by Umm Zakiyyah
With Deanna in the hospital, Aliyah felt an odd connection to her former best friend, and it tore at her heart to know that Deanna was hurting so deeply and that there was nothing Aliyah could do about it. Learning about what Deanna had suffered at only eight years old from her eighteen-year-old cousin was enough to make Aliyah forgive Deanna for everything.
“Girl, you know I love you!”
A lump developed in Aliyah’s throat as she thought of Deanna’s feisty warrior spirit that exuded positivity and confidence at every moment. Aliyah would have never imagined that it all was a mask concealing a wound that had festered for nearly three decades.
“I wasn’t trying to steal him from you,” Deanna had told Aliyah during the night of the snowstorm. “I really did think I was better for him.”
“It’s okay,” Aliyah had said. “It’s all in the past.”
“Not for me,” Deanna had said, a tinge of irritation in her voice. “Because now I lost everything.”
“You didn’t lose everything, Deeja,” Aliyah told her. “You still have y—”
“My what?” Deanna had cut her off, meeting her eyes unblinking, as if in a dare.
“Well…” Aliyah had said, flustered. “Your health, your business, your—”
“I gave up my counseling business.”
“But why?” Aliyah had no idea why this news had bothered her so much. “A lot of people benefit from you.”
“Benefited,” Deanna had said, emphasizing the last syllable with a roll of her eyes. “As in past tense. No one wants to hear relationship advice from some washed-up divorced woman who can’t even keep her own marriage together.”
“I disagree,” Aliyah had said. “If anything, it makes you more relatable.”
“I don’t want to be relatable,” Deanna had retorted. “I want to be reliable.”
As Aliyah pulled into the driveway of Jacob’s home, she had a sudden, intense craving for gyros followed by an intense desire for Deanna’s company. What they’d had wasn’t perfect, but it was reliable, Aliyah reflected. And now that Aliyah understood Deanna’s struggles better, she felt confident that she could be more patient and compassionate with Deanna’s overbearing tendencies. It was probably Deanna’s only way of feeling needed after having lost so much.
***
“You know what I realized?” Reem said as she sat at the hospital bedside squeezing Deanna’s limp hand, intravenous tubes snaking into her other one next to the IV pole where a clear fluid dripped slowly from a clear bag. “We’re all going through the same thing. We just don’t realize it.” She glanced at Deanna lying still on her back, eyes closed and chest rising and falling in time with soft breaths.
“I never told you,” Reem said, feeling oddly comfortable in the quiet room, even as she had no idea if Deanna was cognizant enough to hear any of her words. But Reem’s niqaab was flipped back and lay over the top of her head so that her face was showing. “But I gave up one time too.”
Reem’s voice caught at the honesty of her words, and she exhaled a jagged breath, having not realized how difficult it would be to speak the truth aloud. “I was in high school and was in a lot of pain. You know the kind of pain that’s hidden so well in plain sight that everybody sees it yet misses it at the same time?” Reem coughed laughter but tears sprung to her eyes instead. “That was me.”
Reem paused thoughtfully. “You would’ve never recognized me, Deanna, I swear,” she said, humor in her tone. “I looked like a punk rock Goth. I was far from the strict, veiled Qur’an teacher that you met.” Reem wiped the moisture from her eyes with her free hand. “I had a pretty cool group of friends, and we were into a lot of stuff we had no business being involved in. But to tell you the truth, they were the best group of friends I ever had.”
An awkward smile lingered on Reem’s face as she reflected on the irony of those words. “They weren’t Muslim,” she said, a tinge of sadness in her voice. “But they had this raw honesty about them that made them see more clearly than most of the other students at our school. They didn’t care what clothes you wore, or what car you drove, or even if you had a car at all. They didn’t even care if you were into some pretty horrible things in your life. When we got together, we had only one mission, to make each other laugh and feel good for at least that moment.”
