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Errands had taken on an unfortunate (but necessary) tendency toward division. Two children were a handful but four of them (include three very energetic, very curious, very rotten little boys) were almost impossible. Malik was of the mindset that it wouldn’t get any simpler or more manageable until they taught the children how they were expected to behave. Altair had been willing enough to put up with the constant stress of corralling four very young children through the boring task of grocery shopping until Tazim had taken it upon himself to disappear.
“I can walk,” Sef said again, as if Malik had enough time since the last time he’d said it to forget. He was leaning forward and right, staring at Jaida with absolute jealousy that made his whole precious round face scrunch up and turn pink.
Jaida, with infinite wisdom, and hair in her face, looked up from her coveted place on the floor to announce (rather loudly), “you’re a baby, Sef.” It was an important distinction for a two year old to make. One that Jaida made as often as possible. She was a big girl, smart and capable, and her brothers were diaper-wearing embarrassments that still cried when they found an empty glove on the floor. “Babies ride in the cart.” Her little hand was resting on her purse as her back straightened a little and she tried (again) to push the hair out of her face (and failed).
“Not a baby!” Sef shouted at his sister with tears welling up in his eyes. (He was, unfortunately, very much still a baby. He was the smallest of all of them, prone to sudden attacks of irrational fears, and most often found crawling his way up the body of any adult that happened to look like they could comfort him. He didn’t care for a lovey the way Darim did and he wasn’t partial to sucking on his thumb how Tazim did, and that left absolutely nothing to comfort himself with except demanding to be carried.) “Not a baby,” he repeated. His little hands were reaching out to grab at Malik’s shirt (and it was impossible, one handed, to carry Sef and push the cart). “Not a baby.”
“Jaida,” Malik said, “say you’re sorry.”
But Jaida was his daughter, possessed of all his stubbornness and just enough of his spite to make her absolutely inflexible. “No,” she said with absolute authority.
It was one of those moments. One of those delightful moments where he could stand on principle (she was told to apologize, and she was wrong, and therefore she was going to apologize) which would take a small eternity (at least) and cause a scene (bigger than the one Sef was already working up to) which would keep him in the store longer (significantly longer) and possibly require a call for reinforcements (which he refused to do) or he could the easier way out.
Most days, Malik wasn’t very concerned with the ease of parenting. But every now and again, when he was only running to the store for cheese, milk, yogurt and cheerios, he saw no reason to torture himself and random patrons with the display of his kids heartbroken screaming. Today, he leaned down, wrapped his arm around Jaida’s chest and hoisted her up and into the cart. She stood in between the boxes of cheerios with an expression of complete and total betrayal, as if he had been the one that called Sef a baby and made him cry. “Sit down,” he said.
“But he is a baby!” Jaida shouted.
“Not a baby!” Sef screamed back.
“He’s not in the cart because he’s a baby,” Malik said. (But he was.) “Sit down.”
Jaida was many, many things but she wasn’t often disobedient. Her inclination toward perfection and her stubborn pride meant that she couldn’t be seen refusing to obey a direct command from her parents if her baby brothers were already acting up. She regarded Sef’s wriggling, sobbing, flappy-armed display and sat down with her arms across her chest and her face promising him full retribution at her earliest convenience. But she did sit, and she didn’t cry or scream or kick or flail, and that was really all that Malik needed from her.
“Sef,” he said, “if you calm down you can pick a treat when we’re done.”
Because if he was going to be an easy-way-out parent today, there was no reason not to go the whole way. Sef sniffled, coughed, and regained his composure in seconds.
They continued in blessed, perfect silence, through the dairy department and right up to the check out. Sef was an angel in the line, waiting to get close enough to the display of lollipops to select the one that appeared to be the closest in color to teal. (Unless there wasn’t one, and that would be unfortunate for everyone.) Jaida sat completely still with her abundance of hair hanging into her furious little face, getting caught on whatever leftover stickiness toddlers always seemed to have on their faces.
Malik was close enough to considering the whole thing a complete success, so close to the exit, so close to free and on his way home, and—
Just then.
