Architect and Mrs Dantata

24: ZAYD

"We're tackling the topic of finances today." That's what I told her. It feels like forever ago now. "But we need to talk about the family we want first because that'll affect our future finances." I was so happy. I've been waiting for that discussion. "Let's talk about our future kids, Amal. How many kids do you want?"

I'm not a stranger to heartbreak. I've had my own share of it. However, nothing compares to how my heart's breaking now. She hasn't said anything and if it wasn't for the slight movements on her end, I would swear the video call is frozen.

It's scary how many words can fill this silence. I'm holding unto hope that I'm misinterpreting the words wrong. Silence can be taken the wrong way after all.

I swallow the lump in my throat. It's difficult to even do so. "Amal?"

Amal looks horrified. She tries to smile but she's unsuccessful. That breaks my heart further. Her voice is almost unrecognizable. "Yeah?"

"Amal, what's going on?"

"Nothing, I just –" She exhales. The smile that appears on her face is insincerely tight. It feels like a knife. "We're talking about our dream family."

Ya Allah, please let me reading the words she's not saying wrong. Please let me be reading them wrong.

"Sa'ed, you want kids." She's still smiling and I hate it so, so much. This isn't her smile. I don't like this smile. "How many do you want?"

I've wanted kids for as long as I could remember. Watching Mama and Baba raise us set the perfect example of the type of parent I wanted to be and the type of mother I prayed and hoped my future wife would be. As for how many, I never really got a figure. I wanted my future wife and I to have one first and then we could go on. My personal limit was five though.

Right now? I don't even know what to tell her; not when she's on edge. Not when her smile is this fake. Her unspoken words are getting into my head and as much as I want to push them away and believe that I'm reading it wrong, I can't.

"Amal." My voice is smaller than I'd like. I swallow again. This is either going to make or break us. I'm not ready. We can't go back though. "Do you want kids?"

Please say you want kids, Amal. I beg you. Please let the unspoken words I'm reading into be wrong. Please let the –

Her eyes fill with tears. "I'm so sorry, Sa'ed."

If my body was a drum once filled with water, the water drains out with force now. I suddenly feel hollow. This isn't real, right? I vaguely feel the my brows knit together.

"Wait..." I speak slowly. There has to be two sides to this. "Is it that you can't have kids or you don't want to have them?"

If she can't have kids, we can come up with something. Medicine is evolving. There has to be a way. We can find a way around it if that's the case.

"I can have kids." She says it so quietly, I nearly miss it. "I don't want to have them."

"There's a reason, right?" There has to be one. This can't be happening. "Amal, there has to be a reason."

She's crying now, her face buried in her hands. I don't even know what hurts more; the fact that everything has been going good until now or the fact that she's crying and we're miles apart, talking to each other through devices. Ya Allah, this can't be happening. This has to be a sick dream.

Come to think of it, we never spoke about a future family even as a joke or just randomly. Kids never came up and each time we went out or we were together, no kid passed us and took our attention with it. No one in our families or even Jonathan, Hassan and Summayya joked about it. If something had happened, I would have known. I would have noticed something was going on.