His Other Wife

by Umm Zakiyyah

  “Who was that sister with the book?” Jacob said when he sensed it was safe to ask.

  “What sister?” Deanna voice was tight, and Jacob sensed that she didn’t appreciate the question.

  “You were talking to her when you were getting our plates,” Jacob said, hoping he sounded casual. “She had on a green hijab.”

  “Oh, you mean Aliyah?” Deanna contorted her face. “She would be reading a book when everybody else was socializing. She has zero people skills.”

  “So you know her?”

  “I’m her best friend. Probably her only friend,” Deanna added, rolling her eyes. “She’s so high maintenance.”

  Jacob furrowed his brows in confusion. He knew what the term high maintenance meant when a man was talking about a woman, but this was the first time he’d heard it from a woman talking about another woman. “What do you mean? She’s materialistic?”

  “No, not at all,” Deanna said, a glint of humor in her eyes as if enjoying a private joke. “She buys her clothes from Wal-Mart. And her shoes.” Deanna wrinkled her nose. “Can you imagine?”

  Jacob didn’t know what to say. He shopped at Wal-Mart himself from time to time. As a grad student, he had no choice but to be frugal. But his mother, who was a stickler for quality designer brands, had bought most of his wardrobe and all of his shoes, so he was rarely faced with the need to buy anything for himself. But his mother could afford to have expensive tastes. He imagined Deanna’s friend couldn’t. Oddly, that made him like her more. He respected a person who was levelheaded enough to live according to his means, and he found this quality especially appealing in a woman.

  “She’s high maintenance emotionally,” Deanna said, shaking her head. “She’s been Muslim for eight years, and she still has a strained relationship with her family. To me, that’s just pathetic. If you can’t find a way to have a good relationship with your own parents, then that says a lot about your Islam.”

  Jacob pulled his head back in surprise. “I don’t agree with that. Some parents give their children a really hard time after they become Muslim. My mother refused to speak to me for a whole year.”

  “But you’re both speaking now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but I—”

  “That’s my point. With Aliyah, everything is melodramatic. It’s like she can’t tie her shoelaces without my support. I swear, sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in a codependent relationship or something. It’s so exhausting.”

  “Is it really that bad?” Jacob wondered if he had completely misjudged the woman. To him, she’d appeared quite self-sufficient and sensible.

  Deanna fixed her gaze on Jacob with her eyebrows raised. “You can’t begin to imagine what I go through with that girl. I feel sorry for her fiancé.”

  “She’s engaged?” Jacob hadn’t meant to sound so disappointed, but he couldn’t help it.

  Deanna averted her gaze and shrugged. “Pretty much,” she said. “If the poor guy agrees to marry her after he learns she needs to be spoon-fed basic life skills.”

  It wasn’t until years into his marriage to Deanna that Jacob realized that Deanna had been lying to him that day. Not only had she embellished her description of Aliyah so that Jacob would think Aliyah was a mental case, but Deanna also had concocted the whole story about the fiancé.

  “Girl, you have to be proactive,” he’d overhead Deanna say on the phone one day as he was sitting in their home office grading midterm exams. He had no idea who was on the other line, and he was only half listening as he got up to close the door to drown out the conversation.

  “Let me tell you how I snagged Jacob,” he heard her say just as he started to close the door. Interest piqued, he halted the motion. He heard her giggle. “He didn’t know what hit him,” she said. The door to their bedroom across the hall was closed, but as usual, Deanna’s voice was loud. Even her whispers were often intelligible. But she wasn’t whispering today.

  “Did I ever tell you he was interested in another sister when I met him?” There was a brief pause as Deanna listened to whoever was on the other line, then a burst of laughter sounded through the house. “I know, right? By any means necessary, girl. That’s my motto when you see a man you want.” A knot of apprehension tightened in Jacob’s stomach as he sensed he was about to hear something he didn’t like.

