Her Unspoken Resilience (on hold)

Chapter 1

The room was spacious, a large rich mahogany bed placed at perfect angle gave the room a rich spectacular appearance. The long brown drapes falls gracefully down the walls in a fanciful cascade: matching dark, heavy carpeting spread all across the room was but just another touch of the so impressive, beautiful room.

In the vast expanse of the room, Zaliha sat before her dressing mirror in her flawless white lacy underwear. A look of discontentment crossed her face as she stared at her dissembled voluminous  kinky curly hair. She took a wooden wide tooth brush and attempted to work it through her hair but it only ended in pain and she scrunched up her nose and rolled up her eyes. Who was she kidding? There was no short cut in the management of her 4c hair. She sighed as she resolved to do it the right way, she took out her hair spray bottle, a moisturizer, a bottle of essential oils and a leave in conditioner: she started to work meticulously with utterable precision on her hair.

Soon, she was finished. She inspected her hair in the mirror and smiled to herself. She took a face wipe and cleaned the residual oil on her face, then she cleansed with a cleanser. With a scrupulous attention to details she applied her makeup.

She gazed attentively at the image in the mirror as if to find a fault in her, she didn't and that made her feel good. She stood from the dresser and walked quietly, her hips swaying gracefully, to the closet. She hesitated for a bit on what to wear before she settled for a magenta ankara gown with a fine seam. She lit up a coal in a clay burner and placed some incensed turaren wuta on it. The sweet scent of the burning turaren wuta was so inviting, she smiled as she placed her clothes over the rising scented smoke. Fumigating her clothes was Zaliha's everyday ritual.

A soft tune escaped her lips as she looked the other side of the closet: that was her favorite part of getting dressed every morning: choosing the perfect veil that matches her clothes, the shoes, the bag and other accessories.

She was trying to fit into the gown when she happens to turn and he was awake, staring at her.

"You are awake" her soft melodious voice sang.

"Fulani, the smoke" Habib grumbled. Zaliha stepped out of the closet and walked to him on the bed.

"Good Morning to you too my love" she greeted placing a kiss on his cheek, carefully so as not to smear her perfectly laid lipstick on him.

Habib gestured to the closet "at least close the closet" he complained.

"Oh that" Zaliha shooed "you know I don't let the smoke come in the room especially when you are sleeping...this was intentional" she chuckled

"Seriously?"

"It's time you wake up, you've been sleeping since after subh prayers. You missed your qur'anic recitation with the kids, Sultana asked if you were okay. Also, you missed the gym three days in a row..." Zaliha stopped in her words, Habib was sniffing on her neck this early morning. Her scent was heavenly and even after eleven years of marriage, Habib still gets taken away by her scent.

She shook her head and started to back off from him, he let her be.
"You are up early?" He asked

"Early? It's almost seven am, I got an early elective caesarean section.... and the kids resume school today"

"They resume today?" Habib asked and Zaliha eyed him. How would he know? She thought, between the two of them, she was the one who was most involved in their children's school affairs: attending PTA meetings, open day, end of term meetings and so on. Habib? Habib was always too busy to attend and afterwards, comfortably ask for a briefing.

Instead of answering, she went ahead to put some last touches on her face.

Habib climbed out of bed
"Even I got an early morning" he commented as he started to undress