Love from a to Z

by S. K. Ali

  “Now I’m Mom.” Sadia tilted her head and looked at me carefully like Mom did when she wanted to know stuff. “Does he treat his family well? Is he family minded?”

  “Oh for sure.” I nodded my head vigorously. “Like, his sister is special to him. And his mom, though she passed away.”

  “By the way, you are going to tell Mom and Dad, right?”

  “Yeah, I mean soon.” I made a face, imagining telling them. “How would I even do it?”

  “Can I? You know I’m good at that stuff.” She laughed. “Remember when I told them about Yasin?”

  “Oh God. This guy is the opposite of Yasin.” I perked up. She had actually done a good job of breaking the Yasin news. “Can you tell them, then? His mom was one of Auntie Nandy’s best friends, if they want to know more. But only say I met Adam—not that there’s anything major going on.”

  “Okay, I will. My love is calling me now.” She turned and laughed at Jamil, her fiancé, offscreen. Then she leaned in and whispered, “Take it from me—you want someone who’s good to his family like Jamil is. And here’s one more thing I want to leave you with. From Mom, Dad, and me: Make sure that you make the beginning of whatever you begin beautiful. Make it right by Mom and Dad. Make it right according to our deen. The beginning of something can determine the beauty of the entire thing, okay? So no alone times or coming closer than you should be, okay? That’s how Jamil and I did it, and, alhamdulillah, it’s been good for us. You know that.”

  I nodded my head at the same advice I’d heard tons of times—from everywhere: my family, the Muslim community, the mosque.

  It was easy to nod to, but I wondered if it was such an easy thing to do.

  ADAM

  SUNDAY, MARCH 17

  MARVEL: ZAYNEB AT THE PERFECT PLACE

  “WE CAN’T GO TO THE gift shop until the end,” Hanna announced as soon as we stepped into the museum’s hushed, light-filled foyer. “That’s my rule.”

  “Okay, what about my phone, Mr. Mellon? Can I keep that on me to take pictures?” I joked, walking slowly, setting each foot down deliberately to keep myself balanced, glad Dad had opted to not come with us.

  He’d apologized profusely for having to prep for a last-minute interview committee meeting to replace his deputy head of school. Hanna had crossed her arms, upset at first, but then succumbed to patting Dad’s head, saying, “It’s okay,” when she saw the stack of files he had to look through, his eyes already tired-seeming.

  But I said, Alhamdulillah, hallelujah, oh yeah, right away. Quietly, inside myself.

  Dad wasn’t here to see my first foray out after my MS scare.

  I could explain away the unsteadiness on my feet to Hanna (“hurt myself” was enough), but that feeble excuse wouldn’t have worked on him.

  Hanna skipped ahead until she got to the center of the lobby, where a marble staircase split into a pair of winding ones that met on the second story. She dipped her head right back on her neck to look up at the ceiling and then, still staring up, took her iPad out of the turquoise-sequined cross-body purse she wore.

  “My other rule is that you can take pictures of everything and anything that’s beautiful as much as you want so that you can remember this trip forever and ever,” she said when I reached her. She showed me ten photos that she’d just taken of the magnificent alcove ceiling above the staircase. At the center of the multilayered design was a star-shaped window to the sky. “See, my field trip rules are better than Mr. Mellon’s!”

  “Nice. Oh, wait. Remember I asked you if it’s okay if a friend came on our field trip?”

  “You mean Zayneb? She’s not a friend!” Hanna said. “She’s like a cousin. Because Dad told me Ms. Raymond was Mom’s best friend, so that makes her our aunt for all time. Anyone related to her is our cousin.”

  I nodded gravely while laughing inside, thinking of having to pretend to be cousins with Zayneb just a couple of days ago. “Yeah, so we have to wait for Zayneb, our cousin, at the fountain.”

  I couldn’t wait to see her again.

  Since we knew that we were okay with each other.

  More than okay, hopefully.