Just at the last possible second, a smiling old lady, projecting an aura of complete entitlement that was only slightly less bareable than the smell of perfume that seemed to solidify in the air around her, invited herself right up next to Malik. Sef’s lip curled up in disgust and Jaida’s furious stare focused on the woman with renewed vigor. It was a certified disaster even before the woman opened her mouth, and it certainly didn’t get any better, “now, I know your wife didn’t let you out of the house like this—”
It could only possibly go downhill from that moment. Malik might have just laughed it off, but there was his daughter, full of herself and looking for revenge, who growled out the cursed words right between her clenched teeth, hissing: “I have two dads.”
And. Well.
Jaida’s hair had been getting out of hand, as far as Altair was concerned, for a significantly longer period of time than his beloved, oblivious husband was willing to admit. Altair would have preferred Malik to finally notice their child was turning into a hairy abomination in any other possible way than being accosted by a homophobic, possibly racist, old white woman. But, he also couldn’t be ungrateful that something had finally drawn attention to the obvious.
There was his daughter, his beautiful-beautiful little Lamah clone, with her hair in rats so big they puffed her hair up like a living creature clinging to the top of her head. With strands of it hanging in her face and creeping into her mouth while she tried to eat her breakfast.
It was more amazing that the disaster hadn’t offended Malik’s sense of perfection before this moment, but he’d been steadily living off denial since Jaida’s hair had gotten long enough to become a problem. (That was almost a full year ago and it didn’t show any signs of slowing down.) For a man who woke up with an aggravated sense of urgency about getting their sons a haircut any time their hair got a half-a-millimeter too long for his liking, it was boggling that he was completely satisfied to stop at simply detangling the disaster that was Jaida’s hair.
“I don’t want the comb,” Jaida said when she was down to the last three bites of her breakfast. “I don’t like it.”
Altair wasn’t exactly a fan of it either. “We can’t leave your hair like that.”
Jaida frowned at him, “I don’t want the comb,” as if he had simply not heard him before. As if the problem was only that she needed to repeat her demands more clearly. (Moments like this made him sincerely wish that none of his other children developed their Father’s level of stubbornness.)
“Jaida,” he said.
“I don’t want the comb!” she shouted at him.
Like an answering howl, her brothers started screaming from their room. He could hear them jumping in their cribs, announcing their solidarity in causing more trouble than was necessary. Altair sighed and Jaida slid out of the chair she’d been sitting on to run for the stairs before he could get a hold of her. (It wasn’t worth it, chasing her, she always hid in exactly the same place.) But there was the sound of a heavy thump in the boys’ room and a change in the chorus of screams that meant Tazim had escaped and Darim was outraged by the bars holding him back.
Malik was already in the room when Altair dragged himself up the stairs. His husband was sitting on the floor with his back to the door, sitting with unnatural patience while his three sons hid behind the far crib so none of them had to get changed first. Individually, none of them had a problem with diaper changes and getting dressed, but collectively they thrived on nonsense disobedience.
“Need help?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Malik answered. “Jaida hiding from the comb?”
Oh, always. “Yeah. Lucy and Claudia said they would help teach me how to braid her hair and do the pony tail thing, I guess.”
Sef stuck his head around the corner of the crib and Malik didn’t so much as move to indicate that he wanted the boy to come over to him. Sef wavered, he looked at his brothers, he looked at his Father, he looked at his brothers, and he said, “hungry?”
Malik nodded, “we can get breakfast as soon as we’re dressed.”
Sef wavered. Darim shoved him out of the way. Darim was a bulldozer in human skin, thick and short and always starving. He ran over and threw himself on the changing pad in front of Malik with a resounding, startling, bruise-leaving thud. Sef (of course) screamed his outrage at the betrayal and immediately attacked his brother for daring to steal his rightful place on the mat.
“Now I could use help,” Malik said.
Altair opened the gate that served as a backup to the door their three genius toddlers (probably just Tazim) had figured out how to open and picked Sef up before he could sink his teeth into his brother’s arms (again). “Come on, I’ll change you.”
