His Other Wife

by Umm Zakiyyah

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore,” Jacob said. “But looking back, perhaps I could have handled things differently.”

  “Perhaps?” Aliyah recoiled.

  “Yes, perhaps,” Jacob said firmly. “I don’t fault you for being upset, and you have every right to be. But I’m not going to blame myself for assuming that a fellow Muslim was speaking truthfully, especially about her own best friend.”

  “You could have spoken up and stopped her.”

  “And you could have spoken up and stopped me from marrying her,” he said defensively. “How can you expect me to see through Deanna after five minutes of talking to her when you couldn’t even see through her after years of being her best friend?”

  Aliyah didn’t know what to say to that, but it was difficult to let go of her offense. It hurt that it was so easy to have your honor destroyed. Beyond the anxiety she battled in large gatherings, one reason Aliyah didn’t socialize more was that many Muslims weren’t too different from her high school classmates. They were constantly finding fault, assuming the worst, and rushing to pass judgment. If you didn’t look like them, act like them, and think like them, then you enjoyed few (if any) rights of a fellow Muslim.

  “But the purpose of this meeting is not to cast blame,” Jacob said. “I can blame myself, and you can blame yourself. I can blame you, and you can blame me. But what good does that do? What’s more important is that we’re aware of the problem in front of us. I’m not even interested in blaming Deanna. Allah has recorded her deeds, and He has recorded ours. But the only deeds we’re answering for are our own.”

  Jacob’s words incited shame and regret in Aliyah, and she dropped her gaze to her folded hands.

  “I asked to meet with you because, as Deanna’s husband, I had the responsibility to protect and help her, and because I’ve failed in that, I was ill-equipped to protect and help you.”

  Aliyah frowned, her gaze thoughtful and distant.

  “But, in a way, we’re all to blame,” Jacob said reflectively. “Muslim leadership, religious communities, and regular people like you and I. Whatever Deanna’s issues are, they didn’t happen overnight. Someone taught her that Islam solves all your problems, and that being strong and religious is mutually exclusive to feeling helpless and broken. Someone taught her that vulnerability is weakness, and that it’s never okay to not be okay. And as long as any of us believes that, we have only one guarantee,” Jacob said. “We’ll never be okay.”

  ***

  Whatever misfortune happens to you, is because of what your [own] hands have wrought. But He pardons [and forgives] much.

  This was the Qur’anic verse that came to mind as Deanna stood opposite her father Friday morning, her bundle of keys still in her hand after letting herself inside. Shortly before driving back to her parents’ house, Deanna had given into the guilt gnawing at her conscience, and she’d forced herself to do at least something remotely spiritual. She had not prayed a single prayer in more than two weeks, so to quell her guilt, she decided to read something from the Qur’an. She had no idea if it was coincidence or a sign from God that she happened upon that verse, but she’d promptly closed the Qur’an, having had enough spiritual “inspiration” for one day.

  “You know why this happened, right?” her father said, disappointment written on his face.

  Deanna winced as she recalled waking up in the early hours of morning to find Jacob walking out of the master bathroom, his face and arms wet with the water of wudhoo’. The sight of him had been so unexpected that she almost screamed. She had thought he was still behind the house, perhaps tossing around a basketball or banging on the back door, or even sleeping on the pavement until she let him in. She had no idea how he had managed to get back inside. Did he pick the lock? she wondered. If he did, she thought, confounded, the alarm system should have gone off.

  “No, I don’t,” Deanna said to her father, her voice clipped as she tried to control the annoyance she felt at his interrogation.

  “Then I divorce you.” Those were Jacob’s first words after greeting Deanna with salaams and asking, for the umpteenth time, if she was willing to seek arbitration or go to marriage counseling. “We don’t need marriage counseling,” she’d retorted. “You’re the only one with a problem.”

  “You know why this happened, right?” her father said again, as if daring her not to respond.

  Deanna clamped her jaw closed in aggravation. She was thirty-six years old, but right then she felt like an eight-year-old child. Would her father ever treat her like a grown woman? During her youth, Deanna had admired her father’s encompassing knowledge and unwavering strength. He knew everything, she used to muse. But now she had trouble maintaining a respectful countenance. She knew what he was hinting at, but she refused to take the bait.

  “It’s because you want to do things your way,” he said, his voice rising. “I told you years ago not to get involved with those Muslims. But you didn’t listen to me.”

  Deanna averted her gaze as if out of respect, but she was struggling to maintain her composure.

  He shook his head knowingly, a troubled expression on his face. “But we love you,” he said, his rough tone sounding odd with those words. “So you’re always welcomed here.”

  Deanna nodded gratefully because that’s what she was expected to do. But the truth was, she didn’t need to be at her parents’ home. She could return to her own house whenever she wanted. The school had a restraining order against her; her husband didn’t. Jacob and Deanna were still married, despite Jacob’s diarrhea of the mouth imagining that he could utter some religious incantation and suddenly end their lifetime commitment together. She had come home only because she needed time to herself and because she needed the company of people who loved and cared for her and because she needed to brainstorm on how to make Jacob regret that he’d ever uttered those words.