  Hanna took a few more pictures while I walked to the dark stone fountain that commanded the space behind the staircase. In an echo of the museum’s stunning ceiling, the water was contained within two niches, a star inside an octagon. Arranged neatly around the fountain, again with geometric precision, were square, white café tables, as well as neat pairs of white couches with low tables between them.

  I took a seat at one of the tables and looked out the tall windows at the water, Doha Bay, which almost completely surrounded the museum.

  This place, this perfect space, is my favorite spot in the whole city.

  It connects me to Dad and makes me understand why Doha is our home now.

  • • •

  After Mom passed away, Dad found it hard to work from his home office on Saturday afternoons, like he’d always done.

  For a while he shifted from room to room but then would end up staring into space or reading or watching something, with Hanna strapped into either a bouncy swing or a baby seat fitted with brightly colored, dangling toys bobbing above her head.

  And me? I disappeared.

  Because we had school the next day, the deal with Mom on Saturdays had been that if I got my homework done early, I could play an extra hour of video games on top of the hour she usually let me have each day.

  As Dad began flitting between rooms, when he went back to work after grievance leave, and things got back on schedule at home, I’d game for exactly two hours, shut in my room.

  At first.

  And then, after two weeks, with no one to check on me, I’d game for a bit more, then a bit more, then more, until I fell asleep with the controller in my hand.

  That’s when Dad began taking us out on Saturdays, whether homework was done or not. We went to different touristy spots around Doha, and he’d let me explore while he kept an eye on Hanna.

  The one place I’d ask to go back to again and again was the Museum of Islamic Art.

  There was a big playground outside that was fun—for Hanna and me, because it had equipment designed for different ages. Even a bungee trampoline that I was into and a kiddie carousel that preoccupied Hanna as she grew into toddlerhood. There were also bike rentals, and, during the cooler months, Dad would bring a tiny helmet and a portable bike seat for Hanna, and we’d ride around the horseshoe path edging the bay, looking out at the water and the skyline of cutting-edge architecture situated across it.

  Then one day we went into the museum itself after our bike ride, to get a snack at the café, and, when we got to our table with our drinks and cookies, Dad discovered that Hanna had fallen asleep in the bike seat he’d been carrying her in.

  We looked at each other, shocked.

  Until that point Hanna had been a no-sleep kid. Except when she’d drop at the end of the day, usually sometime between seven and ten o’clock, with no telling when her tiny form would be found curled up sleeping somewhere in the house.

  This didn’t mean she was hyperactive—because she wasn’t—just into doing things all the time. Sometimes quiet things, sometimes loud things, sometimes staring at an ant colony for hours while pretending to write about it in a “secret” notebook.

  She was just not into saying good-bye to the day because daylife was her friend.

  But here she was, at three years old, sleeping at four o’clock at the Museum of Islamic Art.

  Dad put a hand on her forehead. “She’s okay. No fever.”

  He gently put her upright seat into a chair between us. She continued sleeping.

  I passed Dad his drink from the tray I’d been holding and placed the plate of chocolate chip cookies at the center of the table. He stared at Hanna as he took a sip of his coffee.

  “Huh. I’ve never seen this.” He reached for a cookie and looked at me, stumped. “There’s a first for everything, I guess.”

 
; I nodded. “Maybe it was because she went on the carousel and rode on the bike.”

  “Yes, that could be it. It was a double-fun day for her.” Dad smiled. He lifted both his hands up in the air like Hanna did when she got excited. “Doubah fuun, she’d say.”

  “No, she’d say doubah doubah fuun fuun,” I clarified, dunking my warm cookie in the cold glass of milk in front of me. “She says the things she likes two times.”

  “You’re right. Especially if she liked each of them two times as much,” he said, laughing and nodding, popping the last of his cookie into his mouth. When he finished chewing, he asked, “What about you? Did you think it was doubah fun?”

  “Yeah.” I gave a thumbs-up. “Because this time I bounced back up the highest ever when I landed my somersault. On the trampoline.”

  “Ah, wish I’d seen.” He split his second cookie and held out half. “I already had one too many.”

