Footsteps

by Umm Zakiyyah

  But was this his male ego talking or his good Muslim sense? Was he just rationalizing? Even if he were not imagining the new interpretation, what made him so sure he was among those to whom Allah was referring in the first part of the verse? What about Ismael made him free from the fear of doing injustice? Even Imam Abdul-Quddus was not that confident in himself.

  Was he arrogant then?

  But none of it was planned. He had not awakened one day, thinking, he was “chosen” by Allah to set an example of plural marriage on earth. Yet everything about marrying Alika suggested he should do it. He didn’t fit into the category of any of the zealous, irrational men he had imagined in his head. Yes, he was human, and he had some fear he couldn’t pull it off. But that was the same fear he had when he reflected on his daily struggle as a Muslim in the world. Why not place his trust in Allah with polygamy as he had with his soul?

  He was mature, well past forty, and had been married twenty-six years. So there was no inexperience with women to plague him, no significant immaturity that threatened to rear its ugly head. He was financially stable, not rich, but definitely not poor or even struggling. His house and two cars, three if he included Sulayman’s, were all paid off, and he no longer paid mortgage or a car note each month. His children were grown, one married and the other marriageable age, so he had no uncertain expenses lurking that he couldn’t account for.

  Even so, it wasn’t necessary to have all these ticked on a checklist before embarking on something that was obviously pleasing to Allah. It was only natural that Sarah would not feel the same, but he was learning that no woman would be thrilled if she were in his wife’s position. No, he would not cut off Alika because of Sarah’s jealousy. It would make no sense. Allah created women jealous, and He created men polygamous. Ismael would just have to make do.

  Yet, the incessant doubt disturbed him. He often thought of Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and Ali, the Prophet’s cousin. Ali wanted to marry the daughter of Abu Jahl, whose name meant “Father of Ignorance,” who was the arrogant, disbelieving “pharaoh” of their time. But Fatimah, Ali’s wife, was nearly despondent in her sadness at his choice. How could the daughter of the Messenger of Allah and the daughter of Pharaoh be from the same family? When the Prophet learned of Ali’s intentions, he did not approve of the marriage, and he made his feelings known. His oft-repeated sentiment that reflected the love he had for his daughter was, “What hurts her hurts me.” So Ali had left it alone, and Fatimah died as Ali’s only wife.

  There was also Khadijah, the first and most beloved wife of the Prophet, with whom he lived in monogamy until she died. Even after Khadijah passed away and he married other women, none could compete with the love he had for his first.

  Sarah, Ismael imagined, would be like Khadijah to him. Even if he did marry Alika, or anyone else, no one could come close to taking the place he had in his heart for his first wife.

  “You don’t think I should?” Aminah asked, her question awkward in its parallel to the one he was asking himself in his mind. Her eyebrows were gathered in hurt and confusion, and Ismael’s heart sank as his daughter’s expression anticipated what he would say, what he was already saying.

  Ismael shook his head, unable to delay this any further. He had prayed on it, and there really was nothing else to say but the truth. “No, pumpkin, I don’t think you should.”

  “But why not?” Ismael thought he sensed more curiosity than hurt in Aminah’s inquiry, but he dismissed it as the optimism he had mustered as a shield against all that was on him right then.

  “I should have never given you the impression that I approved,” he said with a reflective sigh. “I just wanted to give you a chance to decide for yourself. But I know now that I should have gone with my initial reservations.”

  “But why can’t I marry him?” Her brows were furrowed, and disappointment was clear beneath her contorted expression.

  “This is why,” he said, reaching forward and taking the book from her hands, a slight smile tugging at his lips. “If this is what it’s going to do to you, I can’t let you.”

  “What’s wrong with learning my history?”

  He sighed, flipping through the pages of the book with one hand, his gaze falling there momentarily. “Pumpkin, there’s nothing wrong with learning your history. As long as it’s to strengthen your sense of self.” He paused then added, “But not if it’s to repair it.”

