I left work early so I could help you get ready for tonight and when I didn’t find you at home I panicked. I may have overreacted,” I felt my face heat up with embarrassment, “sorry.”
    Her laugh filled the line, “awe, you were worried about me.” I could hear the teasing pout in her voice, “how cute.”
    “Oh shush,” I huffed, a smile I tried to fight made its way to my lips. “Whatever. Are you on your way home now? Are you coming by bus?”
    “Yeah, I’m waiting for a bus.”
    “Alright, keep waiting I’m coming to get you. The bus will just take forever.”
    She offered no argument. When I went to pick Dina up I noticed immediately that she looked a little put off, “you’re upset,” I stated, “why?”
    “Stop it,” she chuckled, “don’t use your psychologist eyes on me!”
    I shrugged, defensive, “I can just tell your upset am I not allowed to notice when my wife is in a bad mood?”
    She smiled and shrugged as well, “sorry. It’s just there’s no way I can prepare dinner on time now! They were supposed to be here by 8? It’s almost 5 already. I was really looking forward to it, that’s all.”
    My right hand traveled to hers and she immediately wove her fingers through mine, “hey, that’s okay. Your internship is way more important. And we can still make a dinner! It just won’t be as fancy as you’d hoped. We can make pasta or something.”
    “Pasta?” she scoffed.
    “We’ll think of something! Don’t worry about it.”
    “I know,” she held my hand up to her face and ran my knuckles down her jaw subconsciously. That was a new habit she’d developed, she did it without any thought, it was my favorite new thing. “But like, Aladdin’s home is here so he eats with his family a lot. But Amity and Brendan live on their own and they eat cheap, available, food. I wanted to do this for them.”
    I pulled her hand and gave it a quick kiss, “Mashallah, you’re so sweet Dina. We’ll find something, alright?”
    “Mmmh, okay,” she smiled, finally giving in, “I’m not gonna stress over this. You’re right.”
    “Of course I am,” I smirked.
    She shoved my head lightly, “oh be quiet!”
***
    I stepped back and looked at the assortment of food set on the counter, “told you we could pull it off.”
    Dina dried her hands and came to stand next to me. In a little over three hours we managed to make a good quantity of shawarma wraps, and with that we made soup and salad. “This was all you,” she hummed, hugging my arm.
    That wasn’t entirely true, I had come up with the idea to use the chicken we bought yesterday for the wraps. Dina was worried we wouldn’t be able to get it prepped in time so I took on the liberty of prepping it while she made soup and salad. The we did the wraps together. I could have very well pointed that out and shared the credit, but the affection I was getting from her as a cause of this gratitude prompted me to keep my mouth shut.
    She pulled away from me and sighed, “I should go get changed, my clothes smell like kitchen.” Then Dina turned around to face me and placed her face near my chest, “ugh, you should change too. Hurry up! They’ll be here any minute.”
    In a couple hours our friends were gathered around the small dining table, happy with the food and the fact that we were all seeing each other after too long. Brendan was snitching on Aladdin, telling us about how Aladdin had shown up at his apartment at 3 in the morning and asked him to go bowling. “He’d gone insane!” Brendan exclaimed, “that’s the only solution. You’re insane.” He pointed at Aladdin, who was bend over the table in fits of laughter.
    When he finally gathered enough strength to stop laughing, Ali shrugged, “listen, it was during midterms week. And you both know how I get when I’m stressed.”
    I rolled my eyes, “oh yeah, this was mild compared to the other stuff he’s done, Brendan.”
    “What?” Dina exclaimed, clearly enjoying a peek into how my life was before her, “what else has he done?”
    A smile made its way to my lips at the memory, “one time he woke me up at five.” As soon as I spoke, Aladdin groaned, clearly embarrassed by this memory.
    “We don’t have to share this one,” he said sheepishly, knowing very well I was going to tell the story anyway.
    “And he was a mess! This guy never studies, never. So when exams roll around he just pities himself. Of course he was probably studying all night, and I guess he snapped. So he shows up at my door in some wrinkled pajamas and says, ‘lets go to the beach.’”
    “The beach?” Amity scoffed, “we’re hours from the nearest beach.”
