Love from A to Z(82)

He said a prayer before starting, muttering it quietly, and I joined in, my words meeting his.

Finishing, he looked at me for a second before turning the steering wheel to edge out. “You know this?”

“Yes, the dua? I’m Muslim, Zahid.” I laughed. “I guess I should have said assalamu alaikum first, so you knew.”

“Walaikum musalam wa rahmathullahi wabarakatha hu,” he said, returning my salaam with a nobler greeting of peace.

I smiled at his benevolence.

“You are Malaysian or Indonesian?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m Canadian. But my father’s family is originally from China and my mother’s from Finland.”

“Ah. Okay.” Zahid gave me a thumbs-up.

“Listen, Uncle Zahid. My father wanted me to invite you for dinner one day soon. He knows about how you helped me. Will you come?”

“Oh, there’s no need for that, Adam. Why did you tell him?”

“It’ll make him very happy. And me, too. And my sister.”

“And your mother? And what about her?”

“She passed away. But she would have been happy to see you.”

Zahid drove for a bit, thinking. “Okay, tell me the date for this dinner, and I’ll make the time.”

“Thanks.”

“But then you have to come to my house too. And meet my family—my kids are young, but they will like you. They are learning to speak English.”

I nodded, glad to repay his kindness in whatever way I could.

? ? ?

As I entered the foyer of the museum, I marveled at how different these steps of mine were compared to the ones I’d taken here on Sunday.

MS was unreliable, but I vowed to enjoy the good days. And the good in every day.

Today was a doubly special day. I was feeling fine, both physically and emotionally, plus I was getting to see Zayneb unexpectedly.

After passing the epic staircase, I looked ahead, and there she was.

At a table by the fountain, facing me, but not seeing me, surrounded by other tables bustling with people.

Her head was bent over a book on the table, the pen in her hand moving swiftly across the page.

Writing. She was writing.

Was it in her journal?

I had my own in my hand now—I’d taken it with me to show it to her finally—and felt thrilled at the prospect that she had hers, too.

“Ahem, Zayneb, would you be writing your marvels? Or oddities?” I placed my journal on the table and pulled out the chair across from her.

Her pen paused, and she looked at my journal, titling her head to read its title, a dawning, surprised expression taking over her face.

Then she looked up, stunned. “What . . . is that? Adam?”

I took a seat and smiled. “My Marvels and Oddities journal. I’ve been recording the good things in life since I was fourteen. And the weird things. Lately, more weird. Well, lately until I knew a certain H2O liked me back. Now it’s all marvelous.”

“I’m going to scream. Like literally scream.” She closed the book she’d been writing in and held up the orange cover. MARVELS AND ODDITIES it announced in big, capital letters. “ADAM, I’VE BEEN WRITING IN THIS FOR TWO YEARS!”

“And me, four years.” I grinned at the way her eyes were wider than ever. “Well, not this exact one. I’m on my fifth notebook.”

“I CANNOT BELIEVE IT.” She stopped and closed her eyes. “Wait. What does this mean?”

I put my elbows on the table and leaned forward. “It means we have something in common.”

She opened her eyes and nodded.

“And it’s an amazing thing to have in common,” I went on.

She nodded again, peering at my tiny-fonted, lowercased marvels and oddities, written in the top left-hand corner.

I picked it up so she could see it clearly. “I just realized this thing literally got me through the hard, alone years after my mom’s death. That I was able to see the marvels around me through it all.”

“Wait.” She flipped through her journal. “But that’s not me. So we don’t have something in common. Because reams and reams of pages in this thing are about the awful things in the world. And I’ve got six more of these journals at home. Mostly full of crappy happenings in my life.”

“You didn’t record any marvels?”

“No, I did, but they were short. Except, yeah, after we started liking each other. Then it became better.” She opened her journal and did a mock reading. “Marvel: Adam, blah, blah, blah, Adam. Adam, Adam, Adam, and you get the picture.”

I flipped to random pages throughout my notebook. “Marvel: Zayneb. And here’s another one. Marvel: Zayneb. And another one . . . so you get the picture too.”

We looked at each other and burst out laughing. Then I looked beyond her, through the windows, to Doha Bay. At the sky above it.

It was perfect.

This moment was perfect. That we were so in sync and it was happening at my favorite place in the city.

“This is unreal.” She took my journal and placed it beside hers and then drew her phone out to take a picture. “Why—I mean, how did you start yours?”

“Because of this museum. Because I used to come here a lot and wander through the exhibits, and one day I couldn’t stop thinking of that manuscript upstairs. The Marvels of Creation and the Oddities of Existence.”