The Shape of Stars

A new emotional short story by S. H. Miah.

Guilt flows through single mother Lyla with every sip of her bitter coffee. Guilt over how she treated her daughter Amina, and how she treated herself.

The nightmares covering Lyla’s present refuse to leave. But perhaps a memory from the past holds the key to unlocking dreams of a new future.

A heartwarming short story by S. H. Miah about a single mother and her daughter, vivid in detail and exquisite in emotion, painting a tapestry of love that only the closest of families can reach.

The Shape of Stars

The cup of coffee felt heavier, as usual. Heavier than the last time Lyla had tried to inject herself with caffeine. Usually, on the hellish morning commute almost all working Londoners had accustomed themselves to, she grabbed a Starbucks latte and sipped like her life depended on it.

In all honesty, given her lack of sleep nearly every night, her life probably did depend on it.

But now Starbucks was cast out of her life. Since Lyla found out that they supported genocide (allegedly, of course, since a lawyer like Lyla would be sensible to avoid a defamation case), the latte tasted like the spilled blood of her Palestinian brothers and sisters.

So home-brewed coffee it was. In a heavy mug that Adam had once gifted her. Adam, who in her mind presented both dreams and nightmares. Two sides of the coin of her life, and unfortunately the flip landed on the side of grief.

Today's home-brewed Kenco coffee (two teaspoons of coffee granules because three hours of sleep wasn't enough) nearly weighed Lyla's arm down.

Because today's coffee was built on lies.

Lyla sat in the balcony of the two bedroom flat she was renting. Since good council homes were a dime a dozen (more like three dozens), Adam had opted to rent without the wait back when he was alive, choosing this home together with Lyla.

The house still smelt of his husky scent.

Dreams and nightmares.

A light breeze washed over the balcony on the sixth floor, fluttering Lyla's scarf and the few hairs poking out onto her cheeks as if wishing for fresh air. She breathed in that fresh air, but the taste was stale, as was her coffee.

She gulped another mouthful, let the liquid burn her throat as if acid rain.

Today’s coffee was built on lies, after all.

She gazed out at the fanfare of London below. Cars and trucks whistling past on the A13, then groaning to a stop once the traffic hit like a ten-ton brick. Drivers leaned out of windows, staring across at the endless stretch of tarmac with words whispered low, hands reaching out as if destinations could be grabbed closer to themselves.

Lyla knew how they felt all too well. That feeling of wishing for something far to be brought nearer—it pervaded both her dreams and nightmares.

She shivered as a particularly fierce gust of wind swept through the morning, then tucked a stray strand of her hair back inside its protection. The coffee would soon be getting cold. In fact, the mug in her hand exuded an iciness already, as though she had been transported to the north pole—the furthest destination from the centre.

The deck chair she sat on rattled as if weighed down by her thoughts, and the little tea table with crooked legs sat on its haunches like a cat ready to pounce. Lyla had always wished for a cat—her daughter, Amina, wished for the same. But cats in a flat, especially on the sixth floor which essentially presented a trap for any feline, was a life sentence in domestic form.

And Lyla was already a single mother with a young daughter.

Adding another child to the mix, even if a cute and furry one, wasn’t on the cards.

The coffee had about a third left, but Lyla couldn't stomach the rest. It appeared as if every facet of her life, every small nook and cranny of existence, brought with it the roar of the past.

Many nights, after Amina had been put to sleep, Lyla and Adam had sat on this very balcony, the stars their companion as they sipped tea or decaf coffee and explained away their days.

Amina, recently, often asked Lyla the question in her gentle, innocent voice: “Amma, what shape are the stars?”

After months of searching, Lyla hadn't found an answer. She hadn't even gotten close.

With Adam, it was always the little things she remembered. The way Adam's eyes squinted as he pointed out an aeroplane flying overhead, red and green lights blinking like a heartbeat monitor in the distance. The way his laugh melted itself into Lyla's heart, causing her love to grow and grow near infinitely.

The way he laced his fingers with hers, as if locking in their bond every time they held hands.

Marriage always started with a bang—heck, some people even had actual fireworks at their wedding. Working in a multinational law firm meant Lyla had witnessed some truly expensive weddings amongst her colleagues.

