"As Salam Alaikum, Miss Al-Sabhan, is Ahmed home?" Mohamed Hersi asked, as he stood at the door of the Al-Sabhan household. Fahima Al-Sabhan, the Riyadh-born, recently widowed lady of the house shook her head as she looked at the six-foot-tall, dark-skinned young East African Muslim man who stood before her. There was a hopeful look on the brother's handsome chocolate face, and Fahima bit her lip, considering her words wisely.
Standing before Fahima, looking tall and handsome, Mohamed Hersi looked like one of the African princes of old brought back to life. The young Somali who lived six blocks away had been good friends with her son Ahmed Al-Sabhan for ages, looked strong and confident. Oh my, while I stopped looking, Mohamed Hersi has become quite a man, Fahima thought admiringly.
Fahima smiled at Mohamed Hersi, who blinked nervously. She'd known him for ages. Yet the Somali brother always greeted Fahima Al-Sabhan the same way. Super formal, like a proper Muslim brother. If only my son Ahmed were more like you, Fahima Al-Sabhan silently lamented. She'd grown so damn tired of bailing her son Ahmed out of trouble it wasn't even funny...
"Walaikum Salaam, Brother Mohamed, Ahmed has gone to Alberta to spend a few days with his cousin Ali," Fahima Al-Sabhan replied, and Mohamed Hersi looked crestfallen. At the age of nineteen, Mohamed Hersi still didn't have a cell phone. He studied at the University of Ottawa and worked hard at the local Loblaw's. Mohamed was studious and hard-working, so unlike her son Ahmed, who smoked, drank, and liked to party with western girls. Moved by Mohamed's disappointment, Fahima Al-Sabhan invited him inside.
"No, you won't impose, Mohamed, please, come inside and drink some tea with me, keep an old woman company," Fahima Al-Sabhan said, and Mohamed Hersi, like the prim and proper Muslim brother that he was raised to be, dared not refuse. Fahima Al-Sabhan sat Mohamed Hersi down in her family living room, and the young man waited while she went to get some tea.
"Thank you ma'am," Mohamed Hersi said, and Fahima Al-Sabhan turned and smiled at him, and then busied herself getting the tea ready. Fahima hummed to herself as she made tea, and briefly turned around, and caught Mohamed Hersi glancing at her. Fahima smiled to herself, completely unsurprised by Mohamed's behavior. Truth be told, the brother had been stealing surreptitious glances her way for quite some time, every time he visited Ahmed, in fact, and Fahima Al-Sabhan found it flattering.
At the age of fifty two, Fahima Al-Sabhan was widowed, and her life had become boring and monotonous. Ever since her husband Fahd Al-Sabhan died of a heart attack while working construction at the Shaw Center in downtown Ottawa, life hadn't been the same for Fahima. She was lonely, and filled with grief, and found herself smothered by the sympathy and pity that she received from family and friends.
To make things worse for Fahima, the men in the Arab Muslim community of Ottawa now behaved as though she were a leper. In the Arab world, widows are objects of pity. It didn't matter to those Arab Canadian Muslim men that Fahima Al-Sabhan had an Accounting Degree from Carleton University and worked for the Canada Revenue Agency as an auditor, and that she owned her own home. Nope, to them, she had suddenly become less than they because her husband was dead. Yes I am sexless and lonely but not dead yet, Fahima Al-Sabhan thought bitterly.
On top of everything else, Fahima Al-Sabhan had her hands full with her twenty-year-old son Ahmed. At first, he was going to Algonquin College, and planned on working in the construction field just like his late father. And then Ahmed changed his mind, dropped out of school, and spent his days drinking, fighting and sleeping around. The young Saudi-Canadian drunkard had gotten arrested time and again, and Fahima Al-Sabhan got absolutely sick of Ahmed's antics.
When Ahmed Al-Sabhan decided to move to the City of Edmonton, Alberta, to work in the oil sands and be free of his nagging mother, Fahima Al-Sabhan was secretly relieved. More than once Fahima thought of Ahmed's best friend Mohamed Hersi. Back in the day, Fahima was close friends with Amal and Yusuf Hersi, Mohamed's parents. When Fahima and Fahd Al-Sabhan moved to the City of Ottawa, Ontario, from their hometown of Beirut, Lebanon, they were one of a few Muslim families in the east end and the Hersi clan were among their first friends.
