"Raul, we need to talk," Fatima Sayyid said, as she sat down at the breakfast table, and the tall, curvy older Arabian Muslim beauty looked at her lover through somber eyes. Raul James took a sip of the overly sugared coffee he was holding in a ceramic cup, and then set it down. Forcing himself to be calm, he looked at his beloved Fatima, and braced himself for whatever was to come. It's almost never a good thing when a woman says those words to a man, Raul thought nervously.
Clad in a crimson bathrobe which did little to mask her curvaceous loveliness, Fatima was an arresting sight. Voluptuous, bronze-skinned and dark-haired, sans Hijab for a change, she looked much younger than her fifty-odd years. The woman that I love, Raul thought, still marveling that he and Fatima had lasted this long. The odds had been against them from the start, due to differences in race, religion, culture, and last but not least, age.
On this particular morning, a certain tension reigned over the lovely townhouse that Raul James and Fatima Sayyid shared in the Vanier area of Ottawa, Ontario. It was an unseasonably warm day near the end of November. The sun rose, melting the leftover snow on the ground, and the weather felt more like late summer than anything resembling late fall. It was truly beautiful, but Raul was too preoccupied to appreciate such natural beauty...
Raul could sense that things were about to change between his beloved Fatima and himself. And the hard-working, smart and capable young Haitian man did not react well to unexpected change. His mind raced as he thought of one disturbing possibility after another. Was Fatima leaving him? Was there someone else? Had he fucked up without realizing it? I'll find out soon enough, Raul thought to himself.
For a while now, Raul James and Fatima Sayyid had been seeing each other, and subsequently fallen in love. What a pair they made. A tall, ruggedly handsome, dark-skinned young man originally from the island of Haiti, and a Hijab-wearing Muslim woman from the Arab world. Somehow, after Fatima became a widow, due to the timely death of her abusive ex-husband Salman Sayyid, and Raul's girlfriend Khadija leaving him, these two unique souls found solace...and more, with each other.
Of course, even in a place as racially diverse as the Capital of Canada, a lot of people weren't okay with interracial couples. In the Islamic community, where anti-black racism was ever-present, Raul and Fatima attracted their share of hostile glances and harsh words wherever they went. Nevertheless, the stalwart couple stuck it out, standing tall against the haters of all stripes that they encountered. Raul could only hope that he and Fatima were strong enough to withstand whatever bit of dire news that she felt she had to share with him...
"Babe, I'm listening," Raul replied at last, and he gently laid his hand on Fatima's, and looked into her eyes. Fatima took a deep breath, and then finally shared the news which had absolutely rocked her world, and were definitely guaranteed to rock her lover Raul's. The question is, was Raul ready to hear those news? Only one way to find out, Fatima thought to herself.
"I'm pregnant," Fatima said with a little laugh, and she looked into Raul's eyes, carefully gauging his reaction. A couple of days ago, feeling unusually fatigued, Fatima went to the Appletree Medical Center located on Merivale Road, the same clinic she'd been going to for years, and there, she found out some truly drastic news from her doctor. Smiling, the old African gentleman who'd been her trusted physician for decades told her that she was pregnant...and that's when Fatima just about passed out.
"What?" Raul said, a shocked gasp escaping his lips, and the young Haitian man looked at his darling Fatima, not believing his ears. Raul's heart thundered in his chest, and he wondered if he was hearing Fatima correctly. Perhaps his hearing was a bit defective, after all he did odd jobs involving everything from roof work to hard-like construction, and blasting and drilling. He was close to graduating from Algonquin College, and he would soon hit the workforce, ready to become a consummate professional with real-world experience and book smarts...
"Raul, Habibi, it's true, I went to the Appletree Medical Center the other day and the doctor told me that I'm pregnant," Fatima said excitedly, and Raul nodded, and then impulsively he pulled Fatima's hands and brought them to his lips. Fatima giggled with happiness, and then kissed her lover on the forehead. Rising, Raul closed the distance between them, and pulled Fatima into his arms.
"Forgive me for being shocked, Habibti, I didn't think this was possible, this is a big miracle," Raul said, falling to his knees, and Fatima looked at him and smiled, even as tears of joy streamed down her lovely face. My beloved is happy and so am I, I thank my angels in Jannah for this blessing, Fatima thought before kissing Raul with all the passion that she could muster...