His Other Wife

by Umm Zakiyyah

  “But that doesn’t make any sense…”

  “It makes sense,” Larry said frankly. “One thing I learned in the dunya is that you can’t help an ex-girlfriend without your current girlfriend giving you hell.”

  “Girlfriend?” Aliyah recoiled. “I barely knew Jacob before he married Deanna.”

  “I’m sorry,” Larry said sincerely. “I meant, you can’t help a woman you wanted to marry without upsetting your wife.”

  Aliyah brought a hand to her mouth. “You told Deanna about Jacob’s phone call?” A second later she realized that the question made no sense. They were talking about what happened more than six months ago, long before Jacob’s phone call to Benjamin.

  “No,” Larry said, shaking his head. “I’m talking about when he wanted to marry you before he married Deanna.”

  Aliyah drew her eyebrows together. “I think you’re confusing his phone call to my uncle with me getting the job at the college,” she said. “Those were at least six months apart.”

  Larry was silent as he studied Aliyah momentarily as if realizing something all of a sudden. “I think you’re right,” he said noncommittally. “I think I’m confusing those things.”

  Aliyah nodded. But something about the way Larry averted his eyes as he spoke left her with the lingering feeling that he was not telling her something.

  Chapter 7

  When a Man Loves a Woman

  “Marriage isn’t hard work,” Deanna said, a bright smile on her face as she sat opposite the talk show host. “It’s work, yes, but not hard work. It’s only hard work for people who don’t understand what marriage means.”

  “So,” the interviewer said, puzzlement on her face, “are you saying that all the experts and married couples are wrong when they say marriage is hard work?”

  “No,” Deanna said. “I’m saying they are ignorant of the meaning of marriage. Or they have bad marriages.”

  “That’s a really provocative statement.” The interviewer shifted in her seat then leaned forward. “So tell me, is this point of view based on your professional opinion, or your religion?”

  “Both, actually,” Deanna said, pride in her voice. “Islam teaches us that God is the foundation of all our relationships, so when you understand this, life isn’t so difficult, and everything begins to fall in line. Only people without a proper understanding of God and the sacred bond of marriage have serious problems in their lives and marriages.”

  “But what about divorce? Certainly, people of your faith experience this problem like everyone else.”

  “Yes, they do,” Deanna said, frowning briefly. “But only the Muslims who are ignorant and take marriage lightly. If they were really following their faith and valuing their relationships, they wouldn’t be in th—”

  Jacob turned and walked toward the kitchenette around the corner, mentally shutting out Deanna’s voice. He needed a shot of coffee before he joined his wife on the set. It was a few minutes past 7:30 on Sunday morning, and he was already regretting getting out of bed. He had agreed to this interview weeks ago, but he was beginning to wonder if it would be wrong to back out right then.

  In the kitchenette, Jacob removed the glass pot of coffee from the hot plate and filled an insulated paper cup. Only people without a proper understanding of God and the sacred bond of marriage have serious problems in their lives and marriages. Jacob clenched his jaw in annoyance. How could Deanna say something so recklessly stupid? He hated when Muslims touted the “Islam will solve all your problems” line. It was such a load of bull. Maybe Islam offered the best spiritual guidelines when facing the inevitable problems in life and marriage, but it certainly didn’t guarantee that the more serious problems of life and marriage would skip you. And, heck, marriage is hard work, he thought to himself, even if you have a proper understanding of God and the sacred marriage bond.

  Then again, Deanna might be on to something, he considered. Maybe Jacob was one of the ones stuck in a bad marriage.

  Jacob stirred sugar and cream into his coffee and carried it back to the set. As he waited behind the cameras for the cue to sit on the couch next to Deanna, he mentally planned the most strategic way to offset the absurdity his wife was sharing with the world about Islam and marriage.

  “How could you do something like that?” Deanna said an hour later, glaring at him from the passenger seat as he drove back home. “That was so disrespectful. We’re a team. You don’t undermine my advice in public. If you disagree with me, you do it privately.”

