Time Only Stands Still for Some.

Every Friday, after the congregational prayers at the community mosque, Leila would walk the 2-mile distance to the Muslim graveyard. She would have to walk around the rectangular building of the mosque, its banality always catching her by surprise. The chair people of the local Islamic society, forwent the carved minarets of their ancestors for a grey-bricked veneer of an office building. To avoid any spontaneous vandalism. The thought of confused islamophobes looking for a stereotypical place of worship, then giving up and going home, made her chuckle. Clothed in her own flowy abaya and head scarf, there was no mistaking who she was. She loosened her hijab, though, as she was out of the mosque and let the tufts of wind cool down her head. She needed to be calm and unfeeling before she visited her mother’s grave. If anything rested in her mind for more than a moment, she feared she would break down into unrecognizable pieces. It had been a month since her mother died, uneventfully of heart disease. She passed away comfortably in her sleep, robbing her daughter of the chance to mourn her loudly. Leila’s unused insurance coverage for her mother, which came with her new job, also hovered heavy and pointless. To distract her mind, Leila detoured into the backyard of an abandoned cabin to collect wild daisies. When she had a handful, she picked up her pace and set about her task. The Muslim graveyard was just as unassuming as the mosque. She took a right past the grave of Abdul Wahab, then left at the tombstone with engraved flowers, and then went straight till she reached a tiny grave of a 5-year-old boy. Next to it was her mother.

Leila said the prayer for the deceased and sat down cross-legged to read from her pocket-sized Quran. She opened it to where the red ribbon sat tucked in and started reciting. Her voice swung in and around a whisper, enunciating with a calm melody. Fatigue seemed to crawl up her lips towards her eyes. She glanced at her wristwatch and it was only 2:30 pm. Her light brown eyes struggled to focus on the words.

“Nor are the dead and the living equal. Indeed, Allah makes whoever He wills hear..” (35:22)

A dark haze flitted in from the sides and then she was asleep.

She woke up with a start, her head jolting upright. It took her mind a few more seconds to catch up. The wind had picked up and blown in thick, dark clouds that seemed to reach down to her. She looked around in surprise; the narrow paths around the graves were hardly visible. I need to get home. Leila picked up the pocket Quran from her lap and put it away in her bag. As she stood up, holding down her hijab, she noticed the wind had already scattered the flowers all around the graves of her mum and the little boy.

“Oh God! How long did I sleep for? I hope it doesn’t start raining on me.” She muttered to herself as she turned around to leave. She took a step but then turned around quickly, “Bye mum! I miss you.” And then she went straight, taking a right at the tombstone with the flowers. Leila focused on the engravings in the dark until she found ‘Abdul Wahab’ etched into a dark grey marker and she reflexively turned left. But when she looked up, expecting to see the street, she found herself right back at her mother’s grave. Her foot stopped mid-air as she blinked in confusion. Did I take a wrong turn?

She looked back, clutching her abaya tightly, but the darkness seemed to envelop the graves. Leila reached inside her tote to take out her phone and use the flashlight. As she rummaged inside desperately, a sound made her freeze.

Gentle sobs.

Leila's eyes bulged out with fear. She spun around her eyeballs to locate the source without daring to move her body an inch.

A faint whisper drifted through the sobs.

“Mum?” Leila jumped at the grave, her bag falling with a dull thump. Everything inside clattered around with the daisies. “Mum?”

“Leila?” came a desperate hiss.

“Yes, mum! It’s me! Where are you? Why are you crying?” sobs escaped Leila as she clawed at the grave. “Mum! Why are you crying?”

She put her ear to the grave but couldn't hear anything over her own sobs. Feeling helpless, she sat up and looked around for help. The graveyard, however, was drenched in a black more blinding than a moonless night. But to her right, her eyes adjusted to a faint glow. It was coming from behind her mother’s tombstone.

“Mum?” Leila barely choked out as she crawled towards it.

She grabbed the tombstone and slowly raised her head over it, her breath caught in her throat. There, she saw a little girl wrapped in a plain white cloth, crying into her knees. Her body rose softly with each sob.

“Who are y-you?” Leila asked, hiding behind the gravestone.

The girl looked up, the glimmer from her white cloth, swirling around her tear-streaked cheeks. It took a few seconds for Leila to process that the slight figure was not a girl, but her mother. Leila stared in disbelief at the fragile form in front of her.

“Leila…I can't go” Her mother's voice broke the trance and she cupped her face in between her hands.

“Mum! My beautiful mum! Why are you here? Where can't you go?” She held her face in her hands and kissed her forehead.

Her sweet smell instantly wrapped Leila with its familiarity and for the first time her breathing settled. She felt, as she had felt countless times, safe in her mother’s presence. She recognized the hazel in her eyes, despite the bluish glow that illuminated them. Her hands melted against the softness of her mother’s cheeks, even as salty tears ran down her fingers.

