Page 34 of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
She’d been opening her mouth, ready to quip a response to anything he’d asked—anything but that. Every word fled from her head, and Feyi stared at Alim in slack-jawed silence.
He blinked slowly, like a cat. “Hmm,” he said. “You don’t have to answer that.”
Feyi scrambled for her words. “No, it’s just that—we’ve only been … um … I mean—”
“Feyi.” Alim was smiling at her. “It’s fine. I was just curious, not because he’s my son. Only if you’ve loved since you lost Jonah.”
It was then that the tears showed up, but Feyi tried to force them back. It would be mortifying if she started crying in front of this relative stranger simply because he’d asked her the same damn question she just asked him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound too thick. Alim looked closer and reached out, brushing his thumb against her cheekbone where a traitorous tear had already leaked out. His face softened.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said, and Feyi nearly unspooled at the tenderness radiating from him. She stood up, hurriedly, before she could make an even bigger fool of herself.
“I think I’ll go back to bed now,” she said, starting down the path toward the house. It didn’t matter if she seemed rude, she just had to get out of that garden before she started bawling.
After a few steps, she paused and turned around. Alim had stood up as well, a specter holding her secrets.
“Don’t tell Nasir,” she said, a plea threaded through her voice.
“I won’t,” he answered, not even asking which parts she meant. “I promise.”
Feyi hesitated, wanting to say something more, maybe a thank-you, but instead she spun on her heel and rushed back to her room.
The next morning, when Joy asked her how her night had been, she lied.
Slept like a baby, she texted. It was amazing.
Chapter Ten
“Dad, yuh real obsessed, you know?” Lorraine poured honey into her oatmeal as she spoke, her braids in a low bun and her lined eyes sparkling at Alim.
It was Feyi’s second week at the house, and Nasir’s sister had come up from their house in town to spend some time on the mountain. She’d been a little cool toward Feyi, but Feyi didn’t take it personally. She was the guest in their home, after all, a stranger who wasn’t even Nasir’s girlfriend. The lines were indistinct, and Feyi couldn’t blame Lorraine for keeping her at arm’s length.
“Is he going on about the orchard again?” Nasir asked, passing a pitcher of cucumber water to his sister. “Don’t get him started, I heard enough about erosion and irrigation the last time I was here to educate me for a lifetime.”
“No, he just talking about walking up the damn peak again,” Lorraine replied.
“My God, how did you two end up as such city children?” Alim replied, cradling his cup of espresso. He’d made them a spread— a soft scramble with grilled spring onions, black pepper French toast, cinnamon date sticky buns, collard greens with fennel, fried plantains and sumac. Now he was watching them eat, his smile indulgent as he sat at the head of the table in an indigo jalabiya, the silk caressing his shoulders.
“Like a mountain peak?” Feyi asked. “That sounds dope.”
Nasir laughed. “See, it sounds dope, until what you realize is that Dad is talking about waking up at the ass-crack of dawn so you can hike for hours up the mountain just to watch a sunrise through the trees.”
“When was the last time you went up there?” Alim countered. “You don’t even remember how it looks.”
“Dad, no one waking up that early to watch a damn sunrise,” Lorraine said. “It’s not that dope.”
“Let Feyi decide for herself,” Alim said. “Perhaps she’s not like you two heathens.”
“I mean, I’d like to see it,” Feyi said, looking around the table. “At least once.”
“Fine,” Lorraine said, giving her a saccharine smile. “Leh the tourist go see it.”
Feyi wondered if she was the only one catching the barb in her words. Nasir didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m not coming with y’all,” he said, “that’s too goddamn early in the morning.” He poured out some fresh orange juice. “But you should go see it, Feyi, like you said, even just once.”
“That’s the kind of support I’m talking about,” Alim said. “Grudging but present.”