Tazim emerged to skirt behind Altair and around Malik’s leg, to grab the pile of folded clothes waiting for him and disappear again.
His beautiful, amazing, very nearly perfect wife had a genuinely unique way of getting her way even before Kadar had any indication that there was anything he would need to agree with. They had only just arrived at his Mother’s house with the intention of conducting a short visit while they were in town, when he was suddenly informed of the true purpose of their meeting.
“Oh, your hair has gotten very long,” Mother said as soon as he was standing in her living room. She was pulling on the tips of it with her discerning fingertips, caught between her continual feelings that a man’s hair could only be considered decent when it was short and her respect that he was now a man with a wife and couldn’t be bossed around by his Mother. (He could, and he knew that, and she knew that, and Claudia knew that, but it was nice they all pretend otherwise.) “I suppose it won’t be as difficult as I thought.”
Claudia was smiling at that, “it’s almost longer than Jaida’s, and it’s a very similar texture. She’s still got soft baby hair, and Kadar has,” her fingers slid through his hair, tugged the residual waves straight as she did, “well, it’s not as soft but it’s still soft enough that it’ll be close enough.”
“Why are we talking about my hair?” Kadar asked.
“We’re going to teach Altair how to do Jaida’s hair this weekend,” Claudia said, as if everyone had been informed of this. “He asked Lucy first, I’m not offended, but like your Mom said, Lucy is very good at basics like pony tails and parts but we’ve all seen Peyton’s hair at Christmas. She really can’t braid. Altair wants to know how to do a proper braid.”
Mother was frowning right at his head, right at the length of his hair, like she was hiding a pair of scissors and some clippers behind her back. “Don’t frown like that,” she said, “I volunteered but Claudia said your hair would be better suited.” (Funny how his wife neglected to mention she’d been trying to find an excuse to braid his hair for a few months.) “Perhaps if you didn’t want to be a candidate in the future, you could just trip the ends a bit.”
Kadar smiled because Claudia was clenching her teeth to keep from laughing and Mother was holding back an entire lecture, and there was simply no way he could decline to help Altair learn how to better care for his daughter. (He could, as long as he wanted to be reminded that somehow, between the moment his Mother discovered the man existed and hated him on principle and the birth of her first grandchild, Altair had managed to take over as Mother’s favorite son.) “Yeah,” he said, “maybe it could lose a few inches. You know, after we finish helping Altair.”
“Good,” Mother said.
Claudia cleared her throat, “you’re such a sweetheart,” like this hadn’t been all part of one of her more evil plans.
Quiet was one of the rarest events to occur in their house. (More rare all four of his amazing children agreeing on what to eat for snack, or watch on the TV, or how to arrange themselves on the couch. Rarer than Malik agreeing before a discussion could be had or research could be done.) Altair was enjoying the quiet (sulking) in the privacy of a half-filled bathtub, intending to lay in the water under the sensation of existing as a perpetual failure loosened enough he could concentrate on the positives. He wasn’t hiding from his husband, but he wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable conversation that Malik would want them to have.
Altair was having emotions again. Emotions needed to be examined, and labelled, and properly categorized so they could resume raising their children without interruption.
Right on time, inviting himself into the bathroom, barely dressed in a pair of ratty old sweatpants, there was his husband announcing the time: “it’s almost ten.”
“Yes, it is.”
Malik looked at the slow-filling bathtub, the little wisps of steam rising from the surface, and then at Altair’s reluctant face. “I don’t understand why this bothers you so much. I don’t think we look at it the same way. She’s two, every two year old’s hair is a mess.” (But eighteen month olds? Their hair should always be impeccable. It couldn’t be a half a millimeter longer than necessary or chaos would descend.) “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you before.”
Altair shrugged.
Malik’s jaw tightened, his teeth were clenched as tight as Jaida’s got when she was angry-as-hell at them over perceived injustice. Then it loosened, and Malik repeated, “it’s almost ten,” as if he hadn’t been heard, “we haven’t had sex yet today.”
