sistIn the hospital and at home, Deek can’t shake the deep chill of the river.

Previous Chapters: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13| Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28| Part 29 | Part 30

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“Your Lord has not forsaken you… and the future will be better for you than the past.”

— Surah Ad-Duha, 93:3–4

“In the heart of every winter is a trembling spring.” – Khalil Gibran

Stranger Every Day

The first morning after the harrowing experience at the river, Deek lay in the hospital bed, still deeply tired, barely able to keep his eyes open. He was covered in layers of blankets, though the nurse assured him his core temperature was normal. Rania sat on the bed beside him, her head bandaged from the blow she’d taken, and the girls in chairs by the wall. Dr. Ali, the tall British-Pakistani doctor who had previously treated his gunshot wound, studied Deek critically.

“You do live a strange life, Mister Saghir,” she said.

“Stranger every day,” he agreed.

Deek knew that he should be grateful and happy that he had survived that terrible ordeal, and he was indeed grateful, yet the terror clung to him like a layer of mud he could not wash off. A part of him was still in the roiling river, fighting for his life, not knowing whether he was himself or his uncle.

“You suffered something terrible,” Rania said, rubbing his hand between hers. “Give yourself time. You’ll be back to your normal, crazy self in no time, inshaAllah.”

The constant visitors did not help. Deek didn’t know how word of his hospitalization had gotten out, but the stream of people wanting to visit him was unending. They brought flowers and gifts, asked for loans, grants or investments, or simply wished him well. Some he knew – including some of the same wealthy physicians from Masjid Umar who used to ignore him in the past – and some he did not.

Deek had no patience for this nonsense, nor for these fair-weather friends and bloodsuckers. At his request, the hospital installed a security guard outside his room, and admitted no one without his permission. They billed him for this service, of course.

Many of the visitors, though, were welcome. Dr. Rana, his wife and their daughter Maryam were at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, but Dr. Rana’s sister in law brought spicy Pakistani food, which Deek loved.

Rania was there most of the time of course, while the girls came and went.

Mac N’ Cheese

At one point the security guard informed him that a man named Tariq was there. “Short black guy in a colorful shirt,” the guard said. Deek’s mood immediately brightened. Tariq was a recent convert, an elementary school teacher who had only been Muslim for a year. The day he took his shahadah Deek gave him his own musalla that he had with him, and ever since then, whenever they saw each other they always talked. Occasionally they played chess on a table in the masjid’s yard. Tariq was a defensive player, the kind that built up ranks of connecting pawns that were like a fortress. Sometimes Deek won, sometimes Tariq.

“Wonderful,” he said. “Send him in.”

“As-salamu alaykum.” Tariq had a quiet, soft voice. Today he wore a colorful daishiki over jeans, and an embroidered green kufi. Tariq presented a casserole dish, and Rania took it from him.

“What is it?” Deek asked.

“Southern style mac n’cheese. I don’t know if ya’ll Arabs eat that, but it’s pretty good, I have to say.”

“I want to try!”

Tariq laughed. Rania fed Deek a large spoonful. It was dense and rich, with a creamy, almost custard-like texture, and a deep cheese flavor.

“Oh my goodness, subhanAllah. This is so good.” He licked his lips. “You’re not related to Queen Latifah by any chance, are you?”

“Matter of fact, my cousin’s wife is one of her personal trainers. But we ain’t related, nah. Why?”

“Brother, you can come visit anytime.”

What School?

Lubna and her husband came, though without the kids, as children were not permitted. The husband spent most of the visit out in the hallway on his cellphone, and Deek found himself missing Hammurabi, oddly enough.

There was something different about Lubna that Deek could not put his finger on. She wore a beautiful cream-colored pantsuit and a double-breasted white coat that made her look like a fashion model, and her face seemed… what? Relaxed, Deek realized. The worry and frown lines that often creased her visage were gone. She looked happy, and this happiness gave her a radiance that he had not seen shining from her since they were children. This made him very happy, and he found himself beaming as she reported the progress on the school.

“I’m missing something,” Rania interrupted. “What school?”

Lubna looked surprised. “Well… Your husband is founding an Islamic school. It’s called Renaissance Islamic Academy, and will combine traditional learning with progressive teaching methods.”