But after that initial high of getting married and settling in with someone new, the small things Lyla took for granted were the moments that haunted her.

Dreams and nightmares.

And Amina, Lyla’s precious and beloved daughter, was the gift of that love. The gift in Lyla’s life that fuelled her to keep going when the days and nights without Adam, without her rock in life, stretched on seemingly forever.

So, if Amina was her source of joy, what the hell was Lyla doing sitting in the balcony, sipping coffee alone after dropping Amina at her daycare during the summer holiday?

A coffee built on lies—lies to her employer that she was sick, and lies to Amina that she was heading off to work.

Gosh, Lyla had even…even put on her work abaya as if leaving for her typical commute. And Amina had taken the bait.

Hook, lie, and sinker.

Lyla couldn’t stomach the coffee anymore, so stood on legs that shook as if her block of flats was sinking into an ocean. Her balance teetered, before she drew it under control and picked up her mug again.

Ice cold was what it laced into her fingers. Each step plodding as though wading through snow, Lyla entered her house again. The worst of the chilling wind left her when she shut the door, but now a new heaviness gripped her, head to toe.

The stars—the natural—reminded her of Adam. But so did everything else within her home, the so-called sanctuary where she could relax and be free.

Her guilt over the coffee caused her chest to tighten like laces that were impossible to unknot.

She was in the living room now—feeling more dead than alive. The mug nearly dropped from her hands as her gaze met the sofa where she and Adam had cuddled, along with Amina, whilst blasting through a children’s movie marathon at their daughter’s request.

Sometimes, they laid out a couple mattresses on the floor and had a ‘sleepover’, all bunched into one mattress even though they plopped down two. The warmth Lyla felt in those moments was like a shooting star—fleeting, never to be witnessed again, and she wished she could experience it once more.

In her dreams and nightmares.

Lyla’s entire body lurched as she crossed to the kitchen. The world blurred before her, colours meshing as though the earth was being squeezed through a sieve, before clearing again.

Drips on the floor revealed spilt coffee. Every muscle in Lyla’s body had gone numb, tingles shooting across her arms and legs as she whirred into motion again.

Ya Allah, what the hell’s wrong with me?

She washed the mug, then cleaned the floor with robotic movements. It felt as if her body was a machine she controlled, as opposed to a part of her. Like moving through water in a lucid dream, instead of real life.

What on earth is…

She knew the answer—the guilt flowing through her veins like poison. Guilt over her lies, over dumping her daughter to take the day off for herself. So unlike a good mother that the sick feeling threatened to rip the balance from beneath her.

She stumbled over to the kitchen once more, grabbed a glass of water and gulped the whole thing down. Like the coffee, it was bitter and stale, tainted with the worst of her thoughts. She slammed the glass back down with a loud clang, then looked over to the cupboard where the mugs were stored.

Adam’s mug still sat there, staring back at her with a morose gaze, and a memory seized her before she could blink.

Of a date with Adam, long ago, before Amina had been born. Lyla and Adam were strolling through the nearby shopping mall, the name of which for some reason eluded Lyla’s mind. The unnecessary details were stripped from her memories, leaving only the things she longed for, the things she wished would return.

Adam’s enchanting smile turned towards her as they walked whilst holding hands. His eyes had sparkled—strange, because they were typically a dull brown colour. But when his gaze met hers, they lit up, as if a light bulb had been switched on behind his eyes.

Dreams and nightmares.

Adam had pointed in the distance, where a shop’s display revealed mugs of different kinds. A sort of gift shop. Similar to the name of the shopping mall, Lyla couldn’t remember the name of that either. She didn’t care to.

She and Adam had entered, had a peruse of the shelves, and then split up to pick up a mug as a present for each other. Lyla had gotten him one with a football on the front, since Adam was a sucker for the Premier League every Saturday at three. And then on Sunday midday. And then Monday night if there was a game on…and then mid-week for the Champions League.

Adam, ever the lover of excellence, had picked out two presents—a mug with a rose printed onto it, as well as a bouquet of flowers too. He had a tendency to do that—to one-up Lyla in their displays of love for each other.

“I love you more than you love me,” Adam had always said.

