Chapter Twelve — — The Telling

Chapter Twelve

The Telling

He told Omar first. This was itself a departure — he had not told Saad about Zara until the wanting was already years old, had kept the Nida situation entirely private. Telling Omar was the plan's first action: the acknowledgment that this time he was not going to manage alone.

Omar's response was not immediately what he had hoped for.

Omar was quiet for a long time after Zakariya finished. Then he said, with the flatness of a person stating a fact he wishes were not a fact:

"She is my sister."

"I know."

"This changes things."

"I know that too. That is why I am telling you before anything else. Because I want to do this right."

"What does right mean to you here?"

Zakariya thought about this seriously. "It means I tell her honestly what I feel. It means I accept whatever she says. It means I do nothing that damages your friendship with me or her comfort in her own home."

Another silence.

"I need time," Omar said.

"Take it."

Omar took three days. On the third day he came and said: I am not going to stand in the way. But if this goes wrong, if she is hurt, if the friendship becomes a casualty —

"That is on me," Zakariya said. "I understand that."

It was not the full blessing he had wanted. It was the provisional one — the support that came with the weight of the condition. He accepted it.

The provisional blessing is the most honest kind. It says: I believe you, I hope for you, and I am watching. The watching is not distrust. It is the love of a person who cares about both parties and has decided, against their own anxiety, to trust. The trusting is its own form of courage.