  “But your mother and I are not going to repeat the mistakes we made when you were young,” her father said. “We gave you far too much freedom, so now we’re going to lay down some ground rules.”

  Internally, Deanna groaned.

  “You’re coming to church with us. Every Sunday,” he added firmly. “And we’re going to have some long talks about what it means to live an upright, God-fearing life.”

  “Dad,” Deanna said, unable to keep quiet any longer, but she kept her voice controlled out of respect, “I already have a religion.”

  He snorted. “As we can all see.”

  Deanna knew that his sarcastic remark was in reference to the “crazy Muslim woman” saga that had only recently begun to die down, but she did not want to dignify his comment with a response.

  “But what we’re going to do,” he said, “is remind you what real religion looks like, and that’s at God’s House of Worship.”

  Deanna’s legs grew weak. It was at this church that her cousin Bailey had violated her when she was eight and he was eighteen. In her mind’s eye, she saw Bailey glaring at her in front of the pews. “If you tell anybody about this,” he’d said after he destroyed her innocence, “I’ll kill you.”

  “That girl is crazy,” Deanna’s father had said when she was thirteen and had written a letter detailing what Bailey did to her. “There’s no way anything like that happened to her. Bailey was a good kid. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. And if it did happen, why did she wait so long to say anything? You saw how she was always walking around in those slutty clothes. The poor boy’s been through so much, he probably thought she was seducing him.”

  “Is that clear?” Deanna’s father said pointedly, waiting for Deanna to meet his gaze.

  Distracted by the anxiety she felt at going back to the church from which she’d sought escape for so long, Deanna shrugged in acquiescence, unable to find her voice.

  “When I get famous, I’m going to be Niecey Meesy…” eight-year-old Deanna had said to her cousin after he’d said her stage name was stupid—and before he had morphed into the monster who attacked her.
“…and I won’t even give you an autograph.”

  Deanna’s head snapped to the side, and she stumbled backward from the force of her father’s slap. “Don’t you ever shrug your shoulders at me,” he said, his eyes menacing as he pointed a thick finger against her forehead. “When I address you with words, you address me with words. I. Am. Your. Father.”

  Deanna nodded dumbly. “I’m sorry, Dad,” she said quickly. “I was just—”

  “I don’t care what you were just doing,” he interrupted indignantly. “You speak to me like you know who I am. I brought you into this world, and I can take you out. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Dad,” Deanna said, subdued, dropping her head in shame. “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be,” he said, abruptly turning his back as he flipped his hand dismissively. “Now get out of my study.”

  ***

  “I think you both know why I asked you here,” Dr. Warren said. She removed her reading glasses and set them on a manila folder on her desk. She leaned back in her chair and frowned thoughtfully. “Dr. Bivens, I have spoken to you at length about my concerns about any family coming to our offices during work hours, and you assured me that it’s all under control. I hope this remains the case?”

  “Yes, it does.” Jacob spoke with humbled confidence from where he sat in the chair next to Aliyah opposite the department supervisor.

  Dr. Warren looked toward Aliyah. “Professor Thomas, I’m confident that you are now fully aware of the serious repercussions of a non-employee holding a key to your office, even if the person is a close friend and family member of another employee.”

  Aliyah nodded. “Yes, and I apologize for that. It won’t happen again.”

  You did not have to believe those lies about me…You could have spoken up and stopped her.

  It was then that the realization came to Jacob. Aliyah is right. If nothing else, he could have challenged Deanna’s perspective by offering a less incriminating perspective of his Muslim sister (even if he didn’t know her).

  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…I feel sorry for her fiancé.

  Was this unabashed character assassination what Jacob felt he’d had no choice but to believe? No one in his right mind would interpret those pernicious words as helpful information or sincere advice. Deanna hadn’t even shared anything specific about Aliyah except that she had a “strained relationship” with her family. But even this neutral information Deanna managed to twist in the most defamatory way. 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.

  O Allah, Jacob thought to himself. How did I end up with someone like this as a wife?

  “However,” Dr. Warren continued, “my reason for calling this meeting at a moment’s notice is that it has just come to my attention that the incident that precipitated the trespass and assault two weeks ago was you two entering into a bigamous marital arrangement based on your religious customs.”

  Jacob sensed Aliyah’s shock, but he willed himself to keep his gaze focused on Dr. Warren. Ten minutes before, he had divulged to Aliyah his conversation with Benjamin and Sayed on the Friday before Deanna’s attack. “I’d definitely marry Aliyah,” Jacob had said that day. “If she would have me. And now that it looks like it might not work out between her and Larry, I might start making some extra prayers. But my wife would kill me, so unless Aliyah agrees to be a secret second wife, I don’t think I’ll be so lucky.” By far, this had been the most self-incriminating part of his backstory, and he wished he didn’t have to share it. But if he was going to be completely forthcoming, he had to share his part in what had happened, not only his wife’s. “But I was joking,” he had assured Aliyah. “It’s something we brothers do all the time. I meant no disrespect, and I’m sorry you had to learn about it at all.”