I want to go.

Leila heard these words, but her mother’s lips had not moved.

“Mum, I missed you so much. Why do you want to go? Why can’t you stay with me?”

Help me, my love.

And then her mother’s gaze shifted away, her lips still, no longer quivering from crying. Leila held her mother’s hands, then her knees, then ran down her hands to her feet. Is she hurt? How do I help?

Leila’s hands grazed against something cold around her mother’s feet. She couldn’t see but they felt like cold, heavy rings. They were around both her feet. Chains?! She traced her hands along them until the rings disappeared into the ground.

“Is this what’s stopping you?” In response, her mother’s tears returned and with each wail, she seemed to blend into her shadow.

“No! wait!” Leila screamed.

She tugged and pulled at the chains, but her fingers kept slipping. As if the rings were made of frozen oil and the heat from her hands melted away enough to spoil her grip. She couldn’t make them budge and the helplessness escaped from her mouth with a groan.

“Jamee-eela”. Her mother’s voice broke through her despair.

“What?”

“Jami-la.” This time her cry was more a thought than a sound.

“Who is that?” Leila pleaded.

The glow from her clothes was getting weaker while the shadows grew around her and with every tear that dropped, the ground seemed to be moving. She was fading away, yet her cries echoed in Leila’s mind and body. She closed her eyes but could still feel the dirt vibrating under her hands, and then the earth gave away.

“Mum!” Leila woke up with a jerk, her heart pounding out of chest.

The sun beat down on her and bounced off her mother’s gravestone. There were no shadows, no tremors and no cries. How could she be dreaming? It felt so powerful! She smelled her mum!

Leila looked down at her wristwatch, trying to focus on the time through the screen of her own tears.

2:30 p.m.

Leila felt like she had travelled through several galaxies, yet on earth, time seemed to stand still. Feeling dizzy, she packed up the Quran and the déjà vu of her actions made her nauseous.

“Salam, mother! I’ll be back.” With long, purposeful strides, Leila left the graveyard.

She did not look back or stop until she was back at the mosque. There, she found her car in the parking lot and raced home. Her mind was rummaging through her mother’s room before she had even reached it. Drawers, shelves, closets; all lay empty. No sign of a Jamila. The room was a mess and she knew that if her sister came home to catch her in this state, she would not be able to explain herself without sounding crazy.

Mum’s phone!

Leila practically flew to her room, where her mother’s phone was peacefully stowed away. She had answered texts and calls for a few days but then had let the battery die out. It was too soul-draining. She plugged in the phone and could only wait five minutes before she switched it on at 10% battery. In the contact list were two Jamilas.

Her hands shaking, she dialed the first number. The bell rang as her tongue turned into stone. But nobody picked up. She tried the second number, and a familiar voice shot through after the second ring.

“Hello?”

Oh! It's Auntie Jamila. Our old neighbor.

“Auntie, it's me! Leila. How are you?”

“My love, how are you?”

Leila suffered through a few minutes of pleasantries till she thought she would bite through her tongue.

“Auntie, was there any umm.. unfinished business between mum and you? Anything mum wanted to do but couldn’t and she might have confided in you?”

“Let me see. She did want you to get married off soon, you know.”

Oh God! I refuse to believe that my mother came back from the dead so that a random auntie could guilt-trip me into marriage. Mum would be delighted to do that directly.

The phone buzzed through Auntie Jamila’s marital concerns, and she drew back the phone to find the other Jamila calling.

“Auntie, let me call you back!” Leila barely got the words out before she hung up.

She tapped the answer button.

“Hello!”

“Hello, Alia?” an uncertain southern accent responded.

“This is Leila, her daughter. Mum passed away a month ago.”

“Oh”

A heavy silence followed for a few seconds. Leila bit her lips to keep from crying. She cleared her throat before continuing.

“How did you know her if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Oh! I was the attendant nurse when she had her heart scare a few months back.”

“My mother didn’t have a heart scare! When is this?” Leila’s voice came out shriller than she wanted.

“Listen, why don’t you come see me. It’s the local hospital next to the war memorial. I’ll be on my break at 3 p.m. I'm working right now.”

“Yes! Ok! I'll be there.”

Leila wasn’t even sure she said bye. She let the phone slip through her hand and fall onto the mattress. They had been through her mother’s documents and had found nothing out of the ordinary. What had she missed?

After she cleaned up, Leila locked herself in her room. She did not have the patience to feign interest in her sister’s conversations. She bid her time, painfully, till 2 p.m. the next day. The only bout of sleep was when she nodded off, sitting up on her bed, staring at the wall clock. Her only meal had been a cup of tea with half a buttered toast. That too seemed to toss in her stomach.

