“He’s having a hard time.”
“I did notice that he seems kind of flat lately.” Adam was in his junior year and spent his weeks in a bustle of school activities. He was part of the student government at his high school and was always on the go. But he’d been listless for the past couple of days. “What’s going on? Do you know?”
“I think it’s girl trouble.”
“Uh-oh. What happened?”
“I think that girl Gina that he liked broke up with him.”
“Broke up with him? Were they officially an item?”
Ali dumped his collection of pulled weeds into a paper lawn bag. “I guess.”
“Did you ask him what happened?” Ali was maddening in that he never asked for, nor gave, any details.
“Nah. What difference does it make? It’s not like they were getting married or anything. It’s kid stuff.”
I sat in silence for a moment and then asked, “Do you think the kids are going to do what we did and marry Muslims?”
He tied up the bag. “Who knows?”
“What do you think?” I called after him as he carried the bag to the curb for Monday’s pickup. “Is it important to you that they do?”
“It’s up to them.” He returned, pulling his work gloves off. “It’s not my life.”
“We’re their parents. We’re supposed to give them guidance.”
He reached for his tea. “What would you tell them?”
“I honestly think they’d be happier marrying someone who is more like them,” I said. “Marriage is hard enough without throwing religious and cultural differences into the mix.”
“We can’t mandate who they marry.” He emptied his glass. “I’m not going to be like our parents and threaten to disown them if they don’t do what we want. They need to do whattheywant.”
It felt like we were skirting the edges of talking about his decision to give Lizzie Martins up in order to marry me. It’s not like I constantly thought about Ali’s ex, but from time to time I did wonder. I didn’t press the matter. Nothing constructive could come of dredging that up again. It wasn’t like he’d admit to having regrets.
So I adopted a teasing tone. “What are you saying? That you were forced to marry me?”
“Yes. Thank God.” He pushed in to kiss me, sweaty and all.
“Gross.” I leaned back out of his reach. “Can you do that after you’ve showered? This is not my idea of hot and sweaty sex.”
He pulled away with a chuckle.
“It’s not like you’d actually admit to being sorry you married me,” I noted.
“I wouldn’t want anyone else to call me Cheapo Depot.”
“To be fair, the kids came up with that.” But I did think it was funny.
“Anyway,” he added, “our kids are never going to be Arab enough or Muslim enough for some people.”
I didn’t need to ask what he meant. Although we’d sent Ayla and Adam to weekly religious classes to learn the basics of Islam when they were younger, we were more culturally Muslim than devoted followers of our faith. And the kids barely spoke Arabic, which would leave them feeling like outsiders in a family full of fluent speakers. They could look like fools sitting in a room with everyone talking in a language they didn’t understand, possibly even speaking negatively about them while they nodded and smiled and had no idea what was being said.
“I don’t want them to ever feel that way in a marriage.” I handed him my half-full glass for him to finish. “Marrying the traditional way worked for us. I’d at least want them to try it.”
“I’m sure my mom and sisters are standing by to be matchmakers.” He poured my tea down his throat. “OK. I’m going to mow the lawn now.”
The subject came up a few weeks later at a barbecue celebrating Ali’s nephew Jamal’s high school graduation. It was a big group, about sixty people, mingling inside the house and out on the back deck. We found the graduate’s mother standing with a group of Ali’s cousins, including Shireen and Hamooda.
