FLAWED SOULS

CHAPTER 47: SCATTERED HEARTS

In memory of my good friend Esaam who passed away on this day 2018, please say a prayer for him when you come across this.

We don't see things as they are, we see it as we are.

~Anaïs Nin

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It was the first day of the Ramadan fast, it was also the first they were spending together. Muhammad set the plate of pancakes on the table next to the flask of rice, Amirah brought the bowl containing stew before setting the mugs for tea, they were having their sahoor.

Sahoor was the meal eaten early in the morning, before the commencement of fast from sunrise to sunset.
She proceeded to prepare the tea as he dished out rice, and after they were done, they finally settled down to eat.

"First Ramadan as a married man." Muhammad said with a smile, Amirah looked up at him and said nothing.

"Normally I'll just wake up, drink milk and then go back to sleep until prayer time." He continued.

"Why?" She'd never spent Ramadan alone, she was always surrounded by her family. For sahoor, they'd wake up and prepare a large meal and then everyone will come to the table to fetch theirs. Baba will sit on a mat in the middle of the sitting room, where he'll be served.

Iftar- meal used to break the fast was a larger occasion as they also took food to the mosque for it to be distributed among the less privileged. Amirah smiled at the memory, she with a large cooler of masa and Khadijah with a smaller one filled with pap.

"I didn't want to be up early in the morning, eating alone." He said with a shrug.

Amirah eyed him, "didn't you eat dinner alone?"

"Believe me, the loneliness hits harder during Sahoor." He said cutting into the pancakes.

"I wouldn't know, I've never lived alone or slept alone in a house." Amirah replied.

"Never?"

She nodded, "never."

"Wow, maybe I should sleep in Abubakar's place one day just to leave you alone to sleep in the house." Muhammad said with a serious expression that unnerved Amirah.

"Don't you dare, I'll hunt you down and we'd sleep there together."

He laughed, "I'll never do that to you babe, most especially now."

"Now what?" She asked with a confused expression.

"Now that we're going to be parents." He said beaming, Amirah sighed. Few days back Muhammad had come home with the test results of her pregnancy test.
From the expression on his face, she already knew it'd be positive so she'd accused him of checking without her but he'd sworn he didn't and that the laboratory staffs had been the one to congratulate him.

"Yeah, now that we're going to be parents." She said trying to summon enthusiasm into her voice, Muhammad noticed.

"Hey, it'll be fine, you'll be fine and we? We'd definitely be fine." He said in an attempt of comfort but she stared at him blankly before swallowing a spoonful of rice.

"Amiraaaahh..." He drawled.

"Muhammaduu." She said matching his tone.

"It's normal to be scared, the thought that you'll become a mother but it's okay... We're in this together."