She was calling up Jamila from the hospital lobby at exactly 2:52 p.m. They agreed to meet at the cafeteria. Five minutes later, Leila was sitting at a white, vinyl table. Her legs drummed the flimsy table from below while her eyes were fixed on the entrance. Six minutes after 3, a dark, hefty woman walked through in mint green scrubs. Her plain brown hair was wound tightly into a bun. She seemed young from everything but her eyes; those mirrored decades of exhaustion. The woman stopped for a few seconds to scan the hall and a slight smile appeared on her face when her eyes locked with Leila. She made her way intently towards her.

“Hi!” they both said together. Both waving their hands slightly, in opposite directions.

“Please sit down.” Leila gestured to the empty chair next to her.

“I'm Jamila.” Jamila extended her hand out.

“I'm Leila!” She encased Jamila’s hand in hers.

Jamila sat down with a loud sigh.

“I’m sorry about your mother. She was a very sweet woman. If I had known, I would have come to pay my respects.”

“Thank you!” Leila kept herself from saying more.

Jamila must have sensed the desperation because she got to the point.

“A little over four months ago, your mother drove into the hospital pale and breathless. I was on duty at the E.R that day, and I took her vitals. Her breathing was erratic and she was complaining of indigestion. It was pretty clear that she was having a cardiac episode. When the doctor informed her about the E.C.G., she panicked. She did not have insurance nor the money to pay for the tests.”

Leila gasped. “This was a few weeks before I started my job. My old job did not have good coverage and I had been trying for two years to find a place that would provide cover for mum.”

“Yes, she mentioned that to me. She was so proud of you and your sister. But at that time, the E.C.G. was crucial.”

“Why didn’t she call us?” Leila asked, but she was afraid of the answer.

“She didn’t want anyone to worry. She was convinced it was indigestion.” Jamila let out another sigh. “She was so frail yet stubborn, exactly like my mom. I don’t know what came over me. I had offered her the money before I knew what I was doing.”

There was an awkward pause. Leila felt the blood dry up inside her. The thought of her mother borrowing money from a random stranger clawed at her.

“It wasn’t a lot. A little over $500. My salary had come in just a day ago or you wouldn’t find more than a hundred bucks in my bank account.” Jamila sniggered weakly. “By this point, Alia was laboring through her breaths. Despite her hesitation, I ran to the hospital ATM, drew out the money and pushed through the paperwork. The E.C.G showed slight blockages in two of her arteries but for that moment, Nitroglycerin did the trick.”

“Was she in a lot of pain?”

“She recovered pretty quickly. She needed angioplasty but not immediately. She left before nighttime. I think she took a cab.”

A part of Leila wanted to jump out of her chair and scream and shout at Jamila for making up wild stories about her mother. She could not bear to think of how she must have struggled. With her steps, with her breath, with her pride. The money?

“The money?”

“She insisted she would pay me back as fast as she could. And true to her word she sent me $100 every month.” Jamila voice quivered slightly. She was looking down at the cafeteria floor, hugging herself tightly.

Leila instantly recognized the silence of need. She had worn that silence several times after her father’s death.

“She owes you money?” Leila asked expectantly.

Jamila did not answer but her eyes drew another veil of fatigue.

“She owes you money!” A laugh escaped Leila’s mouth and she quickly covered it. But her relief gushed out and she laughed even more. “Please, how much money did she owe you? I will pay you back right now.”

Jamila shifted in her chair uncomfortably but stayed quiet. Leila pulled her chair closer to Jamila’s and held her hands in hers. They felt cold yet soft. She was glad that the hands that saved her mother were soft.

“You sacrificed the money you needed to SURVIVE, to save my mother. You must have given up on food or rent or medicine, but instead you gave us those precious months with our stubborn mother.”

Jamila laughed and pressed Leila’s hands back.

“I cannot ever repay you. But I MUST start with paying you back whatever is left of that loan.”

“I’m sorry! I wouldn’t have but I have been behind on my rent ever since and I'm on my last legs with the landlord.” Jamila’s grip tightened.

“Jamila! You are our hero! Now, please, tell me how much she owed you?”

Thirty minutes later, Leila was pulling out of the hospital parking lot with a face streaked with tears. She alternated between sobs of relief and moans of longing. When she reached home, it was thankfully empty. She went straight for her mother’s oversized Quran with the beautiful gold calligraphy. She settled on the couch, cross-legged, and placed a cushion between herself and the book. She flipped through, stopping at a few pages, running her fingers over the handwritten Arabic. Finally, her finger stopped. There, in the margins in her mother’s cursive writing:

“The soul of a believer remains suspended until the debt is settled.”

That night, Leila fell asleep earlier than usual. Her hands rested softly under her cheeks and the smell of musk filled her room. It was 9:21 p.m. In her dream, a woman with beautiful hazel eyes walked among birds and towering trees. The branches hung low with their wares while their milky reflection danced in endless springs. There was a melee of glowing faces, their light bouncing off each other, till it was hard to make them out individually. Leila looked in at them through her little window for a long time. In her room, the clock on her bedside table still read 9:21.