That— Well, that was nothing at all that Altair had expected when his husband walked into the room. It hadn’t even been a thought, and yet, here it was: being presented to him as the real issue of the moment. As if Malik weren’t dying to discuss Altair’s complicated feelings regarding his failure to know how to do his own daughter’s hair. No, there was his husband, hand on his hip, looking expectant and impatient, reminding him about their sex-every-day pact and how they hadn’t gotten naked with each other since yesterday’s morning quick attempt at orgasms. “Oh,” he said. “They’re all asleep?”
“Yes,” Malik said.
Altair pulled himself up so he was sitting up properly, considered his options, and how nice a bath seemed at the moment, and how he’d hate to ruin it with bodily fluids, and how Malik almost never showed up to remind him about sex. (Because his husband had protested the daily sex pact on the basis of sleepless night and early-mornings and the general trouble of sneaking behind kids’ backs. Altair had produced studies about health-and-happiness benefits of married couples having sex every day and won.) “Ok,” he said, “what sort of—”
Malik slid his hand into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a condom and a bottle of lube with a sort of significant glance sideways out of the tub but no anywhere near the bed. “We’re not getting the bed wet,” he said by way of explanation.
“Right,” Altair agreed as he shoved himself up to his feet so he could get out of the tub and get his hands on his smirking husband. “Don’t smile at me like that,” he said. Malik’s smile didn’t change as he pushed his pants off his naked hips.
Desmond had not volunteered to look after the boys because they were altogether too much for a sane man to volunteer to take on. There were children and there were demons and then there were the triplets that seemed to ride the line between the two. On the one hand, a calm afternoon of reading books and coloring pages could be had, and on the other hand, more than once, in a matter of seconds, Darim had managed to get his head stuck between stair rails, Sef had drawn blood with his razor teeth and Tazim had just fucking disappeared.
A sane man didn’t agree to look after the triplets without at least one of their actual parents in the room, but Lucy was rolling her eyes at him and his protests. “They finished the basement playroom. It’s baby proof.”
As if any of those little boys were babies as Altair-the-genius and Malik-the-overly-educated could produce any offspring that might be mislabeled as a ‘baby’. As if Sef weren’t capable of speaking in sentences at a time in his life when Peyton was still grunting her demands. As if Darim couldn’t find something to bash his head into. As if Tazim weren’t completely capable of disappearing from a place, he’d already had the opportunity to investigate. “They’re worse without Jaida,” he said.
Lucy was stuffing an assortment of combs and brushes into a travel bag, staring at the mirror rather than looking at him for another moment. “You’ll have Peyton,” she said.
That was all well and good, but Peyton was a single six year old, raised as an only child, who was as scary as a kitten in comparison. She was annoyed by the triplets, and they seemed to feed on that annoyance like some sort of super-human elixir.
“I promise I’ll rescue you if things get really crazy,” Lucy said. “But it won’t.”
“Fine,” Desmond said. He went to find Peyton, who (like him) was completely aware they were about to be fed to wolves. She was sitting on the couch with her arms crossed over her chest, frowning at nothing specific, and he couldn’t even bring himself to tell her that it wouldn’t be so bad. He didn’t say anything at all when she looked up at him.
Half of Kadar’s head felt like unholy fire, as if pure and total hatred has been poured onto his scalp. It felt as if half his face had been paralyzed by how tightly his wife’s lithe and pretty hands had twisted his hair around itself and produced a braid that was so flat to his scalp it seemed impossible. The other half was bearable, almost comfortable, in comparison. Claudia’s braids had been business like, efficient and ruthless as if she had finally come into her own in regards to her family-wide psychopathy. Her complete indifference to his pain had certainly been eye opening.
Altair had been clumsy, and hesitant, and even when Claudia, Lucy and Mother had told him to pull harder or tighter, he hadn’t quite managed to be as uncaring as they requested. He had even looked at Kadar in the aftermath, like he wanted to apologize but he didn’t want to get the collection of helpful ladies started on how men were babies. (So what if Kadar was a baby, he was willing to admit it if it got them to take the braid out again.) There was Malik, watching from halfway across the room, acting as if he hadn’t been steadily retreating since the first moment Claudia got her scary hands on his hair.