  “I didn’t undermine your advice,” Jacob replied, surprised by the sense of calm he felt after having spoken his mind instead of parroting the lines that he knew Deanna expected of him. “I offered a different perspective.”

  “You can offer a different perspective when we’re alone.”

  “Not when you’re offering yours in the public.”

  “But I’m the marriage expert,” Deanna said, fury lacing her words. “How do you think that makes me look to have my own husband saying I’m wrong?”

  “Truthfully?” Jacob glanced toward his wife then back at the road as he guided the car along the interstate. “I think it makes you look like a human being instead of a self-righteous know-it-all. And,” he said before she could cut in, “it also makes Muslims look like human beings instead of self-righteous know-it-alls.”

  Jacob could almost taste the disgust in Deanna’s glare, but he refused to back down. The mere thought of her audacity infuriated him. “You have no right to speak on behalf of Allah and Islam when you share your views on marriage,” he said, narrowing his eyes toward the road in front of him. “It’s one thing to say ‘In my professional opinion,’ but it’s another entirely to say that the people who aren’t Muslim or who have serious relationship struggles are effectively godless, ignorant, or doomed to bad marriages. You do not have that right.”

  “I have an obligation to speak the truth,” Deanna retorted. “And if you find that too difficult to be a part of…” She sniffed haughtily. “…then you can go back to focusing on fashion fads and mathematical formulas. I, on the other hand, have a higher purpose in life.”

  “You’d do well to make your primary purpose keeping your mouth shut from time to time,” Jacob spat, the fire of anger flaring inside him. “You have no idea how many lives you’re ruining every time you open it.” Jacob huffed, tired of politely listening to all of his wife’s holier-than-thou rants. For years he’d assumed she was the expert on marital life, but he’d recently begun to realize that she was an expert on only marital theory.

  The car swerved as Jacob’s head jerked to the side with the sting of Deanna’s slap. Car horns sounded as he quickly regained control of the vehicle and steered the car back into the center of its lane. Pain pulsated from his cheek and he gritted his teeth to calm the conflagration of rage sweeping through him. He willed himself not to look in Deanna’s direction or to even acknowledge her violent outburst. Over the years, he’d learned that giving even the slightest attention to her slaps, hits, punches, or kicks, even if only in argument or protest, only fueled her enragement. So he’d learned to go inside himself until her fit of anger passed.

  He knew the routine. She rarely apologized with words, but she would pour out her apology in the minutest of details in preparing his favorite meal, in the touch of perfume on her clothes, and in the alluring, sensual smile and coquettish words as she coaxed him into the blind passion of sexual intimacy that lasted late into night. He hated himself for looking forward to it, but it was difficult not to relish in that pleasurable release. But as he guided the car onto the exit toward their home, there was an unfamiliar surge of resistance that unleashed a heartfelt determination in two words. No more.

  Jacob had no idea where this wave of strength was coming from, but it reminded him of the determination he’d felt after he accepted Islam and his mother refused to speak to him. During that time, his mother threatened to fire him from the PR firm and to remove his partial ownership in the corpo
ration if he insisted on remaining Muslim. No more, he’d told himself at the time, sparking his determination to get a doctorate in mathematics so that he could stand on his own two feet without his mother’s support. He was not his father, he’d told himself at the time. He was not going to allow the sway of a woman’s social and financial status to be a constant tool in her emotional manipulation of him, even if that woman was his own mother. He refused to voluntarily subject himself to emasculation at that hands of anyone, man or woman.

  But had he been blindsided from the emotional manipulation in his own marriage? Had his wife’s marital “expertise” and Islamic identity served as blinders to the possibility that he was living merely another version of his father’s existence? The thought terrified him. Perhaps Jacob himself was like Deanna, imagining that a proper belief in God and a strong educational background protected him from the humiliating existence of “other people.”