“Oh.” Rania looked back and forth between Deek and his sister. In her eyes he saw hurt, then bewilderment, then a brief flicker of disappointment she didn’t quite hide. A lot had happened during their time apart, and he hadn’t had a chance to fill her in.

“We have a property,” Deek announced. Which was true. Marcela Gómez, the feisty Colombian who was now his family office real estate director, had texted him just an hour ago. She’d found a large church complex in a great neighborhood in north Fresno. It had classrooms, a cafeteria, a football field, basketball courts… Church membership was declining and they couldn’t afford to keep the property. It was valued at $10 million but Marcela thought the owners would go as low as 7.

“Do it,” Deek texted her. “Negotiate the best price you can and start the process.” Then he texted Zakariyya Abdul-Ghani, the young financial advisor – who was now CFO of Deek’s family office – to approve the purchase.

He informed Lubna of this now.

“You bought a church for ten million dollars?” Rania exclaimed. She seemed shocked by the idea.

“No,” Deek said defensively. “For seven million. If Marcela says she can get it down to seven, she can.” He reached out and took Rania’s hand. “Our reality is different now, honey. When we get home we’ll sit down and talk.”

Rania said nothing.

“Fantastic.” Lubna shook her head in amazement. “It’s really coming together. Part of me believed it was all a fantasy. You should also know, by the way, that I interviewed your friend Marco and checked out his references, and found him to be highly qualified and generally a cool guy. I have hired him to teach science. He wants to revamp the curriculum slightly to include the contributions of Muslim scientists. I’ll be paying him well. He asked me for a small advance, by the way. I’m not too crazy about that. But I know he’s poor, so I gave it to him.”

“Marco Tirado?” Rania said incredulously. “You’re hiring Marco? Wouldn’t you want a Muslim instead? And someone… well… reliable?”

Deek gave Rania a sharp glance. Her comment reminded him of the Rania of the last few years: sharp tongued, judgmental and critical of Deek and everything around him, including his friends.

“That’s not very nice,” Deek said, “Marco’s a good man. And he is Muslim now. You should hear him recite the Quran. His voice is as beautiful as a bird on the wind.”

Rania said, “Allah Akbar,” and sat back in her chair, looking dazed.

A Terrible Story

“Lubna,” Deek said. “I want to tell you something.”

She sensed the change in his tone. “Uh-oh. What is it?”

“Pull up a chair.” When she did, he continued. “Do you know why we left Iraq?”

Lubna frowned. “I was very small obviously, but I remember Mama saying that Iraq was a poor country, and that we would have a better life in America. It surprised me, because I never thought we were poor.”

What about our uncles, Khalid and Tarek?

Lubna squinted quizzically. “Ammu Khalid died in a car accident, and Ammu Tarek moved to England to open a bakery.”

“None of that is true.”

Lubna sat up straight. “Why are you telling me this? Is this something I need to know?”

“Maybe not. But it’s about me too. If you don’t want to know, it’s okay.”

Lubna made a displeased clucking sound with her tongue – a very Arab gesture – and shook her head. Then she rubbed her face with both hands.

“SubhanAllah,” she said. “Go ahead and tell me.”

Deek proceeded to relate the whole story: Tarek’s political activities, the arguments in the house, Tarek’s arrest, and the rescue, where young Deek himself helped to pull his father and a wounded Ammu Tarek out of the river. As he told the story he saw his wife leaning forward, listening intently. He had never narrated these events to her.

“The dissident movement smuggled Ammu Tarek out of Iraq to Turkey. He spent a year there, and made his way to England. We fled Iraq in the back of a panel truck with a false wall. You were allowed to take only one suitcase with you. You cried because you had to leave most of your dolls behind. I held you and told you that you’d find better dolls in America.”

Lubna sat back. She had tears in her eyes, and her hands were shaking slightly. Rania had come to sit beside Deek during the story, and massaged his shoulder with one hand.

“I remember that trip in the truck,” Lubna breathed. “I thought it was a bad dream I’d had.” She looked at Deek sharply. “And Ammu Khalid? You said that was not true either.”

“He committed suicide. He didn’t leave a note, but I heard Baba and Mama talking about it one time. Baba believed Khalid had been involved in political killings, and that the experience forced him to confront his own history. Mama thought it was probably the guilt over killing his fellow soldiers.”

Lubna stood up and walked to the far wall of the small hospital room. “This is all horrible. Why did you tell me this?”