  “But let me tell you,” Deanna said, laughter in her voice. “I fixed that sister up real quick. People had been talking about this new Muslim brother looking for a wife, and I’m not playing when I tell you I made sure that sister hooked up with him, not Jacob. I didn’t want that new brother for myself because I’d heard he was still getting over some old girlfriend of his. And you know, I’m not about to be somebody’s rebound. Those relationships never worked in the dunya, so I sure as hell wasn’t about to marry into it as a Muslim. Men always end up going back to their girlfriend. And I’m not about to be cheated on, divorced, or co-wifed if I can help it. And anyway,” Deanna said jokingly, “I needed a real man. And that new shahaadah brother just wasn’t it.”

  Jacob slowly closed the door to their home office and walked over to where his iPod was connected to a stereo system. He powered on the iPod then turned up the volume. The bass from the first song on his playlist thumped in the room, drowning out his wife’s voice across the hall. Deanna was talking about how she had intentionally misled Jacob into believing that the woman he wanted to marry was already engaged to someone else, and the news disturbed Jacob more than he could stomach right then. Jacob sat on his leather swivel chair and turned himself until he was looking out the window behind his desk.

  Aliyah and Matthew. The thought still left a bitter taste in his mouth. When he’d first met Matt in person months after the MSA dinner, Deanna had introduced him as Aliyah’s fiancé. Even at that moment, Jacob knew something was amiss. Matt just didn’t seem like Aliyah’s type. Though Matt appeared to be doing well for himself, Jacob sensed that the brother wasn’t ready for marriage, and definitely not to someone like Aliyah. Matt barely seemed ready to be fully Muslim. But Jacob had fought these thoughts, assuming they were coming from jealousy.

  Looking out the window in his home office, Jacob clenched his jaw. It had been a stupid decision to come to Deanna’s apartment for dinner about six months after they’d met. He knew it was a bad idea before he even agreed to it, but there was something about Deanna that made it difficult to stay away from her for long. In retrospect, he probably desired her more than he could rationally admit to himself as a young practicing Muslim. But at the time, he kept telling himself that their frequent conversations, which often included sexual innuendos, were inspired by their need to determine if they should get married. Besides, they would not be alone, he’d told himself as he stood outside Deanna’s apartment door. Deanna had said it would be a double date. Aliyah and Matt would be there too. Except that they weren’t. Jacob knew that less than five minutes into his visit. And still he stayed.

  The truth was, in the pit of his stomach, he knew exactly what he wanted that night. But he wouldn’t let his mind believe it. When he’d accepted Islam, Jacob had vowed to remain celibate until marriage. He had grown tired of the meaningless relationships and one-night-stands. They had left him feeling empty and filthy inside. Even as a Christian, he knew that was no way to live. Sex was supposed to be something special shared between two people who loved each other, not a casual encounter after a drink or a celebrated conquest after a party.

  When Jacob fell into that same sin with Deanna, he was ravaged with guilt. During that time, Jacob would wake up every morning feeling nauseated, dreading even looking at himself in the mirror. He tried to remind himself of Allah’s mercy, but he just couldn’t bring himself to believe he deserved forgiveness. But still, Jacob spent night after night in prayer, begging Allah to forgive him.

  “The only solution is for us to get married,” Deanna had said to him on the phone about a month later.

  Jacob had recoiled at the thought. If there was one
thing this experience had clarified for him, it was that he definitely didn’t want Deanna as a wife. It didn’t escape him that not once did Deanna say she regretted what had happened between them. It left him wondering if she’d planned the whole thing. No, he certainly couldn’t deny his own culpability in their sin. But he seemed to be the only one with a heavy heart about the whole ordeal.

  “Marriage isn’t a solution,” he told Deanna. “If anything, it’ll bring more problems.”

  “Raising a child without a father brings more problems.” Her voice was tight in offense. “And I’m sure you don’t want something like that for your child.”

  Jacob’s heart dropped. He was immediately reminded of his high school girlfriend telling him she was pregnant. Even years later, he was still unable to forgive himself for convincing her to get an abortion. After that experience, he carried protection with him everywhere. He didn’t want a repeat of that agonizing ordeal. But naturally, he’d stop carrying contraceptives after he became Muslim.

