CHAPTER 3 #4
Children. Errands. Prayer stops. Somebody complaining they were hungry. Solomon driving. Safiya researching something nobody asked her to research.
A life.
She wanted it badly enough that sometimes wanting became fear.
And fear, Safiya already knew, could make her dishonest.
? ? ?
Solomon met Zahra properly over takeout.
Safiya had talked about each of them to the other so often that the introduction felt less like strangers meeting and more like two recurring characters finally appearing in the same episode.
Zahra looked Solomon over.
"So you're Solomon."
Solomon looked at Safiya. "What that mean?"
Safiya immediately became interested in opening sauce packets.
Zahra smiled. "Nothing."
"Nah. You said it with punctuation."
Safiya laughed.
"See?" Zahra pointed. "This is what she does. She tells me you interrogate everything."
"I ask questions."
"You ask follow-up questions to follow-up questions."
"Because people leave stuff out."
Safiya coughed dramatically.
Both of them looked at her.
"What?" she said.
Solomon leaned back. "Nothing."
Zahra laughed. "Oh, I see why y'all work."
"Don't encourage him."
They ate on Safiya's living room floor because the little table was covered in papers.
The conversation moved easily.
Zahra talked about a problem with her car.
Solomon asked what sound it was making.
Safiya interrupted to say Solomon was about to diagnose a vehicle he had not seen.
"I didn't say I knew what was wrong."
"Your face did."
Zahra looked between them. "Y'all say that to each other a lot?"
"Because he has a face."
"Everybody has a face," Solomon said.
"Not like yours."
Zahra laughed.
Later, when Zahra left, Safiya closed the door and turned around.
Solomon was already looking at her.
"What?"
"You love her."
Safiya's defensiveness rose before she understood why.
"Of course I do."
"I didn't say it was bad."
"Then why you said it like that?"
"Safiya."
She sighed.
Solomon sat on the couch.
"You take care of her."
"She takes care of me too."
"I can see that."
Safiya sat beside him.
"She's been through a lot."
"So have you."
"That's why we understand each other."
Solomon nodded.
He did not tell her to stop helping Zahra.
He did not warn her that friendships could become too dependent.
He did not predict the future.
He simply accepted that somebody Safiya loved mattered.
That was how he became involved.
Not because Zahra sought him out.
Not because Solomon inserted himself.
Because Safiya opened the door.
At first she was grateful.
When Zahra needed help moving something heavy, Safiya called Solomon.
When Safiya was stuck at work and Zahra needed a ride from a place nearby, Safiya asked Solomon if he could do it.
When Zahra's car made the mysterious sound again, Safiya put the phone on speaker and said, "Ask Mr. Mechanic."
"I'm not a mechanic."
"Tell her what you told me."
Solomon sighed and asked Zahra three questions.
Safiya watched with satisfaction.
This was her village.
Her man.
Her friend.
People helping people.
It felt healthy.
It felt like the opposite of isolation.
It felt like proof that life after survival could become communal instead of lonely.
One Friday they all ended up in the car trying to decide what to eat.
"I don't care," Zahra said.
Solomon looked at her in the mirror.
"That's one."
Zahra frowned. "One what?"
"One person saying they don't care who's gonna reject every suggestion."
Safiya slapped the dashboard. "THANK YOU."
"Why are you agreeing with him?"
"Because I've been trying to tell you this."
"Safiya, you are worse than me."
"Absolutely not."
Solomon sighed. "Burgers."
"No," both women said.
Solomon stared through the windshield.
Safiya looked at Zahra.
Zahra looked at Safiya.
They burst out laughing.
Solomon opened the driver's door.
"Where are you going?" Safiya asked.
"Home."
"Solomon!"
"Both of y'all getting on my nerves."
Zahra leaned between the seats. "Okay. Mexican?"
Safiya made a face.
Solomon put one foot outside.
"SOLOMON!"
He sat back and looked toward the roof.
"Ya Allah."
Safiya laughed until she cried.
That night became one of those memories that hurt later precisely because nothing had been wrong.
No hidden motive.
No rivalry.
No suspicion.
Just three people in a car, hungry and annoying each other.
The first changes were too small to name.
Zahra texted Solomon once about the car because Safiya was at work.
Reasonable.
Solomon answered.
Reasonable.
Another time, Zahra called him because she needed to know whether a particular neighborhood was safe to meet someone selling a used appliance.
Reasonable.
Solomon told Safiya later.
Still reasonable.
Then one afternoon Zahra mentioned something Solomon had told her about school.
Safiya paused.
"When did y'all talk about that?"
Zahra barely looked up from her phone. "Yesterday, I think."
"Oh."
That was all.
Oh.
Safiya told herself she was being weird.
These were two people she trusted.
She had connected them.
She did not own Solomon's conversations.
She did not want to become the kind of woman who monitored every interaction her partner had.
So she swallowed the little feeling.
That became a pattern too.