  “That is untrue,” Jacob said to the department supervisor, voice firm. “But I take full responsibility for that misunderstanding. For some time, there have been a lot of misunderstandings regarding my relationship with Professor Thomas.”

  “Well,” Dr. Warren said, “in either case, I want to be clear about something. As a general rule, I stay out of the private lives of the faculty and staff here. As you know, we have a strict policy against any romantic trysts within the same department, and especially between a tenured professor and a new employee, which we view as not too different from the romantic involvement of a professor with a student.”

  “We understand that.” As soon as he said it, Jacob sensed Aliyah cringing next to him. You shouldn’t say “we,” he mentally scolded himself. It sounds like there’s something inappropriate going on.

  “Then let me be frank,” Dr. Warren said. “Our department, like most others at this institution, have for some time looked the other way when colleagues have carried out their romantic liaisons and extra marital affairs. This is because we don’t believe in policing the sexual lives of adults. In fact, as you know, Dr. Bivens,” she nodded toward Jacob, “as an atheist, I have strong opinions against mandated moral codes of any kind, especially those borrowed from religion. So I’m not a fan of our college’s intradepartmental policy against sexual relationships. However, I do understand the professional wisdom in establishing these codes.”

  Dr. Warren leaned back in her seat, raising a forefinger to let Jacob and Aliyah know that she wasn’t finished. “But neither the school nor I can look the other way if any of these liaisons culminate into marriage, especially an illegal marriage. A state-recognized marriage itself would cast a wide net of suspicion on our entire department regarding what we allowed to go on here,” she said. “How much more the crime of bigamy?”

  “I understand,” Jacob said, consciously leaving off the plural pronoun. “You don’t have to worry about that happening.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Dr. Warren said, her eyes traveling between Jacob and Aliyah skeptically. “Because any evidence of a marriage taking place would be cause for the school to relieve you both of your positions, effective immediately. Despite your tenure,” she added, looking pointedly at Jacob. “So if you two ever do decide that you want to be more than mere colleagues, make sure that it doesn’t happen at work and that it doesn’t involve marriage.”

  As Aliyah stood to leave, Jacob stepped toward Dr. Warren’s desk to ask her a question about the One Plus One mentorship program. It wasn’t an urgent or important question, but he wanted to allow Aliyah time to walk ahead of him to her office.

  Minutes later, Jacob walked toward the lecture hall where he had scheduled a review session for a final exam, and his body was overcome with exhaustion. After Deanna locked him out of his house, he had waited several hours before attempting to come back inside. He didn’t want to arouse Deanna’s suspicions and risk her discovering that he kept a copy of the house key hidden away outside. Years ago, Deanna had locked him out of the house while he was taking out the garbage and wearing only a bathrobe. He’d rung the doorbell and banged on the door repeatedly while she haughtily ignored him and climbed into bed and slept for half the day.

  Jacob clenched his teeth and shook his head, indignant. This is no way to live.

  Even if Deanna agreed to arbitration or marriage counseling, could he continue to live with her?

  Chapter 13

  Reality Check

  “Well, if you do accept his proposal, just know—”

  “There is no proposal,” Aliyah said irritably as she looked out the passenger window of Reem’s car, her elbow propped on the seal.

  “—that you won’t be getting much community support,” Reem finished.

  “That’s shocking,” Aliyah said sarcastically. “You know, given the outpouring of support I received after my divorce.”

  The sound of snickering prompted Aliyah to turn her head,
and she saw Reem’s eyes narrowed humorously through the wide slit of her black face veil. A confused grin formed on one side of Aliyah’s mouth. “What’s so funny?”

  “You,” Reem said, nodding her head in Aliyah’s direction. “Your sarcasm is killing me.”

  Aliyah shrugged, a grin still on her face. “A bitter sense of humor is therapeutic, believe it or not.”

  “Oh, trust me, I believe it,” Reem said. “It’s just funny, that’s all.”

  “Well,” Aliyah said, “I’m glad I make someone smile.”

  Reem was silent momentarily. “Don’t say that,” she said.

  “I didn’t mean it as self-pity,” Aliyah said. “I’m really glad I have that effect on at least one person in the world.”

  “You make a lot of people smile.”

  “Now it’s my turn to laugh.”

  “Why do you beat yourself up like that?” Reem said, concern in her tone as she glanced at Aliyah before turning her attention back to the road.

  “I don’t beat myself up,” Aliyah said. “I’m just realistic.”

  “That’s not realistic,” Reem said. “It’s cynical.”

  “Two sides of the same coin,” Aliyah said, humor in her tone.

  “I’m serious. You can’t keep seeing the glass as half empty every time you think of yourself.”

  Aliyah shrugged. “I just haven’t been feeling very optimistic lately.”

  “That’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot,” Reem said reflectively. “I don’t know how you stay so strong, mashaAllah, barakAllahufeek.”

  “Strong?” Aliyah repeated, humored disbelief in her tone.

  “Yes,” Reem said firmly. “But everyone has a limit, and I think you’re reaching yours.”