  Or maybe he was, as Deanna often said in a fit of anger, a “poor excuse for a husband” who was lucky that someone as beautiful, intelligent, and prominent as Deanna even looked his way and agreed to marry him.

  ***

  “Oooooh. It looks like Larry finally got over Jasmine!”

  Laughter still echoed in Aliyah’s mind as she pulled the covers over her head Sunday morning shortly after praying Fajr, trying to make up for her restlessness the night before. She had to work tomorrow morning, and though she still had a full day ahead of her before she had to worry about that, Ibrahim was staying with her until that evening. So she wouldn’t be able to sleep as much as she’d like, especially if she couldn’t stop thinking about this “Jasmine” person.

  “Who’s Jasmine?” Aliyah had asked Larry on the phone last night. A week had passed since she’d visited his aunt’s house, but no matter how hard she tried to push his family’s teasing out of her mind, she couldn’t. After talking to her uncle Benjamin, Aliyah was on the verge of accepting Larry’s marriage proposal. But she was beginning to fear that she was about to repeat the same mistake she’d made with Matthew. Had she known that Matt was still getting over an ex-girlfriend, perhaps she would have never married him. The soul’s attachment to false beliefs might be completely erased upon accepting Islam, but the heart’s attachment to former relationships certainly were not.

  “She’s my ex-girlfriend,” Larry had told her nonchalantly. “My family is constantly making bets that I’ll never move on.”

  “Oh…” There was a litany of questions storming Aliyah’s mind after hearing Larry’s response, but she had been unable to articulate a single one. But even if she had been able to think of a sensible response, it was no use. Seconds later, Larry had already moved on to another topic.

  “Have you thought any more about what we talked about?” he’d said.

  “About what?” Aliyah said, distracted by thoughts of Jasmine.

  “Marrying me,” Larry said.

  “Oh, well, I…” There you go again, Aliyah had thought to herself. Why did she find it so hard to express herself to Larry? Did she think he wouldn’t understand her doubts and fears? “…have to think about it.”

  Larry chuckled. “That’s what you said last week.”

  “Larry,” Aliyah had said, exhaling her apology, “I just came from a really bad marriage. It’s not easy to just pick up and start all over again. I have a four-year-old son. I have my…” Aliyah’s words trailed as she realized that nothing she said after mention of Ibrahim would make any sense to Larry. She didn’t even fully understand the apprehension herself. She was about to mention her job at the college and her strained relationship with her family. But what they had to do with her reluctance to marry again, she had no idea. Or perhaps they were merely the excuses she’d used so often to get out of other things that she now imagined they would somehow allow her to wriggle out of this.

  “I don’t mind being a stepfather to Ibrahim,” Larry said. “I have a pretty big extended family, and I take care of my young cousins all the time. In fact, I grew up helping my aunts and uncles with their children.”

  That’s beside the point, Aliyah thought to herself. It wasn’t Larry’s adjustment to change that she was most worried about. It was Ibrahim’s. He’d been through so much already. First there was the divorce, something he was just beginning to make sense of (and with understandable difficulty). Then there was the thrusting of a strange woman into his father’s life in a role that his mother had once fulfilled. And now, the prospect of his own mother remarrying? Aliyah couldn’t stomach the thought.

  Though Aliyah was wrestling the idea of accepting Larry’s proposal, she didn’t know if she had the heart to put her needs above her son’s. The only normalcy Ibrahim seemed to have in his life right then was spending weekends with Aliyah without distractions. Aliyah imagined that, to Ibrahim, their time together wasn’t much different from what he’d grown accustomed to whenever Matt was gone to work all day or away on a business trip while he and Aliyah were still married. Though Ibrahim would occasionally ask why she wasn’t “coming home” with him, Aliyah sensed that her no longer being in their “home” was not as confusing as another woman being there instead.

  But Aliyah didn’t have the energy to explain all of this to Larry.

  “Mommy. Mommy.”