The bouquet had long ago withered away. But the mug gleamed in that cupboard as if brand-new, as if untouched and unused, despite Lyla treasuring it right until Adam died.

She hadn’t drunk from it since.

Feeling as if her mind was being wrung out like a wet cloth, Lyla grabbed her phone and flicked to her contacts. Before realising that she had no one to call…not because she couldn’t call them, but because of the shame she would feel if she did.

After all, after months of nothing, how could one just pick up the pieces as if nothing had changed? A silence had to be broken, after all, not eased out of.

They haven’t spoken to me, either, Lyla tried to reason, tried to make an excuse.

But that’s because you didn’t pick up when they did try, a voice in her mind replied. The voice of reason, of logic, of truth.

Lyla sighed, chucked her phone onto the sofa, and sat down beside it. She inhaled the husky scent of Adam’s that imprinted itself on the house, then leaned back and stared out through a window next to the TV on the far side.

And through that window, for a reason she couldn’t fathom, a twinkle sparkled in the sky. A twinkle that resembled something so familiar, so visceral, that Lyla was sucked back into the spiral of her memories.

And this time, she couldn’t escape it so easily.

***

If Lyla had to describe her mother in one word, it would be warm. A sense of comforting warmth exuded from almost everything Lyla's mother did. It was as though an aura circled her mother, a sort of angelic glow that characterised itself into every action she took.

A sense of beauty, too, and a sincerity Lyla had only seen matched in one other person—Adam.

Sadly, both Adam and her mother were six feet under now, and nothing could bring them back except Lyla’s own passing into the next world, and hopeful passing into Paradise.

Dreams and nightmares.

Lyla's mother, too, was a single mother, though a lot later in Lyla's childhood. Lyla had broken the barrier of double digits when her father passed away, but it was a slow passing, a painful passing.

Rather than the quick death that whisked Adam away from one life to the next, Lyla's father had suffered heart complications that rendered his last days more withering than radiant. Days of pain slowly turned to hours, then to minutes, before the last seconds of her father’s life sputtered out as he died.

And Lyla's mother, like Lyla after her, was then alone, with only Allah’s help to turn to and seek. As Lyla later found out, it was in times of desperation that one truly realised how strong their faith was.

Still, through the help of Allah and her mother’s persistence, Lyla had excelled at school, gotten her degree, and entered the courtroom with flying colours. Successful in every modern and material facet of the word, and yet one memory of her mother still pervaded Lyla's mind, even now.

A memory she couldn't shake off since Amina began asking her about the shape of stars.

Despite the strength with which her mother, whom Lyla called Ma, tackled the daily throes of life, Ma was as spontaneous as people came. Particularly after her father passed on, window shopping trips and ice cream in the park outings were frequent in Lyla's childhood. When the stress from college was seeping into Lyla’s features, Ma told her to skip the day and took a day off from work herself so they could relax together.

And when Ma was around, the colours of the world sparkled like nothing else.

But one day, Ma lit a fuse under that spontaneity and burst it into the sky like fireworks.

Lyla had been twelve at the time, at that stage when girls were battling their changing bodies with their changing identities. Yet no matter what issue Lyla faced, Ma's arms were a safe sanctuary that absorbed all her worries.

It was a Saturday morning, the sky vibrant and smiling through Lyla’s bedroom window. She’d hoovered and mopped that morning as part of her chores, so the wooden floor gleamed as though gems winked from between the floorboards. A smell of freshness swept across her room, and Lyla had been getting on with her English homework due for the next week.

And then that smell of freshness mixed with the scent of sweet flowers—Ma’s scent. Ma embraced Lyla from behind, chin against Lyla’s black hair, and the warmth of her mother made Lyla feel all gooey inside—that was the only way she knew to describe the sensation.

“Let's go to a place I always used to go to,” Ma said.

Lyla’s pencil dropped from her fingers. “Huh? A beach? But isn’t that like, really far away?”

“No distance is too far for us to traverse,” Ma said in a funnily deep voice. She let go of Lyla, then stretched her arms as if a captain aboard a ship about to set sail. “We shall commence this voyage in half an hour. Please ensure your luggage is stowed, and that you have your head screwed on tight.”

