“I can imagine. To be entirely truthful, if my twenty-four-year-old daughter had started dating a forty-eight-year-old man, I would not be supportive of that,” he said, retrieving a pie server.
“Oh, she has never been supportive.” It was better to clear that up right away, to hopefully give him a better picture of what we were dealing with. “She has no problem making it known that she’s not a huge fan, though she’s grudgingly come to accept things. This? Probably not going to be something she comes around on.”
“You don’t seem bothered by that,” El-Mudad said, pushing a plate of food toward me.
I went to the refrigerator and got the feta cheese crumbles. The spinach and sundried tomatoes in the quiche would be amazing with it. “I have a chronic illness, a kid to help raise, a husband who’s still in recovery from drug and alcohol addictions, new relationships to forge with my long-lost half-sisters and now my stepdaughters...I’ve got a lot of shit going on. I guess I’m just too busy to be concerned about what my mom thinks about my love life.”
The corners of his mouth lifted in a slight smile. “Your stepdaughters?”
I froze and stammered, “I-if that’s okay?”
He put his arms around me and drew me in close to kiss me, long and slow. When he pulled back, his dark eyes practically glittered above his peaceful smile. “I’m so happy for my daughters, that they will have you in their lives.”
And that was it. That was the thing that broke me.
“Oh no, Sophie, I didn’t—“ he said as I began to weep so hard my shoulders shook.
I waved my hand to cut him off. “It’s fine. It’s fine, I’m just...I didn’t realize...”
He held me close, tucking my head against his chest and stroking my back. “You don’t have to think of yourself that way right now. I was just pleased that you did. I would never want you to feel that I was forcing motherhood on you. I know you don’t want children—“
“It’s not that. I swear, it’s not that.”
I wiped tears from my eyes. “I don’t mind being a stepmom. You love your girls. They’re a part of you. What made me cry was the thought that...you think they’re going to benefit from having me in their lives?”
“I think anyone who has you in their life benefits from knowing you,” He said. “Don’t doubt that.”
“It’s easy to say I shouldn’t doubt it, but it’s difficult to believe when my own parents...” I wouldn’t go into all of that. “Look, just brace yourself for a lifetime of dealing with my fears of inadequacy caused by not having a dad. And now my mom, I guess.”
“Your mother isn’t abandoning you. I promise that. She has some mixed up religious ideology, but she isn’t the type of person who would throw over her child for God.” He nearly spat the word.
I knew El-Mudad wasn’t close to his father. I wondered if that was the reason. “Did that happen to you?”
He nodded slowly. “Would you like to know the story?”
“Absolutely.” I stepped back, and we went to the other side of the island to sit.
On his way, El-Mudad grabbed us some bottled water from the wine refrigerator under the counter. “When I was growing up, my parents weren’t religious at all. I know that probably seems strange to hear because, in America, everyone seems to think that Muslims are all extremists at worst or unnaturally pious, at best. But there was very little religion in most of the circles my family moved in.”
He sat beside me and loosened the cap on one of the bottles before offering it to me. Then he went on. “We never set foot near a mosque unless some family occasion called for it. When we moved to France, those occasions became even rarer. After my parents divorced, my mother started talking to some Christians.”
“Catholics?” I asked because I wasn’t sure just what kind of Christianity would be in France. Also, because I could understand Catholicism. I wasn’t so sure about the other branches.
He shook head. “Evangelical. There is a small and surprisingly passionate sect of them in France. My mother said she was moved by the Holy Spirit and wanted to be baptized. And that meant...”
“You got baptized, too.” I felt terrible for him. “A friend of mine in high school, her stepdad suddenly wanted to convert, and he made the whole family do it.”
“That’s why I’ll never force my daughters to believe anything,” he said with surprising intensity. “It didn’t make me believe at all. You can’t force someone to have faith. If you do...that’s not faith. It’s manipulation. It’s coercion.”
“I completely agree.” I didn’t resent my family for raising me Catholic, because it was truly our culture and I couldn’t imagine my life having gone any other way. But I didn’t believe, and coming to grips with that at a young age had been terrifying.