“Those events traumatized me. I became withdrawn and moody. I blamed Baba, because there was no one else to blame. Tarek stood up for what he believed in, and Khalid at least was a strong man of action, but who was Baba? A quiet Quran teacher with no convictions. I know it’s ridiculous. But it’s why I changed. I became unkind to you too, and I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t seem to help it.”

Lubna nodded slowly. “I remember that you changed after we came to America. I used to think that America made you bad. I’m sorry you went through that.”

“I’m not asking for sympathy. It’s your forgiveness that I need. I told you these things so you would understand that I never hated you. You’re my little sister. I always loved you. I was just messed up by the weight of the past.”

Lubna came to the bedside and patted Deek’s hand. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

After she left, Deek spoke to Rania. “She wasn’t happy that I told her that story. Notice she didn’t say that she forgives me?”

Rania massaged his shoulder. “Give her time. It’s a lot to take in. And on anyone and everyone’s behalf, I forgive you.”

Allah Saved You

Zaid Karim and Safaa came to visit. Unlike the strangers and halfway acquaintances who only wanted to take, Zaid always made life easier. He and his assistant, Jalal, had retrieved Deek’s and Sanaya’s cars from the riverside, and had arranged a tow to take Rania’s mini-SUV to the shop. Zaid apologized that he had not been able to help when Rania called.

“Your dua was help enough,” Rania said. “For when Allah wishes a thing, he only says to it, “Be!” and it is.”

Zaid, tanned and with his beard growing out, told them about his trip to Jordan, Baby Munir’s funeral, and his visit to the Palestinian refugee camp. “Imam Saleh gave me $100,000 to donate to the camp, and he didn’t say so, but I know that money came from you, Deek. So you are helping people without even knowing it, mashaAllah.” He came close to Deek and spoke in a low voice. There was no one in the room at that moment except for Zaid, Deek, Rania and Safaa. “This is why Allah saved you twice, brother. He has a mission for you, and don’t you ever forget it. Don’t get comfortable, don’t get lazy. Ask Allah what He wants you to do, and do it.”

Deek swallowed and nodded. Zaid was right, of course. He should have been dead at least twice, or five times if you wanted to count the encounter at the riverside when he was young, the very risky escape from Iraq, and the gunshot graze to the head he’d received recently, which Zaid did not know about.

He gripped Zaid’s arm and nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

Not Over

Two days after Deek’s brush with death, Dr. Ali entered his room.

“Do you want to give me the information I asked for?”

She meant the identity and contact information of the Namer, Deek knew. He smiled and gave a slight shake of the head. A secret was only a secret if you didn’t tell anyone.

The doctor harrumphed. “In any case, your tests are good. I wanted to make sure there was no water remaining in your lungs, or you could become very ill. But you’re all clear. You can go home.”

Rania drove Deek’s Kia. It was a warm morning, but it had rained briefly, and a rainbow hung in the sky like a giant welcome home sign. The girls chattered in the backseat about mutual friends and their doings. Amira in particular seemed giddy with happiness, and often laughed. Rania was reserved, keeping her eyes on the road.

“I’m sorry,” Deek said quietly. “I shouldn’t have left home. You just pushed me too far. And by the way, I didn’t care for your comments about Marco. He’s been a good friend to me, and he saved my life recently.”

Rania shot him a hard glance. “So did I, remember? Anyway I apologize for my comment. But you’re right that you shouldn’t have left, and certainly not for so long. It’s been a bad time for me, and you weren’t there to help. And you’ve made a lot of major moves without me. You bought a house and a church!”

“I’ve been calling you and texting you, but you don’t answer. You shut me out completely. I had to go ahead and make choices on my own. But habibti, when I was drowning in the river, all I wanted was an opportunity to make things right with you. Allah granted me that.”

Rania glanced at him. “How do I know this won’t happen again?”

Deek smiled. “We made it through twenty years before this blowup. Let’s agree not to do it again for another twenty years.”

Rania snorted. “Not funny.” A few minutes later, she added, “This isn’t over. We have a lot more to talk about, and a lot more work to do. I need to know that you’re with me for real, for good.”

Deek nodded. “I know. And I am.”