  Aminah dropped her gaze to her hands that she brought together on her lap. She was quiet, lost in her thoughts. It was more than a minute before she spoke again.

  “Did it matter to you?” Aminah asked, her eyes still on her hands.

  “Did what matter to me?”

  “That Mom was White.”

  She looked at her father now, and when their eyes met, he saw how much he loved Sarah and the children. He couldn’t imagine anything disrupting that, certainly not his own hands.

  Ismael scratched at one side of his beard, knowing what his daughter was asking. He wanted to say that love was blind, that the color of his wife’s skin had made no difference to him at all. He wanted to tell Aminah that he knew her mother was special from the moment he saw her, and she could have been purple. It didn’t matter to him. He wanted her, Sarah, as his wife, and that was all that mattered to him, more than anything in the world.

  But that wasn’t true. And now was not the time to sugar coat the truth. He knew what Aminah wanted to know—if it were wrong to feel beautiful in her white skin. And he needed her to know that there was nothing wrong with it, nothing at all, and that she, in fact, should. She had every right to. Because it was beautiful after all. And not just because it was hers. But because it really was.

  “Yes, it did matter to me.”

  Her forehead creased in surprise and confusion, and she started to say something, ask something, but she couldn’t seem to form the words.

  “And yes,” he continued, “I loved that she was White. And I was honored that she would marry someone like me. I wasn’t White, and well—” He smiled. “That she wanted me, I can’t tell you how special that made me feel.”

  He saw Aminah’s forehead relax, and her lips began a tentative smile. “Really?”

  “Yes. It’s true.”

  “So white was a nice color to you?”

  “No,” he said with a smile. Aminah’s eyebrows gathered a second before he added, “it is a nice color to me, still.”

  She seemed satisfied by his answer, but not completely, as her eyebrows remained furrowed for a moment. “But…” she said, her voice trailing as she searched for the right words.

  “And no,” he answered for her, “that doesn’t mean that the opposite is true. Before I started seeing your mother, I was seeing women all different shades of brown.”

  She stared at him, as if seeing him for the first time. “Black women?”

  “Yes, Black women. And each one I saw, I imagined her as the most beautiful woman in the world.” He smiled. “And I even told them that.”

  She couldn’t keep from smiling.

  “But honestly,” he said, “I didn’t appreciate all the color ranges like I do now. So I guess you can say I was a little like Zaid.” He smiled. “But the difference was, I never believed that was right. I just had some growing to do. And your mother helped me through that.”

  “Mom?” Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “Yes,” he said. “You have no idea the special person you have sleeping in the room down the hall.” He felt his throat start to close. “I didn’t like myself much, pumpkin. I didn’t even like my people very much. And Sarah,” he started to laugh as he felt his voice going. He blinked back the tears that were forming in his eyes, unable to suppress the memory of all she had done for him. “She taught me to love myself, and see the beauty in everyone around me.”

  Tamika greeted Sulayman with a hug after he returned home from work late that night. It was after 11:00, but he had called to tell her he was running lat
e in the lab. She had grown tired, but she had waited up for him, as she always did.

  He kissed her forehead after they greeted each other, and he continued to hold her in his arms. For a moment, her heart pounded as she imagined what he would say once he noticed the box missing from the closet.

  “What did you do all day without me?” he asked, smiling as he gazed at her, holding the embrace.

  She laughed and lowered her gaze momentarily, her forehead falling against his beard. “Cleaned up, felt sorry for myself, stared at the clock. The usual.”

  “It looks nice in here.” He released her but kept an arm around her shoulder. “You must have really missed me today.”

  She nodded. “I did.”

  His arm fell from her shoulder as he surveyed the living room, then the kitchen. “SubhaanAllaah. I think I can eat off the floor.”

  “Well, thank God, you don’t have to do that.”