    “I know,” I responded, “that’s what I told him. But you try talking this guy out of something he sets his mind to! He made me cancel all my appointments that day and we dragged Brendan out of bed and drove for hours to the beach! And the whole time he’s a stress bomb ready to explode. He was studying as we drove. Then when we get there, we all step out and he–”
    “Oh God,” Aladdin groaned, then busied himself with his food.
    “We all step out, he takes one look at the water and starts crying.”
    Brendan and I couldn’t hold back our laughter anymore. I leaned back and continued to laugh at the memory as Brendan slapped the table because he was laughing so hard. Dina studied Aladdin, who was red but smiling, with a pitying expression. “How is that funny?” She almost sounded as if she was scolding me.
    “Wait for it,” Aladdin piped.
    “He was so over dramatic!” My voice got higher as I tried to speak through my laughter, “fell to his knees and yelled about how tired he was of everything. Then he gets all quiet and walks back to the car. Calmly takes out his textbooks and everything, walks into the water, and–”
    “Mind you,” Brendan interrupts, “he went from a full fledged meltdown to stone cold silence in a second! I remember Farouz was genuinely concerned, he was there trying to calm him down. And when Ali started walking towards the water Farouz turned ghost pale. He was genuinely afraid for Ali’s life.”
    “I was worried!” I defended, my face heating up, “stop, this isn’t a story to embarrass me.”
    Dina spoke up, “you were worried about him, I think that’s sweet.”
    She said that and everything stilled for a minute as our eyes met. A single praise like that from her had the power to set my chest aflame. She looked so beautiful, sitting here between my friends and listening to our stories, her eyes big as she took in everything she could from my life before her. It registered yet again how in love I was with her, and it blew the air right out of my lungs.
    “Oof you two,” Amity waved her hand between us, “chill out! You’ve got guests. Tell the rest of the story Farouz, you can love on each other when we leave.”
    Aladdin choked at the directness of her words and I felt my neck turn red again. Dina simply just rolled her eyes, probably used to her friend’s blunt attitude by now. “Um, okay, anyway,” I chuckled. “He takes his stuff and walks into the water until it’s up to his hips. Then he yells at the top of his lungs and flings his books as far as he can into the water!”
    Brendan was laughing again, and I continued to tell the story as Aladdin finally started chuckling at the memory. “That’s when Brendan and I start running, and B is screaming all these curse words at him because this idiot just flung like $700 worth of stuff into the ocean. By the time we reach him, I guess he snaps back to the real world.” I took a deep breath before continuing, “he whispers, ‘oh shit’ before diving into the water and trying to get them back! We spent hours trying to find his notebooks and textbooks.”
    “Damn, man!” Amity exclaimed, looking over at Aladdin, “did you get the books?”
    “We found most of the stuff but it was wrecked,” he said, wiping at his eyes, “I don’t know what came over me. I had to borrow money from my parents to buy that stuff again and my mom still won’t let me forget!”
    “I don’t blame her,” Brendan snickered, “you’re an idiot.”
    Aladdin waved him off, I watched the two start bickering when out of the corner of my eye, Dina started to clear the table. Instinctually, I followed her lead, and started gathering things to take back to the kitchen. “Farouz,” she said, softly. My name on her lips coming out like honey, every time I hear it sounds like the first time.
    “Yeah?” I asked, trying to keep a straight face.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Helping you pick up ba–Dina.” Brendan chuckled, Aladdin punched his shoulder.
    She smiled, her cheeks turning pinkish from the slip of my pet name to her. “Sit down with your friends. I’ll take care of the table.”
    I gave her a pointed look, “that’s not happening, we clear the table together.”
    “Farouz–”
    “Dina!”
    “Ya Allah, Farouz! I want to do this.”
    Amity stood up, “I feel like my parents are arguing!” She joked, “how about we all help? Yeah, then we can sit back and relax together.” She turned to Brendan and Aladdin, who were sitting back and watching this happen with amused expressions. “Get up, that means you too!”
    We all quickly cleared the table, Dina assumed the dishwasher role. I helped her finish up and in about twenty minutes the kitchen was spotless, tea was made, and we were all sitting in the living room. Brendan downloaded a charades game on his phone and we all spent hours playing that. Amity and Dina insisted we do boys against girls; turns out they’ve played this game plenty of times before. So they completely demolished us. We all kept playing and talking until it was suddenly 2am. Our friends said their goodbyes and left. Dina and I were alone once again.