Weariness overcame him, and he fell asleep. He dreamed that he had a highly intelligent pet monkey that could talk, and was also very good at predicting the weather. An all around genius, like Marco. They had such fun together, playing chess blindfolded and throwing peanuts at passers-by. But the government kidnapped the monkey, taking him away in a bus with dark windows. Deek followed the bus on his motorcycle, looking for an opportunity to rescue the monkey. A truck passed between them, and when it was gone, the bus had vanished. He was angry and sad.

Rania touched his shoulder. “We’re home, habibi.”

Deek rubbed his eyes sullenly. “It’s not nice to steal anyone’s monkey.”

The girls laughed, but Rania only patted his cheek and said, “You’re right. It’s not nice.”

Welcome Home

Exiting the car, they all stopped in their tracks. In the front yard, floating calmly above the grass, was a crescent moon. Not a lawn decoration. Not an inflatable. A hovering crescent moon — silver, smooth, and suspended four feet above the ground with no wires or platform visible. In front of it stood a small handwritten sign that read:

WELCOME HOME SAGHIR FAMILY

(It won’t explode).

Sanaya and Amira ran forward, Rania close behind them.

“Careful,” she warned, though her voice carried more awe than caution.

The girls circled the sculpture, inspecting it from every angle. Amira crouched low, squinting beneath it.

“There’s nothing under it,” she exclaimed. “It’s actually floating.”

Sanaya pointed. “Wait… look here.” Along the inner arc, a faint thread of something transparent ran upward to a slim rod staked into the ground behind a bush. “This is a tensegrity structure!”

“A what?” Rania asked.

“It’s a physics thing,” Sanaya said, voice rising with excitement. “Floating structures that stay up because tension forces cancel gravity in just the right places. You have to calculate every vector perfectly or it collapses.”

Amira tugged gently on the thin lower wire. “This one’s not holding it up… it’s holding it down.”

Sanaya nodded. “Yeah. It’s balanced. Suspended by tension. Whoever built this did serious math.”

Deek stared at the glimmering crescent, its shadow faint on the wet morning grass. Balanced perfectly, precise to the millimeter, playful yet genius-level engineering.

He let out a soft laugh.

Rania raised an eyebrow. “You know who did this?”

“Of course,” Deek said. “Only one person we know would greet me with a floating moon, use enough physics to launch a satellite, and make it look effortless.”

The girls turned to him.

“Well?” Amira asked. “Who?”

Deek smiled. “The only man who thinks love should be explained with equations. This is what he spent his advance on.”

“Marco,” Rania said.

“Indeed.”

“Well. It’s beautiful. But he stole my thunder.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come.”

Rania took his arm and gently tugged. Deek resisted for a moment, eyes still on the floating crescent moon. “Can we keep it?” he asked, aware that he sounded like a child begging to adopt a pet.

“Of course. But ask Marco to move it to the backyard, so no one steals it. Speaking of which, come on.”

Deek’s Office

This time. Deek let himself be led toward the side gate. To his surprise, Deek saw that the side gate and fence were gone, and the ground bore tracks of heavy vehicles.

He stopped. “What is this? What happened?”

The girls giggled.

“You’ll see.” Rania tugged on this arm, leading him to the backyard.

When Rania stopped and pointed, he followed her gaze—and stared.

A wide rectangle of earth had been cleared and leveled, the grass and brush stripped away down to clean, fresh soil. Wooden cement forms framed the outline of what would become the foundation, neat and sharp-edged. Bright metal rebar lay inside in a tight grid, bound and ready for the concrete pour. Orange construction flags fluttered in the breeze, marking the corners like a surveyor’s promise.

But what struck him hardest wasn’t the work that had been done. It was the sign.

Just a plank of wood mounted on two posts and hammered into the soil at the near corner. The lettering painted on in Rania’s elegant, looping handwriting:

DEEK’S OFFICE

Bismillah.

His breath hitched in surprise, and his knees nearly gave out. “You’re building me an office?”

Rania slipped an arm around his waist. “Quite a nice one. I didn’t know how long it would take you to come home,” she said softly. “But I knew you’d need a place of your own to land when you did. Now come inside, there’s something else.”

Inside the house, he saw that the living room had been transformed. The sofas, love seat, coffee table and end tables were gone. Instead, the room was dominated by a gorgeous L-shaped wooden desk that would have been at home in a CEO’s office. A large black office chair stood behind it, with two blonde chairs in front of the desk, facing it. On the desk stood a framed photo of the entire family together. Deek recognized it from a trip they’d taken to San Francisco a few years back.

