Sa'eeda exchanged pleasantries with them then stood up to fold her prayer mat.
"Aunt Sa'eeda I want to go home." Humayd was starting to get impatient. It had been about four hours since his mother left and she did not come back, neither did she call.
Few seconds of eye contact between Muslim and Ummulkhayr, the latter nodded then smiled at Humayd.
"You must be hungry, let's go get you some really nice food." She bent a little. The boy looked at Jasmine, then Aayan, Muslim and Sa'eeda, Ummulkhayr being the last.
"Go with her Humayd, she's Aunt Ummulkhayr, my sister." Sa'eeda smiled at the little boy and he reluctantly followed Ummulkhayr out of the room with her two fingers in his little loose fist.
"Hafsy, wait." Jasmine's voice came, making Muslim to turn and see her awake. Sa'eeda excused them because she felt they needed to be together.
"That's Ummulkhayr, not Hafsa." He swallowed a lump then sat and took her hands in his.
"She didn't come back here since she left." Muslim sounded pale.
"Let me call her." She attempted to reach for her phone.
"Later, please. How do feel?"
"Excited, exhilarated. Thrilled to bits." She smiled widely but her husband gave her a tight-lipped smile, that too because the baby blues was no longer there. He knew she was just saying that because she also wanted to believe it, thinking that forgetting about Ummulkhayr being his wife would do her some good.
"You know, it'd be so ethereal to go back home as a family of three." She said in order to get rid of the awkward moment.
"Listen, Jasmine." The way his voiced dropped so low made her shiver. Something was definitely not right.
She nodded with a curious look on her face.
"I'm sorry.." He was hesitant
"Stop being hesitant. Tell me?" She sat up.
Muslim breathed once.
Twice.
Thrice.
"Jasmine, Hafsa..." He stopped again, not wanting to see his wife broken which is definitely going to happen.
"Hafsat what?"
He did the process again.
He breathed slowly three times.
"Her house caught fire-" Jasmine's eyes widened. "-neither her, nor her daughter made it out of it."
"What do you mean?" Jasmine's voice was almost gone.
"She's-she's no more."
"What do you mean she's no more? She told me she was going to pick up Asma and the food she made for me at home." Jasmine shook her head in denial. "This prank is not funny Muslim." Tears filled her eyes to the brim.
"Jasmine, this is not a prank. I don't pull pranks on you." Muslim sounded concerned as he took his wife's hands in his.
"Innalillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un." Jasmine cried. "Hafsat is gone." She threw herself into Muslim's hold, cried hysterically for about ten minutes, totally lost of words. All she could mutter were silent prayers
"If only I had bot convinced her to go. If only I didn't really care about the pepper soup, if only I had agreed to her sending Sulaiman to pick Asma'u up."
"Keep quiet, stop acting like it's your fault. This is where her life ends, we can't do anything about it, baby." Muslim tried calming her down although he didn't know how to and it would definitely be futile.
Chapter 29
Start from the beginning