    My wife walked into the bedroom without a word. I followed her in to see that she’d thrown herself horizontally on the bed. “Tired?” I asked, moving to lay next to her. I wrapped my arms around her body and pulled her back against my chest.
    “Mmhm,” she mumbled softly, her reply vibrating against me. “Ugh, I want to stay like this forever,”she said, taking my hand in hers and giving it a small kiss.
    “Stay then,” I chuckled, “where do you have to go?”
    She pulled herself away, “I need to shower, and change into some pajamas.” My arms loosened so she could get up, “you too,” Dina pointed at me, “and we can pray Isha together.”
    We finished prayer and Dina shuffled quickly to put her stuff away and get under the covers. “Are you really that tired?” I asked as I folded my prayer rug.
    My wife hummed a reply, then turned to face me when I slid next to her, “I have work early tomorrow.”
    Scooting closer until I felt her legs again, “take a day off, let’s sleep in and watch movies all day tomorrow.”
    She hummed, her eyes already dripping with sleep. “Tempting, but I can’t. Have to maintain a good reputation so they can hire me.”
    I wanted to plead until she agreed to stay with me tomorrow, but I needed to respect her job. “Okay, I can atleast drive you?”
    The reply didn’t come, Dina was already fast asleep.
***
    I thought I heard a phone ring, but I was being pulled in and out of sleep. When I regained consciousness I could faintly make out Dina’s voice, my sleep filled mind didn’t connect that to the ringtone I previously heard, and I was pulled back into sleep.
    The next time I woke up was because she wasn’t next to me when I reached for her. At first I tried to go back to sleep, she was in the bathroom or something. But the minutes stretched and she didn’t return. I went to look for her and found her in the living room. Sitting on a couch with her knees tucked under her chin and her arms loosely wrapped around them, holding her phone in her right hand.
    Suddenly everything I heard while sleeping connected, “what is it?” I asked, sitting next to her, my hands automatically reaching for hers, she kept them latched together though, not seeing me, “who was on the phone.”
    Her eyes were glazed over, focused somewhere I couldn’t reach. I called her name a couple more times before she turned to look at me, “it’s um,” she glanced down and her nose turned a rosy red. When she looked up at me her eyes were brimming with tears. “My grandma’s dying.” My heart ached when she tried to force a smile but faltered, Dina wiped away a tear that made its way to the top of her nose, “I knew it was going to happen, you know? It’s just so soon.”
    I didn’t know what to say, my wife was sniffling softly next to me, waiting for me to speak up but I had no idea what to do to comfort her. I’ve never dealt with a loss like this. My parents didn’t keep in contact with their families, so I didn’t know who they were. I had lost my sister, but I hadn’t even met her, that’s nothing compared to what Dina must be feeling, “When did you last see her?”
    “When I was 17,” her voice cracked, it’s been so long, “my parents are flying down tomorrow to say goodbye.”
    “Well then let’s go!” I encouraged.
    She smiled, “Farouz you can’t just leave your work with no secretary and–”
    “I was going to hire Amity,” she gave me a wide eyed look, “the plan was to call her from my office, but I can explain enough through a phone call or email for her to be able to keep the place going until we’re back. And I’ll cancel all of my appointments.”
    Dina shook her head, “Honey you –”
    “Baby, do you want to go?”
    She bit her lip, her nose still red and her eyes still teary as they looked into mine, thinking my question over. “Yes.”
    “Then let’s go. I’ll sort everything out with Amity, don’t worry about a thing. I’ll go book plane tickets right now.”
    Her hand grasped mine as I stood up, when I looked back more tears had fallen onto her blushed skin. “Can you just sit with me for a while?” she asked, her voice broken. “Just stay with me.”
    So I sat back down, and collected my wife in my arms. She rested her head in the crook of my neck and let out a shaky breath. My hands drew patterns on her arm and back, and I held her.

n. I'm uploading this chapter off my phone. So I'm very sorry if it looks weird. It's 4am right now and I'm packing to go on vacation but I thought I owed you all an update. I'm not sure how many chapters are left, but the story is nearing a close!! What do you all think so far? What do you think is gonna happen next?

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See you soon. N.