  A week after they spoke, upon his suggestion, Deanna went to a clinic for a pregnancy test. When she called him and said that it had come back positive, he felt as if the world was caving in on him. It was painfully ironic that he was faced with this predicament as a Muslim, and for a sin that he’d fallen into only once after his shahaadah.

  Jacob reluctantly agreed to marry Deanna in a private ceremony at the local masjid. But just weeks after the marriage, Deanna rented out a hall at a five-star hotel and hosted a wedding party with more than three hundred guests. She said she wouldn’t be able to dance so hard once the pregnancy was further along. But it turned out that the pregnancy would never progress further along. She lost the baby about a week after the waleemah.

  But as Jacob sat in his home office chair, his wife’s words to her friend replayed in his mind. By any means necessary, girl. That’s my motto when you see a man you want. An angry knot tightened in his chest as he wondered if the pregnancy itself was one of Deanna’s “snag Jacob” routines. …If there had been a pregnancy in the first place.

  ***

  Aliyah watched as Jacob turned to leave her office after apologizing for calling her uncle to ask if he could marry her. She sensed that there was a lot Jacob wasn’t saying, but she knew it wasn’t her place to ask. He appeared to be under a lot of stress, and Aliyah’s heart went out to him. She felt horrible for thinking it, but she wondered how he handled living with Deanna. Aliyah imagined he had to be a really patient brother. Or maybe he and Deanna were so compatible that he didn’t need patience to deal with her. They certainly interacted easily whenever they did marriage workshops together.

  Aliyah was walking toward her car in the faculty and staff lot when she heard someone behind her. She turned and saw Jacob walking toward his car, which apparently was in the same row as hers. She lifted a hand in a polite wave then turned back around.

  “Aliyah,” Jacob called out, prompting Aliyah to turn around again. He broke into a jog to catch up with her. “Can I ask a favor?”

  She immediately felt on guard. But she reminded herself that he had apologized about the marriage inquiry, so this had to be about something else. “Sure,” she said with more assurance than she felt.

  “Deanna and I…” He looked away from Aliyah and pursed his lips, apparently trying to gather his thoughts. “Well, it hasn’t been easy.”

  Aliyah averted her gaze. She didn’t like where this was heading. She felt like she was betraying her best friend by just listening to him.

  “I was just wondering if you could talk to her some time,” he said, “you know, about some of the things you’ve studied about Islamic marriage in your classes. Maybe just a few things about the role of the husband as the leader of the household.”

  Aliyah shook her head, apologizing in that gesture, her expression pained. “I’m sorry, Jacob, but I don’t think it’s my place.”

  “I’m not asking you to come outright and say she’s not a good wife or anything. And I’m not saying she isn’t,” Jacob said quickly. “Because she’s a really good sister, mashaAllah. It’s just that I don’t think she’d listen to anyone else.”

  Aliyah lifted her palm as if to ward off any further details. “Jacob, I really don’t think Deanna would listen to anything I say. And I don’t mean that sarcastically. I mean that seriously.” She coughed laughter, but it was due to discomfort at the irony of the conversation, not anything humorous. “There’s nothing I could say about marriage that Deanna would listen to.”

  “But as her best friend, you know what to say. She has a lot of respect for you.”

  “I don’t think so,” Aliyah said apologetically. “Honestly.”

  “Can you at least give it a try?”

  “Okay, insha’Allah,” Aliyah said, mainly because the conversation was making her uncomfortable. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “JazaakAllaahukhairan,” Jacob said, a smile of grateful relief spreading on his face. “I really appreciate it. Truly.”

  “As-salaamu’alaikum,” Aliyah said, turning and walking toward her car again.

  “Wa’alaiku-mus-salaam,” Jacob called out in response.

  In her car, Aliyah exhaled and leaned back on the headrest. Oh my God, she thought to herself. What just happened?