  Aliyah’s eyes fluttered open as she felt rhythmic patting on her shoulder. As the grogginess of sleep wore off, Aliyah saw Ibrahim leaning into her face, his pupils moving from side to side as if searching for signs of life. “Mmm,” Aliyah moaned as she looked at him through squinted eyes.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “I know, sweetie,” she said apologetically, scratchiness in her voice. “Go wash your hands and wait for me in the kitchen. Mommy’s coming now.”

  ***

  Deeja Marriage Guru: Sometimes the people closest to you are the ones you can’t trust. Watch your back. #realtalk (a few seconds ago)

  Groaning, Aliyah sat up and tossed her mobile phone on the crumpled comforter of her bed as she swung her legs around until her bare feet rested on the carpeted floor. It was probably a bad idea to check her email and Facebook account before going to the bathroom and preparing Ibrahim’s breakfast, but it had become a daily routine of hers.

  Maybe she should unfollow Deanna, Aliyah considered as she lathered her hands with soap then held her hands under the stream of water from her bathroom faucet.

  For the past few days, Aliyah had toyed with the idea of unfriending Deanna on Facebook, but she ultimately decided against it because it would defeat the purpose of preventing anxiety and avoiding confrontation. It would likely be only a matter of time before Deanna realized that Aliyah had unfriended her, and Aliyah knew that Deanna would leap on the opportunity to make her life miserable as a result. Deanna’s passive aggressive statuses would quickly become openly hostile, perhaps even stopping short of only mentioning Aliyah by name. Deanna had certainly done no less to other sisters who’d made the inauspicious choice of crossing her. Aliyah shuddered to think that the same could happen to her.

  What Aliyah really wanted was Deanna out of her life completely. She was tempted to block Deanna on social media, but the idea made her nervous. Deanna was so well known for her marriage workshops and relationship advice blogs and books that she was used to being the one whom people flocked to for the mere honor of being associated with her. Deanna had so many friends and followers online that she no longer could accept Facebook friend requests. So, naturally, Deanna was used to being the one to unfriend, block, or unfollow someone. At times, it appeared as if she took pride in this prerogative. Don’t bring your BS on my page. I’ll unfriend you real quick. #watchyourself

  Aliyah remembered being bothered by that status, posted more than a year ago. Because it was posted on the heels of a longwinded online debate about the high divorce rate amongst American Muslims, it had given the impression that anyone who disagreed with Deanna’s point of view was not only speaking “BS” but would be duly punished for it by Deanna unfr
iending them.

  “People might misinterpret that,” Aliyah had told Deanna. “It sounds like you don’t welcome legitimate disagreement, and that people should view it as a privilege to be on your friend list. As a respected marriage counselor, you don’t want to give that impression.”

  But as usual, Aliyah’s point of view was lost on Deanna because, allegedly, it wasn’t based on knowledge or experience. Aliyah didn’t have a degree in marriage counseling, Deanna pointed out, and had Aliyah not been still married at that time, she was sure that her divorce would have been used as further evidence against her. “You should stick to math and science,” Deanna had told her in condescension. “You don’t have a good feel for social interactions.”

  Despite Deanna’s incorrigible arrogance, a part of Aliyah admired Deanna’s strength and determination. In private conversations with Aliyah and in some of her blogs and interviews, Deanna spoke of how she was inspired to go into marriage counseling after witnessing an aunt of hers endure domestic violence for years.

  “My uncle was an alcoholic,” Deanna had said in an interview once. “So maybe he wasn’t always aware of the harm he inflicted on his wife and family, but that didn’t make it any less pernicious. Abuse is abuse,” she said, “no matter what context it happens in. And the only way to deal with abuse is to educate yourself and get out.”

  Deanna then added, “But I choose the proactive approach. I’ll never allow myself to be abused because I know better. I wish I could have helped my aunt, but I was too young and naïve at the time. But what gives me solace is knowing that I’m saving women just like my aunt each day. The best protection against abuse is prevention, and this is the message I implore my patients and readers to pay attention to.”