  I took it and dunked it into my crumb-filled milk. “Dad, can we do this every week? The bungee trampoline and bike riding? And the carousel and riding for Hanna?”

  “Hmm.” He considered it and looked around at the café. It was quiet but also busy. Some people were talking in groups, others were working on their own or with company, laptops out. “But then we’ll end up going back home later, and then homework becomes later. My work becomes later too. Hanna becomes later. Speaking of which, we have to get a move on. Both of you need to take your baths, too.”

  I made a face and drank the rest of my milk. Hanna’s cookie remained on the plate so I slid a napkin toward me and folded and creased it and kept folding it like origami paper until I had a little envelope. I slipped the cookie in and enclosed it safely with a final napkin fold. “What about Hanna’s milk?”

  “I’ll ask for it in a to-go cup. Watch Hanna?” Dad got up and took the glass of milk with him.

  Instead of watching Hanna, I watched Dad.

  The way he bowed slightly and put a hand to his heart when he almost bumped into a custodian wiping tables.

  He’d been teaching me about Islam for almost a year, and for a while I’d wanted to tell him I wanted to do the things he did too. Go to the mosque or prayer rooms at malls or other places when it was prayer time, instead of watching Hanna outside like I did. Go to jumah on Fridays, instead of staying home with Marta.

  I also wanted to fast for Ramadan like he had done for the first time that year, and then I wanted to break the fasts with him, when he’d close his eyes after taking that first bite of a date, saying a prayer of gratitude.

  I also wanted to hold my hand to my heart like him, like he just did now, like he did whenever he said salaam, peace, to someone, closing his eyes again, like he was grateful for that, too.

  He had told me a long time ago that what he liked best about being Muslim was the peace to be found in it.

  Maybe that’s why he touched his heart. Because the peace was there.

  When he came back to the table, I burst out with it. “Dad, can I be Muslim too? Now?”

  He put Hanna’s cup of milk on the table, then sat down. “Why?”

  I was going to say because I want to go to the places you go to and do the things you do and say the words you say and touch my heart the same way, but then I looked up at the staircase behind Dad. The one that split into two and then met again up higher, under a light coming straight down on it from even higher, from the sky itself. “Because I want to have peace too. Like you.”

  He sat back. “I actually don’t have peace, Adam.”

  “You don’t?” Surprised, I slumped down on the table.

  “No.” He sighed. “But I look for it.”

  “But then didn’t you say you like being Muslim because there’s peace in it?”

  “Well, I like looking for it, for the peace in things. That’s why I’m a Muslim. It’s someone who knows there’s more to life than just going through it, letting things happen. I make sense of everything, that there’s more to it than just me and my worries, knowing it’s all connected.”

  “Like the sky? And the world and everything in it?”

  “Yup, everything. Bad and good, sad and happy. All connected to God.”

  “I like that too. I believe that too.” I lifted my head from the table and said, “So can I?”

  “Yes, you can.” He smiled. “You can seek peace with me.”

  • • •

  After I became Muslim, the Friday of that same week at the mosque, we began going to the museum every Saturday, me bringing my homework, Dad bringing his head-of-school work, and, after having doubah fuun time with Hanna and her falling asleep, we would eat a snack, chat a bit, and then do our work at the café, across from each other.

  Those Saturdays helped Dad find peace after Mom’s death.

  And they helped me find Dad.

  And Hanna find sleep.

  • • •

  “Our cousin is here!” Hanna said, coming over to the fountain with Zayneb.

  I stood up.

  She had on the same brilliant blue hijab I’d first seen her in, but this time her face wasn’t taken over by the frown she’d worn while reading her phone at the airport.

  Today it was lit by a smile, which became happier when she saw me.

  “Assalamu alaikum,” I said, touching my hand to my heart, to quell the thrill of seeing her—more than due to the peace in my heart.

  In reality, it was the opposite of peace in there. Excitement central would be a better way to describe it.

  “Walaikum musalam!” she answered, infusing the greeting with bubbly energy. She looked at Hanna. “I heard there’s an awesome exhibit we’ve just got to see.”

