THE TIMOROUS DUNYA✅

THIRTY-EIGHT

Assalamu Alaikum! Here it is, an update, like promised. The fifty comments goal has enabled me to write faster because I didn't want to break my promise to you guys.

So let's get to fifty-five comments for the next chapter. And please, no commenting in single words😂

*****

The sun has set, the ocean has calmed and the night has chilled when Maryam received the news. A journey back home! All the way home, where her father is, and her friends.

She jubilated, danced with joy, hugged and rained Hajarah, the bearer of the best news she had received in a long time with kisses.

She could not stop smiling as she arranged her clothes in a luggage. She imagined surprising her friends, Indo especially, by closing her eyes and letting her guess who it was. Giggling, she placed a black, blue and grey hijab into the bag. What else? She thought, I'll put my toiletries in once I'm done with them in the morning.

It was eleven twenty eight in the night when Maryam lay on her bed. They will be on their way early the next morning. As she closed her eyes, all sorts of thoughts started clouding her mind. She wondered if her father would speak to her, or recognize her even. She wondered what is it like in her father's house now, was it how she left it? Or has things changed? Was Inna Saude dictating how everything goes? She couldn't help but shudder, what if Inna Saude had killed her father also?

Maryam couldn't believe she had never thought of it. Inna Saude had many reasons to kill her father, it could be to inherit his farm, his money, or better yet the house. What if she had?

Maryam couldn't bare the thought. Her throat constricted suddenly, and a huge lump settled there. She ambled to the kitchen, in search of a bottle of water. Once she found one, she sat on the counter and gulped from it. Her eyes traveled to the chair and table in the kitchen, and her mind instantly wandered to the night she sat in them with Sufyan. It felt like decades ago when they shared a thub of ice-cream, when he asked her what her favourite colour was.

Had she lost him, too? Maryam's stomach clenched at the thought. It has been seven days since they had talked normally, nothing passed greetings were exchanged between them. They were no evening outings anymore. Those outings, Maryam has painfully missed. But most of all, she had missed the glint in his eyes as he spoke to her, his soft un-earthly voice that says her name in a way no one has, and the deep rumbling sound of his laughter whenever she did something amusing.

What was I thinking? She thought, giving herself a soft smack on the head.

I am losing him!

*****

The first call to prayer woke her up. She rose and shone and washed and wore.

Maryam did some last minute packing before dragging her luggage down the stairs. She left it by the front door and head for the kitchen. Hajarah was not down yet, she must have gotten ready too early. She glanced at the clock, it was almost seven in the morning. Sudais wasn't going with them, so he must have probably gone to work.

Maryam decided to make pancakes, Sufyan's favourite. She brought out the ingredients and started by mixing the dried ones. Hajarah came in shortly after she had started frying the pancakes, dressed gracefully in a red lace boubou.

"Let me finish that." She beamed at Maryam after she finshed answering a call from a customer, who was there to pick up some orders.