Emeralds

Forty-four.

Forty-four
[Adam]

Time stops. Like in movies, like it can never really do. The clocks stop ticking in my world, for my world. Everything stops at this point. Like holding one's breath.
***
I come home after one trip to find her by the front door. It's one of the hottest August days, the air is almost as hot as that you feel when you put your hand above the stove flame--unbearable. She stands squinting against the burning sun, the hijab messy and loose around her head, some blocks of her hair rebelling from under the white head cover. Just before I see her I was having one of my worst days; things were terrible at work, I had a raw with Omar, I probably caught a cold as well and am suffering the irritating cold headaches and fatigue. Add to that, I am being roasted in this weather. I was one second away from losing my mind.

But there she is. Like a sun shining under the sun, my own favourite part of the day. The way she smiles and squints and just waits for me is enough to make me forget about everything, even if momentarily.

"Welcome home!" she cheers once I lock the car and cross the street toward our gate. She takes a few steps away from the door to me. I put down my bag and give her a bear hug.
"How's everything?" I ask, pulling her hijab back on her head after it slides off.
"Alhamdulillah," she smiles, "what about you?"
"I'm better now," I smile gratefully, as though thanking her for showing up at our door, for living in the same house with me, for agreeing to be my wife, and for being the best wife I could ask for. For a moment, I'm wordlessly thanking her for her mere existence.

We walk inside and I close the door behind me, breathing as much air-conditioned air as I can.

"I was cleaning a bit because Heba called yesterday saying she can't come this week," she says coming out of the kitchen with a glass of apple juice. Heba is a maid who comes twice a week or something, not like we need much work, we are only two people anyway. "Here, drink this."

I sit on an armchair and take the glass from her hand, "Thank you."

I look at the coffee table in front of me and there's a small towel, she's probably been using to clean, on the floor beside the table. She follows my eyes and sees the towel, she kicks it out of sight and looks back at me and smiles sheepishly. I laugh.
"I'm a mess when it comes to house chores," she admits shyly. "When you wake up from your nap I'll be hopefully done inshallah."
"You didn't have to clean the entire house," I say putting the glass on the table, "you could've waited for Heba, not like we make that much of mess anyway."
"I know," she says, "I just felt like it. It's a Saturday so I'm off work, and you were coming back today, so I had this feeling we are some married couple from the old days when I need to clean the house and make dinner before you're back." Both of us laugh.

"Anyway," she says after a few minutes, "you go take a nap and I'll wake you up later, okay?"
"Okay," I say feeling how heavy my eyelids already are.

But she doesn't wake me anyway. I wake up on my own an hour or so later. I walk to the living area to find her struggling on a short ladder to clean the windows.
"Oh, careful!" I say hurrying toward her as the ladder shakes for a moment.
"I'm okay!" she says when I catch her. She's bent at the waist over my shoulder, one leg barely on the ladder and her entire weight on me.
"You don't have to act like Tarzan to clean," I say putting her down. "Give me this, go find something else to do."
"You'll clean?" she asks in awe. "Ah ya Rabby what have I done so good to give me such a husband." She says in a joking tone but I do see tears in her eyes.
"Mama made us clean with her every once in a while," I say, getting on the ladder. "'You aren't be better than Prophet Muhammad,' she always used to say."
"She's right," Leen smiles.