“Try braiding mine now,” Mother said.
“Oh,” Altair said, “I don’t—are you sure?”
“I’m very sure,” Mother said. She sat in the chair next to Kadar with no sense that she might regret the choice, but Altair was standing behind her with a brush in one hand and a look of certain failure making his whole body freeze. Lucy was over by the table, rolling her eyes at whatever SOS texts Desmond was sending her. Claudia was hovering in a way meant to be helpful. Altair was shutting down by degrees, getting more-and-more-and more upset by the second.
“Malik,” Kadar said more suddenly than he had meant to. His brother was startled out of his slow retreat. “Let’s take the boys out. It sounds like they’re getting crazy down there and there’s,” he half-turned in his chair, counted each body very purposefully, so everyone who hadn’t already caught a hint wouldn’t be able to miss this one, “one, two, three, four—with Desmond, five of us?”
Malik was staring at him, asking questions with his eyebrows, all set to open his mouth to protest. He followed Kadar’s (hopefully) subtle nod to his increasingly stressed husband and swallowed his protest in favor of a very loud, and very enthusiastic agreement, “yeah,” he said, “they’re probably just tired of being stuck in the basement. We can take them to that new place—the indoor playground one. We can get lunch.”
That left Claudia who was glaring at him from the other side of Mother, demanding what he was doing, and how he expected her to be helpful when she wasn’t here. But Jaida, who had been allowed to stay up in the kitchen with them (to see that getting your hair done wasn’t terrible) brought all of Claudia’s would-be arguments to an immediate end by asking (as loud as she possibly could), “are you alright, Daddy?”
Anyone who hadn’t already been aware that Altair was about to explode couldn’t pretend like they didn’t see the obvious struggle on his face as he cycled through a hundred different interpretations of the word no to find one that he could explain to a two year old.
Mother saved him, and everyone else, when she held out her arms to beckon Jaida over. “Sometimes it is very hard to learn something new, and it takes a lot of patience. Sometimes having patience is very hard.” Jaida crawled right into her grandmother’s lap with a wise and understanding nod. They fell into a conversation about the horrors of patience, and how Jaida had only just mastered zipping her own jackets.
“I’ll get the boys,” Malik said. “Lucy?”
“Yeah,” she said, “I’ll help.”
“Come on,” Claudia said with a hand on his shoulder all but shoving him up to his feet, “I’ll take your hair out in the other room.”
The house was perfectly silent, every person who had been loud and present and crowding around him had left with great immediacy. Lamah had pulled Jaida’s hair back into a ponytail and given her a headband to keep any stray hair away from her face and sent her out with everyone. As soon as the house was empty, and it was just Altair and the awkwardness of his anger-and-doubt, Lamah had said, “I think we need a cup of tea.”
Hot tea was a cure-all for the Al-Sayf family, a growing constant in his life, as his husband (who didn’t even appear to be fond of hot tea) had slowly grown into the habit of soothing himself with cups of hot tea left sitting wherever he’d been standing in his moment of doubt. Altair didn’t have a taste for tea, but he appreciated the super-heated little cup of it between his hands when he was searching for a way through.
“Why doesn’t Malik care?”
“Oh,” Lamah said to the kettle she was settling on the stove, “he does. He just can’t.” She dusted her hands on the towel on the counter and pulled open the cabinet to look for their usual cups. “At least, he thinks he can’t. He also used to think he couldn’t button his own shirts, and tie his own ties. He thought he couldn’t drive a car, that he couldn’t learn to type with one hand. My son is impatient and paralyzed his own lack of imagination. He cares very much about how your daughter looks, but if he thinks about how much he cares, he has to deal with how angry he is that he doesn’t know what to do any better than you do.”
“He doesn’t try,” Altair said, “he hasn’t tried to even comb her hair since she was— Since before her first birthday.”