Reem frowned and dropped her gaze as a painful memory returned to her suddenly. “I know that our friendship wasn’t necessarily good,” she said quietly. “But they were the ones who saved my life.”
Reem sat in silence for some time as she allowed herself to go back to that day, and the more painful, unbearable days of her childhood. “I don’t know what’s hurting you,” she said as tears brimmed her eyes. “But I think I have a pretty good idea.” She drew in a deep breath and exhaled, offering Deanna a weak smile. “Because it’s what’s hurting me.” She dropped her head again and held Deanna’s hand in both of hers. “But giving up? It doesn’t help anyone, and it only hurts the people who care about you,” she said. “And the ones who don’t care...” Reem’s jaw quivered as she thought of her own flesh and blood, her father and half-brother. “…they’ll go on not caring, no matter what you do.”
***
Aliyah’s stomach lurched as her eyes raced across the note penned in familiar handwriting that Jacob had reluctantly handed her. But she’d read only two lines when her eyes widened and she looked at Jacob in disbelief.
“What is this?” Her voice rose and her eyes glistened in fury as she shook the thin sheet of floral-trimmed stationery in front of Jacob’s face from where she stood opposite him in the living room of his home.
“I have one too,” Jacob said quietly, his expression pained as he folded his arms over his chest, lost in thought. “But I didn’t read it.”
“So this whole, quote, passing out ordeal was really an attempted suicide?” Aliyah nearly spat the word, she found it so repulsive.
Jacob frowned. “Yes.”
Aliyah contorted her face and shook her head, unable to find the words for the disgust and disappointment she felt with Deanna right then.
“I didn’t want to tell you last night because—”
“Oh, I’m glad you didn’t.” Aliyah’s nose flared, and she shook her head again. “Sick and weak or not, I probably would’ve marched right up to that room and told her to go tell that sob story to someone else. wallahi,” Aliyah said, swearing by Allah, “I have no sympathy for people who use their death as a tool to punish and manipulate others.” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s the lowest and cruelest thing you could do, especially to people who care about you.”
Jacob sighed. “Aliyah, I know how you feel, but—”
“No, Jacob,” Aliyah said, snatching her arm away from his grip as he reached out to her, “you have no idea how I feel right now. And there’s nothing, I mean absolutely nothing, you can tell me to make this excusable.”
“It’s definitely not excusable,” he said quickly, a tinge of desperation in his voice, “but I think it’s partly my fault.”
Aliyah’s eyes widened as she looked at him. “Are you really going to play right into her hands? This is why suicide is such a horrible sin. It mixes grief and guilt in the most sinister way.” She grunted indignantly. “Not to mention murder.”
“I’m not saying it’s completely my fault,” Jacob said. “But she was trying to talk to me Saturday night, and I…”
The self-reproaching way Jacob spoke squeezed Aliyah’s heart and she had to look away from him to keep from becoming more enraged with Deanna. Aliyah could already tell from Jacob’s solemn mood and body language that Deanna had tried to guilt him into taking her back, and he’d most likely responded in anger because he was annoyed at her bringing it up on the night of the waleemah. But Aliyah willed herself to keep quiet and listen, as she was already at her wit’s end with Deanna, and she doubted there were enough words in the English language to exhaust what she felt about Deanna’s unrelenting ruses to get what she wanted.
/> “…should’ve just tried to hear her out,” Jacob said.
“What was she trying to say?” Aliyah said, careful to keep her voice level so that Jacob knew she was giving him her full attention.
“That I should consider marrying her as a second wife,” he said as if speaking aloud to himself.
A wave of fury rose in Aliyah, but to keep calm, she silently recited the isti’aadhah, seeking refuge in Allah from Shaytaan. “But Jacob,” Aliyah said, speaking as softly as she could manage, “how is that fair to you, or even me, for her to bring up something like that at that time?”
“I’m not saying it was fair,” Jacob said tentatively. “I just think I could’ve handled it better.”
