Things Nadir N̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ Said | [MUSLIM]

I

I

Nadir

Most nights, I walk into my room very quietly. I crawl into my bed and lie on my side with a prayer on my lips, facing her back like always. She smells like our kitchen, feminine perfume, and comfort. I enclose her waist in my arms, and nuzzle my face in her hair. I fall asleep within minutes.

Those are the nights I am grateful for.

Because some nights, like this one, I feel too much. I think a little too intensely, a little too clearly. I relive the past. Like some movie that I have acted in, I re-experience everything that happened during the day.

Usually when this happens, it isn't this bad. I just write it down if I feel like it. Sometimes, rarely, I talk to her about it. Eventually, I fall asleep.

I did not want to relive today.

Today, Mishal had an accident. She fell down and injured herself, though not too badly. I did not see it happen with my own eyes, nor the wounds, because I was at work. But when Zaeb described to me later how bad the fall was, and how much my little girl cried, it broke my heart. I felt helpless, because I had no power over what took place in my absence.

I only realised how bad it really was when I returned home this afternoon and, like always, they ran up to the door to greet me. Before I even heard Zaeb's muffled salaam from the kitchen, Mustafa was near my feet. He got to me in twice the speed that Mishal did, because it hurt her to move.

My eyes nearly teared up as I picked up my little twins and hugged their tiny bodies tightly against my chest.

"Papa, I fell down today! Do you see these paasters?" She said, her eyes wide and scared. "Under the paasters, my skin is all broken and wet, Papa!"

I couldn't help smiling at how she called plasters as paasters.

But when I did notice them, my smile turned into a frown. There was a plaster on her left knee, and another one on her elbow. There was a bandage around her head; I recalled that Zaeb had mentioned a cut on her forehead.

My poor baby.

"There was so much blood everywhere, Papa," said Mustafa. "You should see mummy's shirt, it has become red, now. But it was white like milk. No, it was whiter than milk!"

I raised my eyebrows in fake scepticism.

"It's true, Papa!"

Then I nodded and smiled at his innocent thoughts.

I put them down and headed towards my bedroom. On the way, just like I always do, I peeked into the kitchen.

Amid the fragrance of the delicious pulao which was today's dinner stood Zaeb, with her hip against the kitchen counter, and her arms crossed over her stomach.

"We need to talk," she said.

I know, I nodded. "Tea?"

This time she nodded, which was my cue to go inside and expect her to follow.

"We have got to be thankful she didn't need stitches," she told me when entered our bedroom, holding two mugs of tea, Mishal tailing her.

"Alhamdulillah," I said.

Mustafa also came running in within seconds.

She sighed once before starting to speak. "When they were younger, it was okay, Nadir. I could handle them then. But now that they're growing up, they're becoming more energetic. More mischievous," she glared at the jumpy duo as they giggled in a corner of the room. "I can't deal with them by myself anymore. They run around the house all day. While I try to catch one, the other disappears from sight, I...I just can't, anymore!"

I was just looking at her; with pity, but wordless. One enthusiastic child is an enormous challenge in itself, and she had two to look after.

"No, Nadir," she said. "You can't remain mute in matters like this. I need you to speak. There is a problem, and it requires us to find a solution."

At times like these, when it is regarding our kids, her voice loses its pitch and she speaks with this weird kind of graveness.

"Nadir."

I sat up a little straighter.

She did it a lot. She would tell me to speak, to answer a question, and then answer it herself. It pinched me each time for some reason, but I never let it show.

"Nadir, you have to understand. We will need help. We're going to have to hire a nanny who can at least stay with one of them at all times so that I can give proper attention to the other. I previously didn't think we'd need one but now it's becoming obvious to me that we really do. After all that happened," she said, implying Mishal's fall, "the necessity is even more prominent."

I looked at her, and then at the ground.

"Tell me, is it not?"

I took a deep breath before speaking.

"Zaeb, how am I going to pay for a nanny?"

I did earn a decent amount, but a full-time nurse had got to be paid a lot more than I could afford.

"I don't know. You're gonna have to manage it somehow. All I know is that today Mishal could get hurt a lot worse than she did, and tomorrow it could be Mustafa, and it's a sign that we must take better care of them than we presently are."

I turned, and glanced towards my children.

One of the best things about my wife is the fact that she always takes into consideration my viewpoint before she makes a demand like this one. She understands what is easy for me, and what may not be. And she really acts in perfect accordance to it.

This was why even as I asked her how I'd manage it, and if she could maybe try to control them somehow for just another year before they started going to school, I knew that she had probably already thought this over and over, and only then decided that it was necessary to talk to me about it.

"We have just one other option," she said slowly after a while, her voice low. "We can send them to a play school."

But neither I nor she herself could bear the thought of sending them away and into the hands of strange people. So, without giving this idea much consideration, I told her later, during dinner, that I had decided to try to find another way.

"Thank you," she said, and I smiled, but as she carried them to their room to tuck them into their beds, I was looking at her, wondering if she knew how hard it would be for me.

She didn't know, and neither did I, frankly, but there had to be a way.

There had to be a way, and I was responsible for finding it.