  “That’s right, the Rare Jewels of an Empire.” I gestured for her and Hanna to go ahead, and, when they did, I took a step to test myself, to check my abilities once more. This had become my way now whenever I started moving again after being stationary—ever since that fall off my bed, shocking more my mind and my confidence than my body. “I don’t know the specific empire we’re talking about, but have no fear; we have an expert with us. Hanna Chen, future gemologist.”

  “It’s the Mungal empire,” Hanna told Zayneb, walking beside her, iPad out.

  “The Mongol or the Mughal?” Zayneb asked.

  “M-U-G-H-A-L,” Hanna spelled out from her iPad.

  “The Mughals of India. So I know I’m going to love this. It’s part of my cultural background,” she said, slowing her stride to include me, to let me catch up. “My father’s family is from Pakistan, which was part of the Indian subcontinent, and of course under Mughal rule.”

  I nodded, remembering some of Dad’s history lessons. “And your mom is Caribbean, obviously. Like Ms. Raymond.”

  “My mom’s parents are Trinidadian and Guyanese, so yeah, West Indian. Which, I guess, means that that part of my family was also part of the Mughal Empire. Because they originally came from the Indian subcontinent.” She beamed. “I actually really like learning about my heritage. Because we don’t learn much of it at school back home. Mostly just Greek and Roman cultures. And Egyptian, sometimes.”

  “You know, one side of my Dad’s family, generations past, migrated as laborers to Jamaica from China, decades ago. He’s been trying to get information on them for a while. He’s also into history in a big way.” I paused when we got to the stairs.

  “I thought he was supposed to come today?” Zayneb stopped too and looked at the stairs. Hanna was already at the landing where the staircase split into two sides.

  She held up her iPad and snapped a picture of us and then exclaimed, “Cousins forever!”

  Zayneb and I looked at each other and laughed.

  “I promise I didn’t tell her that,” I said, shaking my head, hoping I wasn’t turning red. Hanna. “My dad had a last-minute thing come up at school. Hey, I’m going to take the elevator, just over there. Mind going up with Hanna?”

  “No problem!” She waved and proceeded to the stairs. “Meet you at the rare jewels?�
��

  I nodded as Hanna bounded up and Zayneb began climbing.

  • • •

  In the elevator alone, I tried to tell myself not to think about what was happening right now.

  Here was a girl I was interested in, way more than any other girl I’d met before. Actually, way more than any other person I’d met before.

  Who had something, a spark, who showed an interest in things, who was confidently alive, and here we were having to split up because I couldn’t walk with her.

  Adam, this may not be the time to begin anything.

  And there it was, the voice of reason, of pragmatism, that ruled my life, that I didn’t want to listen to today.

  Not the right time for love, it whispered again as the elevator doors opened.

  I tested a tentative step out and then sped up, holding on to the wall, to leave that crippling voice behind in the elevator.

  We were meant to meet.

  I believe that there’s a connection between the things that happen to us, beyond ourselves. Like Dad taught me to believe.

  And I’ve believed this way for seven years.

  Zayneb and I were meant to cross paths. I want to get to know her, keep her showing up in my life.

  This was the script I used to replace the thoughts I didn’t want inside anymore.

  I want to keep her showing up in my life was in my head as I entered the darkened exhibit hall and saw the back of that blue hijab, under a spotlight, in front of a display.

  She turned, face full of life, eyes dancing with excitement, and I thought, Yeah, she’s a marvel meant to be in my life.

  ZAYNEB

  SUNDAY, MARCH 17

  MARVEL: ADAM . . . AND HIS SOUL

  EXHIBIT A: HIM, AT THE museum.

  One of the reasons Ayaan said she loves being Muslim is because it makes her feel like a natural feminist. “Like, hello? Our queen Khadija didn’t wait for the man she had her eye on to ask her, to get on his knees. Nope. Instead, she said, I like you, oh employee of mine. Will you marry me? And then, after they hitched, she just kept her job as his boss. Mad respect.”