When Everybody Needed Him (Between Salah & Silence #1)

PROLOGUE

The Space Between Us

"How long?"

Safiya hated how small her voice sounded.

Solomon did not answer immediately. The car was running, but neither of them was going anywhere. Outside, the city continued without them. Headlights passed. Somewhere across the parking lot, somebody laughed too loudly. A shopping cart rattled against concrete.

Inside the car, Safiya could hear Solomon breathing.

She had spent enough nights beside him to know his silences. There was the silence that meant he was thinking. The silence that meant he was irritated. The silence that meant give me five minutes before you make this worse.

She knew all of them.

This one frightened her.

"A week," he finally said.

Safiya stared at him. "A week of what?"

Solomon looked exhausted. Not angry. She almost wished he were angry. Anger she understood. Anger could be argued with.

"Space."

Her stomach dropped.

"From me?"

"Safiya."

"I'm asking."

"From all of it."

All of it. Work. His children. The accident. Money. School. Everybody calling. Everybody needing. Zahra. Her.

"Am I part of the chaos now?"

Solomon rubbed both hands over his face. "That's not what I said."

"But that's what it sounds like."

"See." He dropped his hands. "This. This is exactly why I need a minute."

She looked down at her hands.

There had been a time those hands could not make wudu without checking the order. A time she kept Al-Fatihah written phonetically beside her prayer rug. A time Solomon listened patiently while she stumbled through the same line for the sixth time.

Again, he would tell her. You almost got it.

There had been nights they sat in this same car talking about a house they did not own. Businesses that did not exist. Children. Marriage. Allah. The people they wanted to become.

Solomon used to look at her and say, "That's my woman."

Safiya had built entire futures inside those words.

Now she was sitting inches away from him wondering whether touching his hand would violate something he had not even finished asking for.

"I embarrassed you," she said.

"Yes."

"I didn't mean to."

"I know."

On the drive back, Solomon asked how she pictured discipline working in a home with children who came from different histories. Safiya gave him a suspicious look.

"That is a very specific question."

"It's a real question."

"For who?"

Solomon kept his eyes on the road. "For people trying not to build a confused house."

That was all he gave her. Safiya smiled toward the window and did not ask for more.

"I would never intentionally play with you."

"I know what you intended." His voice stayed controlled. "Intent don't erase impact."

That hurt because he was right.

It also hurt because she had been hurting too.

"And what about me?"

Solomon's expression changed.

Safiya almost said everything at once. What about every time I asked for you and somebody else was there? What about finding out things about my man through another woman? What about trying so hard not to be controlling that I stayed quiet until quiet turned into resentment?

But fear could turn her truth into a weapon.

So she gave him the sentence underneath all the others.

"I miss you."

Solomon's face softened.

"And you've been right here."

Neither spoke.

That was the tragedy of it.

Solomon had not disappeared. He had simply become available to so many people that Safiya no longer knew which pieces of him belonged to their relationship.

The adhan notification sounded from her phone.

Both looked down.

Solomon reached for the stereo and turned the music completely off.

"You prayed?" Safiya asked.

He shook his head.

She reached into the back seat. Two prayer rugs were folded beneath a jacket. She handed him one.

Months ago, Solomon had helped teach her where to place her hands. He had corrected her Al-Fatihah. He had reminded her when she forgot.

Now Safiya held his prayer rug toward him.

Solomon looked at it. Then at her.

He took it.

For that moment, Safiya understood something she would not have had words for before Islam: space between two people did not have to mean space between them and Allah.

She opened her door.

"Safiya."

She turned.

"A week doesn't mean forever."

Her heart betrayed her with hope.

She nodded anyway. "I know."

She did not know.

She was terrified.