She dropped the act, gave Lyla a wink, before heading out of the room to get ready.

Lyla shook her head with a laugh, but decided to go along with it for now. Ma was a bag of surprises even on a bad day, but this escapade definitely took the top spot.

It was a weekend, but didn’t Ma have work to do in the meantime? Just what was Ma planning, a young Lyla wondered.

Less than an hour later, they were bundled into Ma’s little Toyota and bundling along the motorway south from London to a place called Bognor Regis. It was a small area, apparently, where Ma had often gone to visit one of her late uncles. And there was a little stretch of beach there, on the other side of which was a body of water that glistened in the sunlight and looked as beautiful as anything Ma had ever seen.

The description had gripped Lyla as she eagerly waited in the car, but the real sight grabbed her in an even tighter hold. And it didn’t let go for a second.

The sun shone against the backdrop of the water, tapping across the surface in little pools of white against blue. The tide was calm, sea flowing in sync with Lyla’s heartbeat.

Lyla stared out, the calm breeze ruffling her scarf just a little as her feet sunk into the sand. They were alone on that beach—the town was small, after all, and it was midday—with their hands linked together.

Ma’s hands were warmer than ever, as though the furnace of her love tingled down to her fingertips and fused across to Lyla’s hand.

“So this is what you wanted to see, Ma?” Lyla asked, looking up at Ma for a second, before her gaze was once more transfixed by the water. “It looks amazing. Like, really good.”

A young Lyla’s vocabulary had yet to mature, but the feelings in her heart couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than wonder.

“This is part of what I wanted to see,” Ma said, squeezing Lyla’s hand. “But there’s something more beautiful that I think you’ll love. And you should see it soon. Very, very soon.”

Lyla wished to ask what Ma was speaking about, but bit her tongue. When Ma got into that contemplative mood—scrunched eyebrows, hand on chin, eyes shining as she thought—she was not to be disturbed. As Lyla had often found out during her childhood, the truth would be revealed, sooner or later.

And the truth was revealed. As the light of the world dipped into its nightly slumber, the sparkles in the sky waved hello as Lyla watched on with Ma, both alone on the beach.

Their hands were interlaced, too, bodies as close as their hearts, and the warmth of the scene outweighed the British chill after sunset.

“This looks amazing!” Lyla breathed out, eyes glued to the millions of stars shining above her. “Like, really amazing. Wow.”

Ma chuckled a little, squeezed Lyla's hand, and leaned back despite the sand rubbing over her abaya. Lyla laid down beside her, wind ruffling the few strands of hair that slipped out from beneath her headscarf.

“What shape are the stars?” Lyla had asked in that moment. The exact same question that Amina was asking her now. A repetition of daughter asking eagerly of their mother.

And Ma had answered the perfect answer. But that answer evaded Lyla's mental arrest like a robber on the run, and there wasn't a chance of her catching it.

The memory faded soon after. They had prayed maghrib somewhere—perhaps a mosque with a women's section—and then headed back to London under the night's watch. Ma's spontaneity had sparked something almost otherworldly in Lyla's life, a memory she could never forget.

And now, years and years later, it felt like time was repeating itself.

Repeating itself? Lyla thought.

And an idea stole her attention with a ferocity that matched even Ma.

And Lyla, though she didn't have an answer for Amina, knew exactly how to find one.

***

The daycare that Amina went to, though colourful on the inside, looked like a drab old prison from the outside. Every morning, at eight o’clock sharp before continuing on her commute to the inner city, Lyla brought Amina here, to this awful-looking place, and trapped her inside willingly for ten or so hours.

If Lyla was late due to overtime at work, almost always through no fault of her own, then sometimes even longer.

And Amina would patiently wait, every single day, with a smile on her face despite having little to smile about. And Lyla would grab her daughter’s hand and bundle into the car and return home with that sinking guilt anchoring her stomach to what felt like the core of the earth.

She stared at that daycare building now, and sucked in a huge breath. Let it all out, but the tightness in her chest didn’t ease one bit.

No, that would only ease after answering her daughter’s question. And that would only happen once Lyla rediscovered the answer—using a bout of spontaneity that could rival Ma’s.