Lamah set the cups on the counter and retrieved the tea from its canister. Once everything was prepared, she motioned at him to pull out a stool at the island. “I imagine he pulls her hair when he tries.”
Altair pulled her hair when he brushed it, because it was impossible not to. With all the rats and tangles there was no way to get so much as a wide-tooth-comb through it without pulling. “He can’t just shut down, I can’t—” Do this without him. He couldn’t be alone, he couldn’t tolerate the idea that all of Malik’s bitching about how they couldn’t raise children might be right. That it started with Jaida’s hair and it would grow from there, it would destroy the peace of his life because Malik wouldn’t-or-couldn’t bring himself to engage in the issue at hand. “He didn’t care until that woman said he was ruining her.”
Lamah hummed a hateful little sound, “yes, I heard about that. Altair,” her hand touched his, just briefly, “he did care. He just cared more loudly because he thinks she’s right. The boys are easy for him—he has an idea of what is the correct way to raise a boy. He was raised with a brother, he understands what he needs to do to raise them to be good men. They frustrate him when he can’t figure out how to make them behave as he remembers being made to behave but he can manage that. What does my son know of women? He had no sisters, he had no aunts, he had no female friends, he had no younger cousins to play with. He is intimidated by women, and he is utterly ignorant of them.”
(There was a truth in those words that could punch a man in the gut. Malik’s complete ignorance saved him from the realization that Sofia loved him in away that wasn’t entirely platonic. It kept him peacefully aware of the lustful glances he received from women who had a thing for handsome dark-haired men. Altair was perfectly pleased with Malik’s selective ignorance.) “What if I screw it up?” Altair asked. “Jaida? The boys—everything? What if I can’t—”
Some things were easy, some things came naturally. He loved his children, he loved them so much it was frightening. He didn’t worry over the things that Malik did, he didn’t mind messes, and late nights, and missed naps. He wasn’t bothered by misbehaving little boys and crayons on the wall, and food fights. And some things were hard, were impossible. Sef’s razor teeth leaving scars on Darim’s fat arms and Tazim’s constant attempts to disappear beyond view. He couldn’t stand Jaida’s fearlessness, at how optional she made him feel as she stared back into the face of any adult that dared say a damn thing about her.
He couldn’t stand how he cared about how people looked at them out in public, at how their faces broadcasted their judgement, about how Jaida was just dark enough to look unusual next to him. At how her messy hair and her father’s perfect posture garnered them more stares than Altair wanted to see. How intensely rage filled him from his toes to his ears anytime another man’s eyes lingered too long on his daughter’s pretty face.
At how Malik seemed to be perfectly content to let Jaida walk around with messy hair, to let her walk freely in stores and playgrounds, with no notion there were terrible things that had tastes for little girls. At Malik was at peace with all the things that made Altair’s heart race (like bugs, and worms, and sandboxes, and little boys that stuck whatever they could manage right into their mouths).
Lamah slid closer to him, her hand hovered in midair until she was sure that he wouldn’t mind how she rested her arm across his shoulders, how she drew them close to one another. There was confidence, and comfort in how Lamah created such quiet, secret spaces. His every worry, his every failure, it was all validated, and forgiven, and erased in those quiet spaces. “There will be mistakes, and there will be moments when you are sure you can’t stand it another moment. There will be things you can’t possibly prevent, things you will regret missing—regret not protecting them from. But no man, not even you, can say that you don’t love your children. That you aren’t willing to do whatever you must do to make sure they are healthy and happy. There’s no shame in needing your own space, Altair. Your children need their Father to teach them patience, and diligence. They need him to give them the words for all those things that come easily to him and not so easily to you. They need you to teach them joy, and risk, and to protect them. They are not children that will grow up in a usual way; they will need a man like you that is capable of love and joy and violence when it’s necessary.”
Altair didn’t want the violence; he didn’t want the rage. He didn’t want to scatter a group of people he’d called for help. He didn’t want to project his inability to cope, and there was nothing to be done about it. He could slap a smile on his face, and not a man among them would believe it. “I don’t ever want to be my grandmother,” he whispered. “I can’t do that to these kids.”