Behind the desk, a huge hutch dominated the wall, with spaces for books and computer equipment. On one wall hung one of Rania’s quilts, and on the other wall was a large, Mondrianesque painting, consisting of blue, red, yellow and black squares.

Deek’s mouth hung open. “This is amazing,” he said. “It’s a beautiful office. But where will guests sit?”

“I don’t care about guests,” Rania replied. “I only care about you.”

A Monumental Force

That night, Deek and Rania prayed Ishaa together. The girls had gone to a youth lecture at Masjid Madinah. When they were done with the salat, Deek turned to face Rania and sat cross legged, saying his dhikr. After a few minutes, Rania crawled to him and sat facing him, knees to knees. She reached for one of his hands and held it between hers.

“Habibi,” she said. “Why did you go in the river?”

Deek’s eyes moved from side to side. He didn’t want to talk about this. “I was checking out the new property. I wanted to see the riverside access.”

Rania shook her head. “That doesn’t explain why you would physically step into the river at night, alone. Sanaya said she thought she heard shouting. It’s why she turned the car around.”

“Does it matter?”

She nodded solemnly. “Very much.”

Deek’s hand, still held between his wife’s, was sweating. He wanted to pull it away but did not. “I was angry and lonely. Everyone abandoned me. Sometimes I think of a river as a purifying force. I imagine that it will wash out all the ugliness and pain.”

“But that’s not your history,” Rania pointed out. “I heard the story you told Lubna. Rivers to you are not purification, but death. Or perhaps the purification of death. When you feel rage toward someone, you talk about drowning them in the river. I think you had another reason for going into the river.”

Now Deek did withdraw his hand. His jaw clenched. “What are you saying?”

He fidgeted as Rania watched him silently for a long time. Then, to his surprise, she said, “I was impressed at the hospital. Astounded, even.”

“What do you mean?”

“You helped a lot of people in ways I didn’t know about. You saved Maryam Rana’s life, you’re starting a school with Lubna as principal, you got Marco a good job, you’re helping Palestinian refugees, you gave money to Masjid Madinah, and probably others I don’t know about. And you didn’t tell me about any of it, because it’s not about fame or praise for you. You are a monumental force for good in this world. People adore you. You are a hero to them. And I realized that people don’t really fundamentally change. You have always been a force for good. People have always loved you. You have always been a hero. I knew that, but I forgot it for a while.”

“And the one who loves you most,” Rania went on, “aside from Allah, who is Al-Wadud – is me. And then your daughters. We adore you too. You are a hero to us too.”

Deek’s face turned hot and he felt tears behind his eyes. He didn’t know what to say, but he realized that the chill he had felt ever since the near-drowning was lessening. He’d thought that upon returning, he would feel like an outsider in his own home, but Rania had done and said everything possible to make sure that wasn’t the case. She’d done more than he could have imagined.

Rania rose onto her knees, leaned forward and gripped his thobe in two hands, bringing her face close to his. He found himself looking into her eyes, as dark as the depths of the river, yet at the same time as bright as the sun breaking fiercely through the clouds on a winter afternoon.

“Listen to me,” she said intensely. “You are not nine years old anymore, dragging your father and uncle out of the Euphrates. You are not alone, abandoned or forgotten. Leave your ghosts behind. Wake up to the world in front of you. Death will come for you at the time appointed, not a moment sooner or later. Until then embrace every moment of your life as if it is the last bite of food you’ll ever eat. And don’t you ever do anything like that again. Promise me.”

Hypnotized by his wife’s mile-deep eyes and pressing tone, Deek nodded slowly. “I promise.”

Rania gripped even tighter, and came so close that her nose touched his. “Because if you ever do something like that again, I will drown you in the river myself.” She kissed him hard, leaning all her weight on him. He fell back onto the musalla, laughing, then pulled her to him.

“Forget the river,” he said. “I’m already drowning in your love.”

***

Author’s Note: I thought this would get the last chapter, but there’s actually one more. So come back next week for Part 32  – the REALLY FINAL chapter of Moonshot! In which a decision is made about where to live, Rania makes a career move, Deek’s surprise for Faraz is revealed, and Deek hosts a party for his friends.

Reader comments and constructive criticism are important to me, so please comment!

See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

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