Esha and Isa

Flashback 9

"'I said choose a name!" I demanded.

"Hey, this is my son's name we're talking about. It has to be perfect. It has to be like a du'a. A prayer for my son to grow up and be like his name."

"How about Asad, so he can grow up to be like a lion," I suggested.

"Lions are kind of lazy."

"What better name than Muhammad?" I asked.

"You see, that's an excellent name. But it's far too common."

"Abdul with a name of Allah following it. Adbur-Rahman? Abdul-Malik? Abdur-Raheem?"

"Again, excellent names. We do want our son to grow up to be a servant of Allah. But if we're planning on moving back to England and put our son through English schools, they'll probably separate the names and call him Abdul. That doesn't make sense. They'll be calling him, servant of."

"You're so impossible!" I said through gritted teeth, shoving Isa.

"You're so beautiful," Isa replied putting an arm around me.

"That won't work. I know what you're doing."

"I'm not doing anything!" He argued.

"You know you're annoying me so you're going to try and compliment me to make me less annoyed!" I said, making my frown deeper. Isa looked deep into my eyes.

"So very beautiful," He said softly.

"And it's working," I replied, trying to stop myself from smiling.

"I could stare at you all day long!"

"Stop it!" I replied, beginning to giggle. Isa kissed my forehead and pulled my to his chest. Though it was hot, I wrapped my arms around him. He smelt a bit sweaty but not the smelly kind. I found it strangely nice. I closed my eyes, feeling drowsy from the heat. I felt Isa put his hand on my little baby bump.

"Do you want something to eat?" Isa asked and I shook my head.

"It's too hot to eat."

"What if he's hungry though?"

"If I'm not hungry, he's not hungry," I told Isa.

"Khalil and Hadia aren't calling us yet so shall I quickly make a trip to the bazaar and get something to eat?"

"No, I want to save my appetite for the food they'll give in Karachi. I heard they have everything there! I can't wait! I'm so excited! Oh, and we have to go shopping for ingredients to make cool things at home. And I also want to check out the shopping centre and see if it really is how they show it on TV," I said too quickly.

"I'm still kind of scared though," Isa admitted and I rolled my eyes. He had been watching too much news recently.

"There are people in Karachi who have never experienced anything that you see on the news. We're only going for a few days," I reminded him. We were going for my cousin's wedding as she was getting married to a man in Karachi. She was friends with Hadia from school and we were both invited so we decided to go together.

"I know but I'm still nervous. I'm not going to leave your side the whole time," He said, squeezing me.

"Dude, we're normal people. We don't attract trouble or attention. My life is too normal for such things to happen to us," I said to Isa and he turned back to look at my face.

"My dear wife, I'm a black man living in Pakistan. Only last week, someone shouted at me to go home," He said, amused. "We're not that normal."

"Things will be fine, in'sha'Allah," I assure Isa. I mean, things out of the ordinary rarely happened. I went to normal schools, got a normal degree, worked average jobs. I couldn't define the major things that happened in my life abnormal either. My father's death was expected for two years and cancer is common. I met Isa through marriage meetings, another common way to meet spouses. Of course the feelings I felt were intense on each important occasion but these were things that happened to people often.