CHAPTER 4 #2
She became more honest about the little lies she told because they felt easier than uncomfortable truth. She started noticing when she manipulated conversations without realizing it. She started asking whether she described conflicts fairly when she vented to friends.
Still, Solomon's pride in her became intoxicating.
She wanted him to look at her and think, That's my woman.
She wanted to make him proud.
That was beautiful until it became dangerous.
Because if his approval could lift her that high, his disappointment could drop her just as far.
One night they sat in a twenty-four-hour diner working on a simple budget for the community studio. Safiya had spent hours building a spreadsheet.
Solomon looked at it for three minutes.
"Where the insurance?"
Safiya froze.
"What?"
"Liability. Property. Whatever else we need. Where is it?"
She stared at the spreadsheet.
She had forgotten.
Embarrassment moved quickly into defensiveness.
"This isn't final."
"I know."
"I was still adding things."
"Okay."
"You don't have to look at me like that."
Solomon looked confused. "Like what?"
"Like I did something stupid."
He put the paper down. "Safiya. I asked where insurance was."
"I know."
"You hear a whole judgment I didn't say."
She crossed her arms.
"Because I know how you think."
"No. You know how you think I think."
That irritated her because it was probably true.
Solomon leaned back.
"You know what I see?"
Safiya did not answer.
"I see somebody who built a whole budget for a business that doesn't exist yet, after working ten hours. And forgot one category."
She looked at him.
"That's it."
Safiya's eyes filled before she could stop them.
"Don't cry over insurance," he said.
She laughed through it.
"I'm not."
"You definitely are."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't."
Again, he was annoyingly secure about that.
? ? ?
As Safiya's work hours increased, dates became harder to protect.
At first they adjusted.
Breakfast instead of dinner.
A thirty-minute walk after Isha.
Coffee in the car before Safiya's shift.
A grocery run that became flirtation because Solomon insisted she did not know how to choose fruit.
"You squeeze everything," he complained.
"That's how you check it."
"You interrogating avocados."
"I need to know their intentions."
He laughed.
Once, Safiya finished work at nearly ten and found Solomon outside with takeout balanced on the hood of his car.
"What is this?"
"Dinner."
"Here?"
"You said you had twenty minutes."
Safiya looked at the paper containers, the cheap battery lantern he had set between them, and felt tears threaten.
"Don't cry," Solomon said immediately.
"I'm not crying."
"You doing the face."
"What face?"
"The I'm about to cry and deny it face."
Safiya laughed and wiped under one eye.
They ate standing beside the car.
That twenty minutes meant more than expensive dinners could have.
Then even those moments became inconsistent.
Zahra's housing situation became urgent again. Layla needed transportation after an after-school program changed. Solomon had a difficult stretch with his children. Safiya's body began hurting after a fall at work, turning appointments into another item on the calendar.
Every need was legitimate.
That was what made resentment so confusing.
There was no villain.
Only time.
Finite, stubborn time.
One Wednesday Safiya had an afternoon off and told Solomon she wanted to spend it alone with him.
Not subtly.
"I want you," she said. "Just you."
Solomon smiled. "Okay."
Safiya planned nothing. That was intentional. She wanted a day without a mission.
By noon, Zahra called about a paperwork deadline. Safiya answered automatically.
Twenty minutes became forty-five.
Solomon waited.
When she hung up, he raised an eyebrow.
"Don't."
"I didn't say nothing."
"Your face did."
They laughed, but Safiya felt guilty.
Then Solomon's phone rang. One of his children needed something. He took the call.
Another forty minutes.
By the time both phones were quiet, they stared at each other.
"We bad at this," Safiya said.
"Very."
They put both phones in the glove compartment.
For two hours they drove with no destination. They stopped at a beach overlook, shared a bag of chips and listened to an Islamic lecture about rights and responsibilities in marriage.
Halfway through, Safiya paused it.
"I have a question."
"Of course you do."
"Don't start."
She asked about the difference between leadership and control in a marriage. Solomon answered carefully.
"I think leadership means responsibility before privilege," he said. "But I'm not a scholar. We should ask somebody."
Safiya smiled.
"What?"
"I like when you say that."
"Say what?"
"That we should ask."
"Why?"
"Because men from my past always acted like knowing less made them weaker."
Solomon looked at her.
"I don't need to know everything to be a man."
Safiya rested her head against the seat.
"That's why I trust you."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Then don't punish me for what somebody else did."
The sentence was gentle, but it landed.
Safiya nodded.
"I'm trying."
"I know."
They prayed Maghrib beside the car as the sky changed color.
Safiya still checked Solomon's movements when she forgot what came next.
He noticed.
Afterward he smiled. "You was peeking."
"I was not."
"You absolutely were."
"I was checking alignment."
"Alignment?"
"Prayer row integrity."
Solomon laughed until Safiya laughed too.
Those were the dates she missed later.
Not the fancy ones they never really had.
The accidental sacredness of ordinary time.
? ? ?
Work became the place where Safiya practiced saying she was fine.
Her coworker Nia stopped believing her by the second month.
"You ate?" Nia asked one afternoon.
"Yes."
"Food?"
Safiya looked offended. "What else would I eat?"
"Coffee is not food."
"I had a muffin."
"At what time?"
Safiya checked the clock as though the answer might be displayed there.
Her phone rang. Solomon.
Nia looked at the screen and smiled. "Your parole officer."
"He is not -" Safiya answered. "Hello?"
"What's wrong with you?" Solomon asked.
Safiya frowned. "Nothing."
Nia mouthed, Liar.
Safiya turned away.
"I'm literally at work."
"Didn't ask where you were."
"I'm fine."
"That's two lies and I asked one question."
Safiya covered her mouth because the laugh escaped before she could stop it.
"You are so irritating."
"There she go."
"There who go?"
"My woman. I was wondering where she went."
Nia watched Safiya's entire face soften and shook her head.
After the call, she said, "Oh, you in love-love."
"Go work."
"I am working. I'm studying a case."
"What case?"
"Woman thinks she subtle."
Safiya threw a sticky note at her.
The ordinary teasing mattered because the rest of Safiya's life was becoming less ordinary.
Her mother's appointments increased. A relative called about money.
Zahra's housing deadline moved closer. Solomon had assignments due and problems involving his children that he did not always explain immediately.