“I didn’t do anything. I just stood there stunned. But my friend Sausun shredded her.” I smile, remembering Sausun’s poise. “You might know her. She runs the Niqabi Ninjas YouTube channel? Well, she IS the original Niqabi Ninja.”
Haytham stops moving. “What? THE Niqabi Ninja? SHE WAS HERE LAST NIGHT?”
I laugh and start walking, grabbing the laddoos’ hands in turn to get them to climb the porch steps. “Oh my God! Are you a fan too?”
“Seriously? How did I not know?” Haytham follows, but it’s with a big spring in his steps. He practically bounds up the steps after me. “Wait. That means she’s going to be at the wedding?”
I nod.
“Okay, now I’m really nervous. Muhammad asked me to sing when Sarah walks down the aisle to the gazebo. And with the Niqabi Ninja—What’s her name again? She never says it on the show.”
“Sausun.”
“Sausun. Such a cool name.” He pauses for a bit in the foyer like he’s relishing it. “Sausun. Yeah, so with Sausun as a wedding guest, I’m going to be scared I’ll wreck the song.”
I wait before descending to the basement. “Why?”
“Because she’s amazing. Her channel is amazing. The way she talks about Muslim stuff. And current issues. Even my non-Muslim friends watch and share it. She’s funny. She’s brave, and she doesn’t back down. So she has my mad respect.” He’s about to follow me to the basement, but I stop him and ask him to get water for our flower painting.
He salutes me and goes toward the kitchen to do my bidding. But then circles back when I’m two steps down. “Hey, I’m truly sorry for what my aunt said. That’s not gonna happen again. I’m going to tell Sarah after the wedding’s done. And then we’ll take care of it together. And I mean it—because we’ll let you know what’s been done, okay?”
I nod and smile and take the laddoos to their playroom downstairs. I open the cupboard where Linda keeps all their arts and crafts stuff neatly organized to take out a few fat paintbrushes, some jars of paint, a massive pad of heavy white paper, and a bottle of glue. I put these items into a huge canvas shopping bag I brought down with me from the kitchen.
Then we move back to the kitchen, where Haytham’s at the sink, water on, filling some jars he found in a cabinet.
We take all this to the side of the house. Hope is still working on her flowers and only briefly looks up when we spread out our stuff.
Haytham goes into complete uncle mode and settles the laddoos down by modeling how to sit against the house cross-legged to listen while I demonstrate what I want them to do. Which is just plop paint any which way on each sheet of the paper I give them. And just keep doing this while Haytham and I use hair dryers to dry the paint and then cut and assemble flowers according to a YouTube tutorial I found while in the basement.
The laddoos, sitting back like Haytham, clap their hands when I tell them they can just go crazy painting.
I was careful to only select jars and tubes of yellow paints. No bold Pacers-blue paint.
Hopefully, it will look tasteful. Hopefully.
* * *
“Luke keeps splashing me and not the paper!” Logan squeals for the tenth time, standing up and stepping away from where Luke’s flailing around, giggling.
Why are siblings so different from each other?
Luke: erupting in maniacal laughter each time he flings paint on the paper and it splatters or makes some type of a mess. His face, hands, clothes are smeared with paint—mostly on purpose. He occasionally wanders off, at which point I have to run after him and show him a new way to go wild with yellow paints. Exhausting.
Logan: with his sheet of paper positioned far from Luke’s mess, he holds his paintbrush stiffly while dabbing or streaking lines carefully, complaining often of a smudge done wrong or of an ant deciding to investigate his work or of Luke’s looking at his work “like he’s going to wreck it.” At which point I have to keep assuring him that life’s going to be okay if he just keeps making marks on the page. Exhausting.
After the laddoos do all they can, I get their iPad from the house and set up an autoplay playlist of some kid’s YouTube channel that they’re really into, which is episode after episode starring a kid who gets new toys and unboxes them and plays enthusiastically with them for other kids to watch and vicariously enjoy. I’ve seen the laddoos watch the YouTube kid playing for hours, so I know they’ll be fine.
Muhammad calls me as I’m cutting out my millionth petal, sitting against the house, my legs extended in front of me, feet splayed. Haytham and I found out that he’s better at assembling the flowers, so he’s lying stomach-down on the grass, gluing.
“What’s Dad doing?” Muhammad asks, his voice low.
“Huh?”
“You told me to keep Dad away from you.”
“Oh. He’s angry that I didn’t stay here last night and is letting me know it.” I put my scissors down and pause cutting to sort the painted paper petals in my lap into the piles divided by size—tiny, small, medium, large, and huge. “But it’s okay. I’ve got it under control.”
The whole cheery assembly-line production we’ve got going here in the sun is making me feel mellow. So I’m inclined to not get Muhammad worried right now.
“You sure? I can talk to him if you want.” His voice maintains its low tone even though it’s loud in the background. “And I’ve been thinking about what you said; how it’s not just Dad being imperfect. Yeah, it’s tons worse. So forget my advice to just work around it.”
I think about how Haytham said he’s going to do something about what Auntie Rima had done at the henna party. “Yeah, I don’t want to work around it. We need to deal with it. After the wedding.”
“I’m in. And I know just the place to get help with this. I’ll send you the link and you can sign us up.”
“Why’re you talking so quietly?”
“Bunch of people here. I’m picking guests up, rented a big van, well, two big vans, and we stopped to eat lunch.”
“Oh, wow. Just for Imran and Adnan? How much luggage did they bring?”
“No, I’m not picking up those goons. They’re driving in from the airport on their own. These are other close friends who needed rides.”
“Oh my God, you calling them goons!” I laugh. “How many people did you pick up?”
“Like forty.”
“Forty close friends?” I slow my scissors that I’d picked up again to cut a newly dried sheet.
It’s kind of wild that Muhammad has that many friends he’s tight with. I mean, tight enough to invite to what was supposed to be an intimate wedding.
“They’re part of the mosque community I used to hang out with in Chicago. But they couldn’t afford to ride down to the wedding on their own. When they heard about me and Sarah getting hitched, they were so pumped.” He lowers his voice. “I didn’t want to forget them, you know? And Dad has all the important people in his business circles and mosque board circles on the wedding list, and I told him to keep at least fifty spots for friends of mine he didn’t know about.”
“Right. So they’re not close friends,” I say, getting it. He’s just doing that thing of inviting anyone and everyone he knows.