“This is a little early, isn’t it?” one of the daycare assistants, Aisha, said. Always radiant, always smiling, just like the deep red scarf wrapped over her head. “I’m sure Amina’ll be happy, though. Mum’s here early, eh.”

“Could you please get her for me?” Lyla asked, her mouth feeling as if filled with sand. The words wouldn’t come out right. No, not until Lyla set the world right by answering her daughter’s question.

“Sure thing,” Aisha said, and she disappeared beyond the front desk.

A few minutes later, Lyla’s beautiful daughter graced the building’s boring surroundings with her vibrance, as though she’d captured a part of the daycare’s brightness and brought it out with her.

“Amma’s here,” Lyla called, and Amina rushed towards her and jumped into a deep hug. Lyla breathed in her daughter’s rosy, pure scent, before letting go and softly grabbing her hand. They walked out, mother and daughter, love linking them far closer than their hands indicated.

“Why so early, Amma?” Amina asked, though she happily trotted alongside Lyla. Amina’s footsteps were light.

Lyla’s felt as if her legs were formed from lead.

“We’re doing something special today,” Lyla explained, leading her daughter towards the family car parked on the roadside. “We’re going to find out the shape of the stars.”

Amina’s eyes went wide, her mouth forming a silent circle. “Really? Really?” she exclaimed, before rushing towards the passenger side, pulling open the door with all her strength, and jumping onto the seat.

“Yep, really,” Lyla said. “Amma’s going to find it for you, okay.” Lyla paused for a second. “Actually, we’ll find out the answer together. Mother and daughter.”

“Mother and daughter,” Amina repeated, though her pronunciation paled in comparison to her enthusiasm.

That smile. I never want that smile to fade.

After belting up the seats and starting the engine, Lyla began the long, long drive towards Bognor Regis, all whilst attempting (but failing) to ignore the thrum of guilt pulsing with each beat of her heart.

***

Clouds had formed over the course of the day, and that near perpetual worry in Lyla’s chest only worsened in its beating upon her heart. If the clouds obscured the sky, then the stars wouldn’t be visible from the beach in Bognor. The same beach that Lyla had been taken to, in her youth, all those years ago.

The rumbling drive was rather quiet. Well, as quiet as a drive could be with an energetic daughter raving in the passenger seat.

“We’re going on holiday!” Amina all but screamed, waving her hands in the air. Her booster seat ensured that she was, indeed, on the same height as Amma.

“Watch the mirror,” Lyla said, since she needed to check the lane beside her before switching. They were nearing the exit now, and sunset was in a few hours. “And it’s not a holiday. That’s in two weeks’ time.”

Lyla hadn’t even decided on a destination. Heck, she’d literally just planned it on a whim. But no longer would she allow Amina to stave away in a daycare not knowing if her mother really cared or not.

No, Lyla would change for her daughter. No longer would she mope in silence in a manner that Adam would be ashamed of. She would live for her daughter, and for Allah, like a proper mother should.

And that, naturally, meant a holiday to enjoy in two weeks.

Morocco, Turkey maybe. What about boat rides in Venice?

Whilst Lyla’s brain fired up its search engines, Amina seemed to focus on another aspect of the holiday.

“Two weeks?” Amina said, pouting all the while with both excitement and disappointment. “But two weeks is so long. So long, long, long, long, long…”

And Amina continued like that across the rest of the drive, voice never letting up as though a song on repeat, and Lyla didn’t try to stop her daughter. For the symphony of her daughter’s voice was a tune she wished to listen to for the rest of her life.

“Are we there yet?” Amina had changed to asking.

“Almost there,” Lyla said, turning into Bognor’s exit and driving further into the town, until she reached the section where the water met the sky. She parked on one side of the road, paid for the spot to last the next six hours (she did not need a parking ticket, not today), and bundled Amina out of the car.

“That’s a beach!” Amina said, pointing over to the sand inviting them over with sways in the wind.

“It is a beach,” Lyla said. “And what do we need at a beach?”

“Sandcastles!”

With a smile that seemed to never let up, Lyla crossed to the car boot and opened it. Inside was stashed two deck chairs, a novel for her to read, a battery-operated fridge with ice creams stocked inside, and buckets with all sorts of different shapes for Amina to make sandy creations with.

