CHAPTER 6 #2
"You hate when I don't ask questions."
"Today I hate these questions."
Safiya grabbed her bag.
He had planned nothing extravagant.
Lunch.
A bookstore because he knew she would stay too long.
A walk near the water.
No errands.
No paperwork.
No group decisions.
At the bookstore, Solomon disappeared into business and finance while Safiya wandered through religion, psychology, and fiction.
She found him holding two books.
"You buying those?"
"Maybe."
"That's yes."
"You got four."
"Mine are educational."
"So are mine."
"Mine are spiritually and emotionally educational."
Solomon stared at the novel in her hand.
Safiya tucked it behind the others.
"Mind your business."
He laughed.
Later they sat outside with drinks.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Safiya realized she was waiting for the phone to ring.
It did.
Solomon looked at the screen.
Then turned it face down.
Safiya looked at him.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You got that face."
"What face?"
"That Safiya, what am I gonna do with you face."
She smiled.
"You remember that?"
"I remember everything."
"That's not true."
"Most things."
Safiya looked at his phone.
"You can answer if you need to."
"I know."
That mattered.
He was not ignoring the world because Safiya demanded it.
He was choosing a moment.
She leaned back.
"This is what I meant."
Solomon nodded.
"I know."
"No solving."
"No solving."
"No anybody else."
"For two hours."
Safiya laughed. "I'll take it."
He looked at her.
"You shouldn't have to get mad before you ask me for time."
Safiya's smile faded.
"I know."
"And I shouldn't make you ask every time either."
She looked at him.
That was the piece she had been afraid to say.
Wanting protected time did not mean she needed to control his schedule.
But being loved by someone should sometimes mean being remembered without submitting a request.
Safiya reached for his hand.
"Okay."
Solomon squeezed hers.
No speech followed.
They sat there until the sun shifted.
* * *
Life did not become organized because they had one good Sunday.
Safiya's work schedule worsened.
Her mother's health remained on her mind.
A nephew was hospitalized out of state.
Solomon had school, work, his sons, family stress, and the habit of saying yes before checking what yes would cost him.
Zahra had housing deadlines and motherhood and her own private exhaustion.
Everybody still had a life.
The difference was that Safiya began trying not to make every life one shared emergency.
When Zahra needed help with paperwork one evening, Safiya looked at the clock.
"I can look tomorrow."
"Okay."
"That's it?"
Zahra laughed. "You wanted me to beg?"
"No."
"Then tomorrow."
Safiya hung up almost offended by how easy it was.
Another evening Solomon called while she was working on a presentation.
"You wanna ride with me?"
"Where?"
"Got a couple things to handle."
Safiya almost said yes.
Then she looked at her laptop.
"No."
Solomon paused.
"No?"
"I need to finish this."
"Okay."
Again.
No collapse.
No punishment.
No proof that love had weakened.
Safiya finished the presentation.
She prayed Isha.
She went to bed.
The next morning, she woke with the strange satisfaction of having kept a promise to herself.
* * *
The thing that finally hurt was small enough to look stupid from outside.
Zahra and Safiya were folding laundry at Zahra's place when Zahra said, "Tell Solomon that tire shop was actually good."
Safiya looked up.
"What tire shop?"
"The one he told me about."
"Oh."
Zahra kept folding.
Safiya did too.
Nothing was wrong.
Solomon knew cars better than either of them. Zahra had needed a shop.
Normal.
A few days later Zahra mentioned Solomon's exam.
"He said he thinks he did good."
Safiya's hands stopped over a towel.
"He took it already?"
"Yesterday, I think."
"Oh."
Again, harmless.
Safiya had been working.
Solomon and Zahra were friends.
People she loved were allowed to have conversations that did not include her.
Still, something bothered her.
Not that they talked.
That she was learning pieces of Solomon's life through Zahra.
Safiya sat with that distinction.
It was important.
She did not want control.
She wanted intimacy.
Those were not the same thing.
That evening Solomon called.
"How was the exam?"
"Good, I think."
"Zahra said you thought so."
A beat.
"Yeah. She called about the tire place."
"Okay."
"Why you say okay like that?"
Safiya almost laughed.
Then she decided not to hide.
"I don't care that y'all talk."
Solomon waited.
"I care that sometimes I find out things about you from somebody else."
He was quiet.
Safiya continued before fear could decorate the sentence.
"I want to know your life because I'm your woman. Not because I'm monitoring you."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yeah."
She waited.
Solomon sighed.
"I've been moving too fast."
Safiya's shoulders lowered.
"That's all I'm saying."
"I can do better with that."
She smiled.
No interrogation.
No accusation.
No fight.
The conversation lasted six minutes.
Safiya wondered how many arguments in her life had begun because she waited six days to say a six-minute truth.
* * *
The chapter of their life with three cups on the table did not end with anybody being thrown out.
That would have been easier to understand.
Instead, it changed by inches.
Safiya stopped automatically inviting Zahra into every plan.
Zahra stopped automatically calling Solomon when Safiya could not fix something.
Solomon started asking before turning a two-person plan into a group plan.
Not because Zahra was dangerous.
Because closeness needed shape.
One Saturday, Zahra came over with Layla.
Solomon was already there.
Safiya felt the old instinct to make everybody stay for dinner.
She didn't.
At five, Zahra gathered Layla's things.
"You leaving?"
"Yeah. Y'all got plans."
Safiya looked at Solomon.
They did.
Nothing special.
Just dinner.
Still, Zahra had remembered.
Safiya walked her to the door.
Zahra hugged her.
"We good?"
Safiya smiled.
"We been good."
"Okay."
"Stop saying okay like Solomon."
Zahra laughed and left.
Safiya closed the door.
When she turned around, Solomon was looking at her.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That ain't nothing."
Safiya walked toward him.
"She didn't disappear."
"Who said she had to?"
Safiya stopped.
Nobody.
That was the lesson.
A boundary did not have to destroy a friendship to be real.
A relationship did not need an enemy to deserve protection.
Solomon reached for her hand.
"What we eating?"
Safiya stared at him.
"You didn't cook?"
"I thought you was cooking."
"Why would you think that?"
"Because you always—"
Safiya pulled her hand away.
"No. Finish the sentence."
Solomon started laughing.
"Come on."
"No. You thought I was cooking because I'm a woman?"
"I thought you were cooking because you said yesterday—"
"Oh."
"Exactly."
Safiya took his hand again.
"That's different."
"Very."
They ordered food.
Two cups sat on the table that night.
It did not feel emptier.
It felt intentional.
And for the first time, Safiya understood that those were not the same thing.