  He walked to the dining area, where the table was neatly set. She saw him shake his head before turning to meet her gaze. “Did I tell you how much I love you?”

  She grinned. “Yes, you did.”

  “Well, I’m telling you again.”

  “I thought the way to a man’s heart was his stomach,” she joked, “not a clean floor.”

  He laughed. “Well, add a clean house to the list. And make it number one, because I’ll take that over a good meal any day.”

  “Really?” She was genuinely surprised by his comment, but she held her grin. She was reminded of her mother’s high standard of cleanliness and how Tamika never felt she could measure up. Tamika had pretty much given up on being a fastidious housekeeper, having figured that keeping everything “straight” would have to do for her. But at the moment, she wondered if her mother had a point.

  “I think it’s true for any man,” he said, his arms folded as he nodded approvingly at the immaculate apartment. “A clean house makes food taste better anyway. No matter how good your food is, a mess makes your stomach churn.”

  She laughed, remembering a restaurant Makisha had taken her to in Atlanta, promising that the soul food there was “off the hook.” But when they arrived and were handed their order, Tamika could barely concentrate on the food weighing down the white Styrofoam take-out in her hands and easing out the sides. The place was dilapidated, if not “unclean.” The entire time that they sat in the car eating (because there was nowhere inside to sit) Tamika had feigned pleasure in the meal, when all she could think about was the prospect of baby roaches accounting for the black dots on her sweet potatoes. “I know what you mean.”

  Tamika’s heart raced as she followed him into the bedroom, where the walk-in closet was neatly closed, making the room more presentable, and delaying the inevitable.

  He walked around the room, smiling proudly before he opened the closet doors to survey her job there, sending Tamika’s heart hammering in her chest. She stood a few feet behind him to one side, so she saw his gaze drop instinctively to the place he had left the box. She saw his surprised expression, and she sensed a tinge of panic in his eyes. He turned toward his shoulder to look at her, a smile still on his face.

  “Where’s the box?”

  “The box?” she asked, her brows furrowed as she went to stand next to him in front of their neatly hanging clothes, hers on one side, his on the other.

  “Yeah, the one I left here.” He pointed to the empty space on the closet’s carpeted floor.

  “Oh,” she said, smiling, surprising herself with the self-assurance in her response. She waved her hand dismissively. “I unpacked it and put everything away.”

  “Where?”

  Tamika studied his concerned expression, and for a moment regretted what she had done.

  “Different places,” she said. “Mostly in the drawers on the nightstand. But I put your old books in the hallway closet with the rest.”

  He nodded, walking over to the nightstand and bending to pull open the drawers, one at a time, starting with the first. Tamika followed him, knowing the purple journal was in the bottom drawer, on top. His face seemed to relax as he spotted it there, and she felt her heart steadying to its normal rhythm, though she was bracing herself for what would happen next.

  But he simply closed the drawer and pulled her to him in an embrace. “Jazaakillaahukhair,” he thanked her.

  “Waiyyak,” she replied.

  “Let’s eat,” he said as he released her, all traces of his feelings about the diary suddenly dissipated right then. “I’m starved.”

  Tamika’s heart sank. She felt as if she had been stripped of something, an opportunity perhaps. She watched as he disappeared through the doorway, and she followed him to the dining area. What else could she do?

  Chapter Twelve

  It was Thursday afternoon in the middle of July, almost three weeks after she confronted Ismael about the phone bill, that Sarah rolled over in bed and looked at the clock, wondering if she still had time to prayer Thuhr or if its time had already passed while she slept. In the last two weeks, she had listened with stoicism as her husband told her about his plans to marry Alika. She had interrupted him one day, a week after her discovery, and calmly informed him that she already knew who it was. The news shocked him, but it did not deter him from what he was saying. He had droned on and on about how he would be meeting with the imam a lot to determine if this was something he wanted to do, which was his politically correct way of saying “Don’t wait up for me.”