Aliyah nodded. “Maybe you could have,” she said. “But her decision to overdose on pills, or whatever she did, wasn’t your fault.”
“But she’s been diagnosed with clinical depression, Aliyah,” he said, his voice a plea. “I should’ve been mindful of that.”
“She’s been diagnosed with clinical depression?” Aliyah repeated, twisting her face in disapproval, unable to keep her composure any longer. “Labels and diagnoses are for getting treatment, Jacob, not for getting a free pass to treat people however you want.”
“But I shouldn’t have gotten so upset.” Jacob folded in his lips and shook his head in self-rebuke, as if he hadn’t heard a word Aliyah said. “Maybe it was what I said to her that made her snap. I could’ve at least said, ‘I’ll think about it’ or something like that.”
“Why?” Aliyah said, pulling her head back in disapproval. “So we can coax her back into the lion’s den so she doesn’t rip us to shreds? And what about when she comes back the next day to see what you’ve decided? And the next, and the next?” she said. “Do we keep leading her on?”
“I’m not saying we should lead her on. But…” He exhaled in a single breath, unable to find his words. “…if we know someone’s been diagnosed with a mental illness, then we have a responsibility to treat them in a certain way.”
“So where’s my diagnosis?” Aliyah said challengingly.
Jacob’s expression conveyed confusion when he met Aliyah’s gaze. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Do you know how many times I felt like giving up?” she said, her eyes glistening in hurt. “How many times I wished Allah would take my soul so I didn’t have to live another day on this earth, or even another hour? And do you know how many times I didn’t even feel like getting out of bed? How many nights I cried myself to sleep? How many nights I couldn’t even go to sleep?”
Jacob was silent, unsure what to say. But his concerned gaze mirrored the pain he saw in Aliyah’s eyes.
“Do you know how it feels to have your own mother and father refuse to speak to you? To see you? Or even acknowledge you exist?” Aliyah said in anguish. “Do you know how it feels to get married to someone because the imam said you’re a bad Muslim if you don’t? And then lie down next to that person every night feeling obligated to give yourself to him because Allah said you have to?”
Her chin quivered, and she clenched her jaw to keep from breaking down. “Do you know how it feels to think your only purpose in life is to keep a man’s body and food warm so that your Lord will give you warmth in Paradise? Or how it feels to walk around as only an empty shell of who you are so that your husband can be a whole person and live a full life?” Tears stung Aliyah’s eyes, but she blinked them back, refusing to cry. “Or how it feels to believe that if you don’t give up your soul for this man, you’ll burn in Hell?”
Jacob’s eyes widened slightly, as it was apparent he’d never known Aliyah had struggled with anything of this magnitude. He looked like he wanted to say something comforting but didn’t know where to begin.
“And then to end up alone after even that falls apart?” Aliyah said, her voice breaking slightly and tears springing to her eyes despite her best efforts to fight them. “And to have your only friend say it’s all your fault? And that you’re a bad Muslim, a bad wife, and a bad friend? And that if you had the slightest good in you, you’d have a family and a husband and some self-respect?”
Aliyah wiped her eyes and shook her head, jaw clenched as her gaze grew distant momentarily. “So where’s my diagnosis?” she said, frustration lacing her tone as she looked at Jacob, eyes full of confusion and hurt. “Where are all the professionals and community members rushing to my side, saying, ‘Be patient with her. She’s going through a lot’?”
Aliyah huffed, and her nose flared. “Instead, what do I get?” she asked rhetorically. “‘People like you disgust me,’” she said, mocking the tone of Juwayriah’s haughty voice. “Or I’m called a whore and a husband stealer when I’ve done nothing but stay in my home except to go to work, pay my bills, and pray to my Lord in the masjid.”
She shook her head as if at a loss for words, her breaths audible. “So yes, I want to know, where is my diagnosis?” she said in fury. “Where is my label? Where is my right to patience and good treatment and to excuses and love?”