Lamah made a sound like she was in pain, her arm slid away as she stepped back to retrieve the kettle and the cups. The tea was steaming-and-steeping when he was pushed toward him, and she regarded his face, and his words, and the world as it was. “I cannot tell you that you don’t have that potential. I never wanted to be my Mother, I was terrified to be swayed by the opinions of others over my own judgement. I fled the country where I was born because I was certain that my son could not thrive. I cannot say why I felt this way, but I have felt that way about Malik since I first looked at his face. I never told my Mother that my son is gay, and I cannot name the sensation of fear and shame that I feel when I think of it. I robbed my sons of their history, of their heritage, because I could not admit to them, or to myself, that their Grandparents could not love one of them. That my Mother would be the perfect validation of every one of my son’s fears. I can not guess what their father might have said, but I tell them that he would have loved his sons no matter what. I tell my son that no matter what my religion tells me, no matter what my god says, that I love him without judgement, without condition. But I felt—” there were tears in her eyes, a split in her voice, “such a moment, such a pause of conflict, of pain, of anger, when I first knew. I felt my Mother’s intolerance, I felt every thing I had been taught as a child, and just for that moment, just for one moment, I thought I couldn’t—I thought, all I have given for this child, all I have sacrificed, all I have suffered, all for nothing. I have been ashamed of that moment for so many years, I feel it always, I see how he must have felt it even when I said nothing.”
“He doesn’t know,” Altair said, “I don’t think he’s ever doubted you.”
“We all have the potential to be monsters to our children, Altair. The choice you have now, and you will have to make again, and again, is how to keep the monster away from your children. Your monster is scary than others, but your love for them is greater. I have faith, that no matter what happens, you will always act in the best interest of your children.” She cleared her throat and looked for the little sugar jar they kept on the counter. “Perhaps, you could take some time away with your husband, to talk about how you plan to move forward. I’m certain that Kadar, Claudia and I could manage the children for a few days.”
“Yeah,” Altair said. “Ok.”
“And perhaps, you can just enjoy remembering what life was like before you were outnumbered.” Her smile was almost a wink, implying something completely inappropriate.
The children had been fed, washed, read to and tucked into bed. The house was falling into a whispering sort of peace, where Jaida talked herself to sleep and the boys gave up their semi-protest against the inevitable grip of sleep. Mother was downstairs with Claudia and Kadar, watching a quiet movie and sharing their favorite stories about toddlers. Malik had been invited to join, but there was an unspoken understanding that he would definitely decline.
Altair was sitting on the end of the bed, looking as exhausted as his children did as they yawned their way through their baths. He was picking at his fingernails, looking for the last bit of lint that didn't exist. He looked up when Malik walked in, half-shamefaced, and half braced for a fight. "Your Mom things we should go away for a sex weekend and talk about parenting strategies."
"Did she say 'sex weekend'?"
"She meant sex weekend," Altair assured him, "I think we should. I know you probably have some kind of objection about leaving the kids with strangers before they're seventeen but..." There was the shame again, the look that Altair got on his face when he didn't want to admit that maybe Malik had a point about how neither of them were exactly prime candidates for parents. The odd mix of fear-and-embarrassment that was heartbreaking.
"I think we should," Malik said. "I think we have to be honest about our strengths and weaknesses, and any time we do, we start yelling."
"Ok," Altair said, "good. We can book the hotel and figure out what we're going to tell the kids."
More importantly than that, and the fights that might be coming, was how defeated Altair looked. Malik came over to stand in front of him, pushed his fingers through Altair's hair and made him tip his head back so he was looking right at him. He considered saying something (like, I love you), and the worth of the words. And he thought (there were so many words coming), so he tipped forward to kiss him instead. Altair's hands on him were tight-and-hot, the way his whole body had been on the border or some sort of explosion not so many hours ago. "Let's get an early start," Malik said.
Altair's fingertips were like bruises, digging into his skin, pulling him down and pushing him onto the bed. "I like that idea," he said, like it was the most redundant thing ever said.