Page 263 of The Sun Sister

Sure enough, there he was, sitting a few rows in front of me, his red baseball cap marking him out. He didn’t speak this time, and neither did I – after yesterday, if I started, I’d never stop, and I just needed time to process all I’d learnt slowly and in my own time. When the meeting was over, I decided to lurk at the back of the room and wait for him to pass by me.

‘Hey, Tommy!’ I called to him. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

‘Oh, hi, Electra. How are you?’

I saw that his face was pale and his eyes were red as though he hadn’t slept for days. The good news was that I didn’t catch any scent of alcohol on his breath as he spoke to me.

‘I’ve missed your presence outside my building,’ I said cheerily. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Oh, you know, places,’ he shrugged.

‘Want to grab a coffee?’ I asked him. ‘I mean, not that coffee,’ I said, indicating the urn.

‘Really?’ He looked at me in surprise.

‘Yeah, why not?’

‘I...okay then.’

We found a place just around the corner and sat down.

‘Are you okay, Tommy?’ I asked him.

‘To be honest,’ he said as he blew on his espresso, ‘life ain’t so great at the moment.’

I decided this wasn’t the moment to pussyfoot around.

‘Look, I know what’s happened. With Mariam.’

‘Seriously?’ He looked shocked. ‘How?’

‘Long story short, I got mugged in the park yesterday and everyone is telling me I need a bodyguard. So I immediately thought of you and told Mariam, who started crying and went and locked herself in my guest bathroom. Then the whole tale came out.’

‘Oh gee, Electra, I’m sorry to put you to any trouble.’ Then he looked up at me and I could see the tiniest glint of hope in his eyes. ‘She locked herself in the bathroom and cried?’

‘Yup, she did. She loves you, Tommy, and apparently you love her. I mean, I heard you say it yourself at AA last week. I was at the back. Of course I didn’t know you were talking about Mariam, but...’

‘Yeah, well, it’s all over anyway. She dumped me.’

‘But do you know why she dumped you?’

‘Not really, no. But I can guess. I mean, look at me, Electra, who’d want me? I’m a mess,’ he said and then tears came to his eyes.

‘Mariam for one,’ I said firmly. ‘This has nothing to do with how she feels about you, Tommy. She thinks you’re wonderful. It has everything to do with the fact that she is Muslim. And apparently, a Muslim woman can’t marry a man who isn’t. It’s as simple as that.’

‘You’re kidding me.’ Tommy looked at me as though I’d landed from another planet and didn’t understand humans. ‘She never even mentioned that to me.’

‘As she said to me only a couple of hours ago, you hadn’t proposed or anything, so she thought it would be kind of weird for her to mention it, but that’s the reason, I swear.’

‘You mean, if I was Muslim, she’dwantto marry me?’

‘Yes, and from the state of her this morning, tomorrow if possible. She ended it because she couldn’t see a way forward. You and I can’t understand because we’re not Muslim, but her entire life – her family, her friends – everything is based around that. She knows you have a kid too and, well, what with other things, she felt it was all too complicated.’

‘Sure, I have my daughter, but my ex-wife’s met some guy and wants to take her to California to live with them. Which is another reason why I found myself back at AA. Without my daughter or Mariam...Oh man, Electra, I’m struggling right now.’

‘Of course you are, Tommy. Okay, I’m gonna cut to the chase: if the deal with Mariam was that you had to convert to her faith in order to be with her, would you?’

‘Now that’s a tough one. You’re talking to someone who served in Afghanistan. The atrocities I saw that were carried out in the name of Allah...I mean, I’d walk across hot coals to be with her, and I understand I was dealing with extremists over there, but to become one of them...’ Tommy shook his head. ‘I just don’t know.’