Fresh tears glistened in her eyes and hung there for a moment before slipping out and rounding her cheeks. But this time, she made no effort to stop them. “I don’t know a human being alive who doesn’t know pain,” she said. A moment later she added, “Intimately.”
Aliyah huffed and shook her head. “But somehow we think the only ones who deserve our compassion are the ones who cry the loudest and have the biggest tantrums and carve the victim label into their chests.”
There was an extended silence as neither spoke for some time.
“When I was in high school,” Aliyah said, her tone barely above a whisper, “a boy I knew committed suicide.”
“I’m sorry,” Jacob said, his tone regretful and sincere. “I didn’t know.”
“I think he’s the reason I hate suicide so much.” Aliyah spoke as if lost in thought, a look of distaste on her face. “When he died, he left a note saying who he didn’t want at his funeral, and my boyfriend was on the list.”
Aliyah coughed laughter, but it was to keep from becoming more upset. “And it wasn’t like this boy was some angel. Yes, he was picked on and bullied, but he would bully and pick on people himself.” She huffed. “And my boyfriend didn’t even bother that boy, that’s what’s so crazy about what he did. That boy hated Curtis only because Curtis was openly Christian and didn’t keep quiet about his beliefs. And that boy didn’t keep quiet about his either,” Aliyah said, voice clipped indignantly. “He would even call us Bible thumpers and stuff like that.”
She shook her head, still troubled by the memory. “But all of a sudden when he killed himself, he became this hero. Even the principal and all the teachers played into the whole victim thing, and we had to write essays about accepting everyone for who they are and crap like that. And out of everyone who was on that list, it was Curtis who everyone whispered about, saying, ‘I thought he was supposed to be all holy, but look at what he did to that poor boy.’”
“SubhaanAllah,” Jacob said, speaking under his breath.
“And when I saw how sad and depressed Curtis became through all of that,” Aliyah said, earnestness in her voice, “all I could think was, ‘I pray to God that boy burns in Hell forever.’”
This time when Jacob reached out to Aliyah, she did not pull away, and she leaned into his chest, her shoulders shaking as she broke into sobs. With each cry, Aliyah grieved for the boy who’d senselessly taken his own life. She grieved for Curtis who’d suffered for a crime he didn’t commit. She grieved for Deanna who’d given up on life and couldn’t get beyond her pain. And she grieved for herself, the fragile girl who’d sustained wounds in every part of her, yet suffered in silence, thinking that is what it meant to be strong.
***
At her apartment, Aliyah remained in bed for the rest of the week, having called in sick to work each day. She would have no doctor’s note to present to Dr. Warren when she returned, but Aliyah couldn’t muster the energy to care. She h
ad retreated into a quiet place inside herself, and the world around her became clamoring background noise to the numbness of her mind. Her limbs became like lead and her tongue thick in her mouth, and she found it difficult to move or speak. Prayer, food, and the need to bathe or relieve herself were all that inspired her to get out of the bed. But even then, her legs were too weak to stand for prayer, so she would pray sitting. And she could go an entire day without desiring a bite of food, so it was due only to concern for the health of the baby that forced her to put anything in her mouth.
When Jacob stopped by Tuesday after work to ask if Ibrahim should stay with him for a while, Aliyah had been lying curled up in bed facing the wall. When she heard him come in and shout the salaams, she was reminded that he had mentioned to her a couple of weeks before that he’d planned to make a copy of Ibrahim’s apartment key. In the bed, Aliyah managed to respond to Jacob through moving her head ever so slightly in the beginning of a nod. But even that small gesture incited tears welling in her eyes, as she realized she was unable to take care of her own son.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Jacob said when he’d come by Friday evening while she was still lying in bed. “It’s only been a few days,” he said, as if reading her mind. “No one can do it all. Everyone needs a bit of help sometimes.”