A Muslim's Romantic Journey

Chapter 76.

Yusuf’s POV

When we bought the house, we began working on it straight away. I called the builder who I’d already talked to before we bought the house and he worked really quickly. It was hard to communicate with him because his English was kind of awful but after drawing everything out and somehow communicating, he did exactly what we wanted and he did it perfectly.

Within two months, we’d had nearly everything done and we were ready to move some furniture in. Safia had picked everything out so I didn’t really need to do much there. I didn’t really care much for how the place looked as long as I had my space and my family with me.

My mum’s house was only a five minutes’ drive away from this house so I could take the children to see their grandma, uncle and aunt often. The walk was around twenty minutes which would have been fine if it weren’t for my ankle which had its days when I couldn’t even walk for ten minutes without getting a pain.

The day we officially moved in was when we moved in the beds. The place was clean but still quite bland and Safia said she would decorate it later. I think she understood how I didn’t want to live with her family and day by day it was only getting harder. There really wasn’t enough space for me.

“Safia, I told you to let Yusuf do this,” I heard Hamza say while I was feeding Maria her bottled milk.

“I got this! Now lift it higher.” I went from the end of the house to the stairs where Hamza and Safia had a huge sofa lodged on the stairs.

“Safia, are you crazy? You’re fasting today too. Here, take Maria, I’ll help Hamza with the sofa.” I tried to hide my amusement at how flustered and angry Safia looked.

“I’m fine! It’s Hamza who’s not lifting it properly.”

“Let’s swap sides. I’m putting it down and you hold it so it doesn’t slide down.”

“No, don’t let go yet. Safia, please take Maria. I know you’re more than capable of doing this but please let me do it. You’re fasting and you might get thirsty and hungry,” I pleaded. I had a bad feeling she might fall, or worse, the sofa might fall on her.

“No,” She said stubbornly. “Okay Hamza, I’m holding it, how are you going to come down?” The sofa was sort of stuck in the door on the stairs. Maybe it would have been wiser to put that door there after we had everything Amy and Hamza needed, moved upstairs. Hamza held the little part above the door and jumped out, swinging like a monkey. He landed beside Safia on his bottom and I didn’t hold back my laughter.

“Smooth dude, that was real smooth,” I said as Hamza took the sofa, ignoring me. Safia climbed up the sofa to get to the other side of it.

“Watch it Safia, you’re making it dirty,” Hamza complained.

“It doesn’t matter. If it gets dirty, Amy will make you clean it. I’m here now and I’m lifting it up.” I watched as they struggled their way up the stairs. “We’re at a hard part now. Pivot. Pivot! Pivot!” Safia started shouting.

“Stop making me laugh, I’m going to drop it,” Hamza replied and I just stared at them confused. They made jokes which I failed to understand, let alone find funny.

Leaving them with the sofa, I went to put Maria’s empty milk bottle away and put her over my shoulder to burp her. She put her arms around my neck and fell asleep. Feeling relieved, I took her to the first bedroom and put her next to Adam who was sleeping with a pile of pillows around him. I felt relief wash through me. My arms were aching holding this chubby baby who just seemed to be getting chubbier by the day.

I was about to leave when Safia walked into the room.

“Maria’s asleep?” She asked and I nodded. “Yusuf, Adam’s scratching his cheek again,” She said rushing to him. She grabbed his hand and he started squirming. “His cheek’s gone so red now. Weren’t you looking? He could have made himself bleed again.”