Day ten

It is Friday and my husband and I... have a lunch date at the panera bread.... I drive through the narrow driveway and park the silver car close to the restaurant. I still have 15 minutes before he appears and waves at me. I walk pass the golden-brown door and find us a table. My back is straight from the pain and my eyes randomly close on the people... who are walking in. I am thirty-two... Maman... and I hear a lady's voice laughing loud and clear. I am shaken. It is your laughter! I look around and my desire remains virgin. Tears spring to my eyes and awaken by the sudden urge to sniff and sniff... I search through the faces. My foot starts bouncing back and forth. If I was a smoker... this would be the time to light up one! Ten days to your birthday and I sit in a Panera Bread restaurant with a Cherry-vanilla pink ribbon bagel on my plate. I am waiting for my husband to help me fast forward my day... before I lean to the woman sitting next to me and ask if she can help me wipe the wrinkles of being motherless off my thirty two year old face.

You would be fasting! It is your Ramadan, mother!

Sheema Kalbasi