  Chapter 5

  The Toxic Friend

  “People don’t give you room to be human,” the man said to the interviewer. “That’s one reason I never asked for help. But I don’t blame my friends and family,” he said. “They had no idea what I was going through. But if I’m honest, I didn’t fully know myself. The problem with being a mentor to troubled youth is that you’re always expected to have it all together, so your whole life ends up becoming one big inspirational pep-talk session. And then you wake up and find that you’re both mentor and troubled soul to your own life. But that’s a really lonely existence.”

  “Mommy.”

  At the sound of her son’s voice, Aliyah pointed the remote toward the television and powered off the screen. “I’m right here, sweetie,” she said from where she was sitting on the couch in the living room. Traces of sleep were still on Ibrahim’s face as he squinted at his mother. Aliyah opened her arms wide, and a grin tugged at one side of Ibrahim’s mouth as his padded feet moved swiftly toward her. He wrapped his arms around her as he situated himself on her lap and nuzzled his head at her neck. Aliyah couldn’t keep from smiling as she held him close.

  “I’m hungry,” Ibrahim moaned.

  “Alrighty, cookie monster,” Aliyah teased as she tickled him with one hand, setting off a spurt of giggles and body wriggling. “Then get off my lap.”

  “No…” he whined playfully, clinging to her neck.

  She smiled and shook her head as she stood, still holding him close. He wrapped his pajama-covered legs around her, and she could almost feel him smiling in triumph as she walked toward the kitchen with one of her arms holding him securely in place.

  “You’re almost five,” she said as she opened the refrigerator, Ibrahim’s arms and legs still locked around her. “I can’t keep carrying you around.”

  “Mmmm,” he protested.

  “Okay,” she said, laughter in her voice. “But you know the rules.”

  He nodded in agreement, as he always did when she gave in to his desire to be carried.

  “No oatmeal,” she said. “And—”

  “—no grits!” he sang out before she could finish.

  Laughter bubbled in her stomach, but Aliyah suppressed it with a grin as she removed a half-gallon of milk from the refrigerator and set it on the kitchen table. The no-oatmeal, no-grits rule was originally one she’d made for herself when Ibrahim was still an infant and she was experimenting with attachment parenting. After meeting a few women in the masjid who were vocal supporters of the method, Aliyah fell in love with the concept of keeping her son physically close to her as much as possible, and she immediately went out and bought a cloth sli
ng for her son. When she finally got the hang of how to secure Ibrahim in the elongated cloth and tie it around her at the same time, she was surprised by how comforting and freeing it was. Not only did she have free use of her hands to do whatever she needed to do throughout the day, but she also was able to carry her son around at the same time. With the sling, she never had to worry about choosing between tending to her son and doing work or chores.

  However, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to cook or bake while Ibrahim was secured against her in the cloth sling. She was afraid she might accidentally burn him or cause a fire if the cloth touched the hot stove. When she’d asked for advice from the sisters in the masjid, they told her to simply adjust the sling with Ibrahim on her back if she needed extra precaution. She tried the back sling for only a few hours before she gave up and readjusted her son to the front. It was probably the most irrational feeling in the world, but Aliyah just couldn’t bear being unable to look down at her son and see that he was all right. After that day, she made a rule for herself. If you’re carrying Ibrahim, you can’t use the oven or the stove. Eventually, it became the rule for Ibrahim himself if he wanted her to hold him.

  A loud pounding on the front door followed by the repetitive chiming of the doorbell interrupted Aliyah’s thoughts. Instinctively, she glanced at the small analog clock on the stove.

  “Mommy, who’s that?” Ibrahim asked as Aliyah leaned forward to set down a ceramic bowl and a box of cereal on the kitchen table. Ibrahim released himself from his mother’s arms and slid into the chair next to his breakfast.

  “I don’t know,” Aliyah said honestly. It was shortly after nine o’clock Saturday morning. She had no idea who would be visiting at this time, especially banging and ringing with so much impatient urgency. Eyebrows drawn together in confusion, Aliyah walked out the kitchen. “Wash your hands first!” she called out over her shoulder as she passed through the living room, heading toward the front door. She heard a rush of water from the kitchen sink as the pounding and doorbell ringing ceased. But before she could look through the peephole and ask who it was, the pounding and ringing picked up again.