  At some points she had almost laughed out loud, but she controlled herself, for the most part. She would sit in perfect wifely composure, merely nodding her head and saying nothing except to encourage him to do whatever was best, as she was expected to do. Inside she hated him and everything he was doing though she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. But there was one moment, a week before, when, in the middle of one of the discussions, she burst into a fit of laughter and was unable to stop. He had paused mid-sentence and gathered his brows before saying, “Did I say something funny?” That only made her laugh more, and she surprised herself by the intensity of the outburst.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him as she recovered, still nursing chuckles that escaped. A hand went to her mouth, where her fingers rested, and the other went to her stomach, as if willing the laughter to cease. “It’s just that you sound like you actually believe yourself.”

  His eyebrows gathered more, and there was a look of hurt in his eyes. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Oh, please, Ismael. Tell me you can’t see how ridiculous this is, or am I the only one with eyes?”

  He had sighed, smoothed his beard with a hand and stood up from where he sat next to her on the edge of the bed, and paced the floor. “Sarah, I’m just trying to be open with you.”

  “Open?” She felt the laughter coming again, but she suppressed it. “I think you’re a little late for that.”

  “I’ve been open with you the whole time.”

  At that, her patience was gone. “Don’t even give me that. You invited this, this,” she searched for a word, “baby to our son’s walimah, taught her about Islam, practically threw her on me for four months without as much as a word, or even a hint at what’s going on. And now you’re saying you’ve been open with me the whole time? Don’t make me laugh.” She folded her arms and turned her head away from him as she shook it.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “It’s what you said.”

  “What I’m saying is that once I realized for sure this is what I wanted to do, I told you.”

  “The good that would do.”

  “Okay, fine.” He threw up his hands in surrender. “What should I have done, Sarah?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me from the beginning? When you first met her?”

  “I didn’t even know I’d want to marry her at that time. I meet new people everyday, sweetheart, and some of them are women. But I don’t feel the need to report that to you.”

  “You know that’s not what I�
��m saying.”

  “To be honest, Sarah. I don’t know what you’re saying. One second you’re telling me to pray to Allah and be open, and the next you’re laughing at me for doing just that. Tell me, then, what am I doing wrong?”

  “What are you doing right? Let’s start with that. That would be a shorter list.”

  He sighed, shaking his head as he stood before her. “Sweetheart, all I’m doing is trying to follow the Sunnah.”

  She felt her teeth clench. “This-is-not-the-Sunnah,” she said, emphasizing the. “Marriage, Ismael, is the Sunnah. And for the life of me, I can’t understand how you imagine destroying one marriage to gain another is what Allah’s Messenger would do, sallallaahu’alayhi wa sallam.”

  “Okay,” he said, his voice calming. “Maybe I can’t say it’s the Sunnah, but—”

  “There’s no maybe. You can’t. Don’t skate around the truth, Brother ‘I’m following the Sunnah’. A true follower of the Sunnah,” she emphasized, “wouldn’t do that. Would he?”

  He breathed audibly, clearly unable to win. “I never said I represent the Sunnah, Sarah. I—”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “Sarah, look. I’m sorry if this is hard for you, but—”

  “But what, Ismael? You’re going to do it anyway?” She forced laughter. “Do me a favor, okay? Save it. All of it. If I mean that little to you, that you think I’m just your sounding board, someone to bounce things off of, then I don’t have the time, or the energy. If you want to talk to me, ask my opinion, get my feedback, like you used to do, before this girl came along, then I’m here. All ears.”

  “But that’s what I’m doing. I want to know your opinion.”

  “Really, Ismael? You want to know my opinion? Well, here it is.” She raised a hand to numerate. “Number one, you lied to me. Number two, you—”

  “I did not lie to you, Sarah. Please don’t say that.”

  “Okay, let’s be technical then,” she said sarcastically. “You were not completely honest with me. How’s that?”