Last Tears

Chapter 11

"Happiness is the art of never holding in your mind the memory of any unpleasant thing that has passed."

Unknown

_______________________________________________________

"Is today general sanitation or what?" I asked the two maids in the kitchen bringing down every single item from the kitchen shelves.

"Not really" Maryam answered with a smile, "It's just-"

"Ya Maheen!" Abu yelled from the other side of the house. "Maama is looking for you!"

I walked out into the corridor to find him or her. I stumbled across an empty carton as I walked down a bend in the corridor I had never really been to. There were brooms and mops everywhere as all the maids busied themselves cleaning and some removing the cob webs.

I walked into a room down the corridor because the door was open so I decided Abu must have been inside. I had seen Akram walk down this corridor before but I'd never quite seen it myself. There were two doors both on the left as the right wall was covered with photographs of the family hung on the wall.

"Assalamu Alaikum" I greeted as I spotted Maama sitting on the edge of the bed in the room folding clothes. I stepped into the room and took a minute to admire the ash colored wooden bed and matching carpets and curtains of the same shade splashed with a little white and black randomly; making the room look moderately brightly colored. Not too bright not too glum. I liked it.

"Maheen, Abu told me you were awake" she smiled briefly before turning back to her work.

"Yes I am. Maama why did you let me sleep in if there was so much work to do? You should have sent someone to wake me up" I moved closer and sat down on the bed mimicking what she was doing.

"Oh it's nothing dear we're used to this work" she smiled, "Besides, I didn't want to wake you up"

"Still, I could have gotten something done" I shook my head "So, what exactly is going on here?" I asked

"The kids will be starting to close from school and return home. They'll be back three days to Eid and we'll be too busy then to do all of this. So" she stood up with a stack of folded shirts and walked to the  in the room, opened it and neatly stacked them at one edge. "We are getting the kids' rooms ready now" she supplied.

I nodded.

"We are almost through with Ahmad's room" she said ending my curiosity about the room we were in. "The next one; Adil's room is being swept and mopped, after this we'll go to arrange his clothes and then we'll do Afra's room last" she set out the plan.

"Okay" I said and got up to arrange my stack like she did hers.

We worked for the next twenty minutes and we were done with Ahmad's room. it was time for the afternoon prayers so we offered them before moving to Adil's room. Now Adil being a typical 17 year old boy had his Wardrobe turned upside down. The shirts, the T-shirts, the jeans, the cargo pants, everything was together. But despite the mess in the Wardrobes; I internally admired the room. It wasn't uniquely decorated like Ahmad's. The walls were cream colored and the furniture toffee. The carpet was a mixture of both and so were the curtains with white polka dots. Not at all exquisitely done like Ahmad's but something about the colors made the room feel like home. So as the maid working with us swept mopped and dusted off the room; Maama and I busied ourselves with rearranging his entire clothes. It took longer than we expected and by the time we were done; it was time for evening prayers. We offered them and moved out of the boys' area. Afra's room was next to mine, just like Adil and Ahmad's were next to each other. I had been in the room once though briefly. The room told you a lot about the owner. Her walls were painted pink with one of them covered in Purple wallpaper. The rest of her furniture were either pink or purple. I smiled as Maama instructed the maid to go get a clean purple bed sheet and spread it. She really encouraged her kids to do what they wanted.