The Things We Do

TWENTY

"It's not a thing, Monica, it's my religion and their's too." Raheem sighed and looked away briefly before turning back to his wife. "You say I'm imposing it on them but you're not even doing anything. You don't want them to be Muslims but you have refused times without number to take them to church, you hardly even attend yourself."

"Like it or not, I'm a Christian. And you're a Muslim, I respect that and I didn't say I don't want the kids to be part of your religion. Raheem, I went against my family to marry you, don't suddenly start acting like your religion disgusts me because I didn't convert or because I won't let the kids to go to the mosque with you...look, I don't want to impose any religion on them because things like this can get confusing. You have to understand that the twins have parents that are from two different religions and before either of us force them to one, I want them to grow up and make their own decision."

"How will they make a decision when they'll know nothing about Islam or Christianity because we refused to involve them?" Raheem asked.

Monica shrugged and raised her eyebrows. "So what are you suggesting? That they go to the mosque on Fridays and attend church service on Sundays?"

Raheem immediately opened his mouth to drop a response but the sharp sound of ceramic clashing with tiled floor got the couple's attention. The sound seemed to have come from the bathroom and that was when Raheem and Monica realized that they hadn't seen their five year old boys in the sitting room for the past thirty minutes.

Without saying anything to each other, the couple jolted up and bolted for the door leading to the hallway. They ran into the bathroom and nearly stepped on the broken glass that littered the white tiled floor.

But the broken glass was the least of their problems when they found Zehan kneeling next to the bathtub with his hands inside. He seemed so adamant of pushing something down.

It was only when they saw Ismael's little hands springing out of the bathtub, waving frantically in the air and splashing water everywhere that Monica realized that Zehan was drowning his brother.

Raheem caught up with what was going on when his wife had pushed Zehan out of the way and the boy stumbled back onto the broken glass, resulting in multiple cuts on his elbow.

Ismael's breathing was heavy and unsteady as Monica held the wet boy in her arms and  stared at his twin with what Raheem deciphered as terror. Indeed, Monica was short of words, she didn't even yell and scold Zehan like she normally would.

"God, let this not be true," Monica mumbled to herself but her husband had heard her and it sent chills down his spine.

He gulped as the thought he same thing. Would the prophecy come true?

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Sitting comfortably at the dinning table, Zehan's fingers were flying fast and hard against his keyboard. Jamal would watch him occasionally smirk and shake his head as he read, and continued typing immediately. Obviously, he was probably chatting away his time online.

"Hmm..." Jamal hummed, throwing popcorn into his mouth as he watched his brother from the far end of the dinning table where he was seated, a bowl of popcorn in front of him.

It took a few seconds before Zehan was able to look up at his brother, only then had he noticed that Jamal had been watching him for God knows how long and that made him uncomfortable.