“Almost done,” he murmured. He reached into the kit again, rifling through a few plasters before holding two up. “Hello Kitty or Strawberry Shortcake?”
“Hello Kitty,” I breathed.
He peeled it open and pressed it against my skin. His fingers lingered for just a moment too long, his gaze following. We were close—so close that I could see the flecks of gold in his eyes, theshadow of exhaustion beneath them, the way his throat worked as he swallowed.
And then, just as suddenly, he stood.
“Go do your wudu,” he said. “We’ll pray together.”
It shouldn’t have made my stomach twist the way it did—those simple words—but it did.
I nodded, trying to sound normal, like my pulse wasn’t thrumming wildly in my ears. “Right. Wudu.”
As I slipped past him toward the door, his voice followed. “And next time,” he said, “try not to fall for meliterally.”
I stopped, turned back, and found the smallest trace of a smirk tugging at his lips.
“Cute,” I said. “Did you rehearse that one?”
“Only since you hit the nightstand.”
I rolled my eyes, but the corner of my mouth betrayed me, curving just a little as I disappeared down the hall.
Chapter Twenty-One
KHALIFA’S MOTHER DIEDon day eight of being in Beirut.
In medical school, they teach you how to approach a patient or loved one who’d just lost someone—what tone to use, where to stand, how to offer empathy without breaking apart yourself. Then they teach it again in residency, as if repetition could ever make it less daunting. I’d never had to use that training before, though. I’d been lucky enough not to lose a mother—or worse, a baby.
But that training seemed laughably useless now because Khalifa wasn’t my patient, and he technically wasn’t a loved one, either.
If they really wanted to prepare us for the realities of life, they should’ve offered a course calledHow to Approach Your Closed-Off, Emotionally Unavailable Husband—Whom You Only Married for Convenience—When His Mother Dies.
I would’ve paid extra for that elective.
He didn’t cry. Not when the phone call came in from the hospital, not on the drive there, not even when we stood in the narrow hospital corridor, surrounded by the faint echo of his family’s tears and footsteps. He just nodded once, thanked the doctor in that calm, devastatingly polite voice of his, and walked out.
I followed him through the sliding doors, my heart a knot in my throat, every instinct screaming to say something—todosomething—but what did you say to a man who’s built entire fortresses out of silence?
He drove us back to the house, his fingers gripping the wheel, his eyes never leaving the road. The outside world moved like a film reel—too bright, tooalivefor the moment we were in. I wanted to reach across the console, to rest my hand on his, to tell him I was sorry in a way that didn’t sound like a cliché. But the air felt so delicate, like one wrong move would shatter it.
When we got there, people were already gathering. Aunts, uncles, neighbors—grief spilling into every corner. Khalifa stood in the center of it all like a statue carved from restraint, accepting condolences with a softjazakAllah khairand a curt nod.
But for all his stoicism, there was an instant when he looked at his mother’s empty chair, and his Adam’s apple worked like he was swallowing glass. I found myself wondering what it must feel like to live that way—to force yourself into being anesthetized, to press emotion down so hard it never quite reached the surface. To lock every tremor, every spasm, every truth behind the same door where he’d kept everything else. His childhood. His fears. His parents.Me.
I didn’t want to be his wife out of duty, or compassion, or even curiosity. I just wanted to be someone he could fall apart in front of. I wanted to shove my hands into his soul, grab fistfuls of all that ooey, gooey, complicated pain, let it stain my fingers so he didn’t have to choke on it by himself. I wanted to carry the mess with him—not fix it, not solve it, just share the weight so it stopped crushing him alone.
But instead, I offered comfort in a different way. I cleaned. I made tea and coffee, served milk and dates, handed out Qurans, passed tissues from lap to lap. I dragged extra chairs from around the house, re-parked cars out front so no one was blocked in. I filled the spaces his heartbreak left hollow with motion, because movement felt safer than stillness.
In a fleeting moment when I was finally out of sight, I slipped my phone from my pocket and typed a message to my mother.
I’m sorry we fought. I didn’t mean what I said. I love you, Mama.
Three dots appeared immediately.
Then disappeared.
I stared at the screen until it went dark, my reflection ghostlike against it, before tucking the phone away and walking back into a room still thick with sorrow.