Lyla didn’t reveal that she’d bought them on the way to the daycare from one of those high-street stores filled with strange trinkets of all kinds.

“Wow,” Amina said, grabbing a sandcastle bucket and rushing off to create her masterpiece.

“Be careful with your shoes,” Lyla said, grabbing everything else and heaving it over. “Today’s going to be messy, isn’t it?” she muttered under her breath.

Gosh, where’s Adam where you need him, that voice in her mind said. If Adam had been here, he’d have grabbed everything in the car boot, probably in one hand, whilst hoisting Amina up in the other. And Lyla could walk in peace with only her handbag in tow.

It was the little things that made life as a single mother tough. And the knowledge that, if Lyla didn’t support herself and her daughter, no one else would.

After transporting everything to the sand and settling herself down, Lyla satisfied herself with watching Amina playing about in the sand as the clouds rolled across overhead. Other than the two of them, the beach was empty. Considering the drab weather at that moment—greyish skies with the sun absent—as well as the fact that it was the middle of a weekday, that result was expected.

Lyla grabbed her book, a regency romance, and settled back in her deck chair. But she couldn’t get into the read—something about Amina and the way she laughed and played captivated Lyla. Gripped her attention and didn’t want to let go for the merest moment.

“Amma, look!” Amina squealed after a few more minutes that felt like lifetimes of happiness compared to the last few years in Lyla’s life. “I made a sandcastle. And it’s like this big.” Amina mimed how big it was with her hands, but that didn’t seem to be enough for the little girl.

So she grabbed Lyla’s hand and pulled with all her little might.

Lyla’s abaya would get dirty from the sand, but what did she care? Her daughter was smiling, happy, mouth seeming to never stop laughing and giggling, and that was worth all the tiny bits of grime that parenting naturally came with.

Lyla hobbled over to where the sandcastle was stationed, sand grains soft against her shoes. Despite the lack of sun today, the sandcastle glimmered as though a portion of Amina’s joy had been sprinkled inside for good measure.

“I put all the sand inside the bucket like this,” Amina explained as though she was presenting a kids TV show like the ones she loved to watch at home. “And then I flipped it around quick and it almost fell out!”

At that, Amina quickly turned the sandcastle bucket over to illustrate her point.

“But I was quick, Amma. And it never fell out!”

“Good girl,” Lyla said, rubbing Amina’s back and then ruffling her pre-tied-up hair (sand was dangerous to hair, after all). “Do you want to take a picture? The sandcastle’s not going to stay here forever, after all.”

“It’s not?” Amina asked in a large voice, shoulders falling. “But can’t Allah make the sandcastle stay here forever?”

“Of course He can.” Lyla then tapped her nose as if sharing a secret only the two of them in the whole wide world knew about. “But that’s in Jannah where everything stays forever. So let’s work hard to get into Jannah, and then we can build sandcastles all the time.”

“Yeah!” Amina exclaimed. “I wanna build one up to the sky.”

“To the sky and beyond,” Lyla said, and they took a picture of the sandcastle—a strange selfie with the two of them crouched on either side but trying not to lean into the castle and crumble it to bits.

“What should we do next?” Amina then asked, jumping up and down in the sand and spraying it everywhere. “I know—I can make another sandcastle. A mega-big sandcastle that a king can live in!”

“How about some ice cream first?” Lyla suggested—she did wish to sit down and rest, after all. And she knew that Amina, when the sun lowered beyond the horizon and the clouds hopefully cleared up, would rise in excitement once again.

“Yay, ice cream!”

“Don't eat too much, though,” Lyla said, chasing after her daughter across the sand. Amina had a tendency to go overboard and nearly freeze her brain whenever ice cream was served. That girl was far too young to know the limits of sweets, so Lyla had to impose them.

Lyla peeled open the Ben & Jerry's, fresh from the fridge, and gave herself and Amina pre-washed spoons. And whilst sitting on Lyla’s lap, Amina ate as much ice cream as she could, exclaiming how tasty it was after every gulp.

“Can I have more, Amma?” Amina said with a pout when she tried to scoop some more and realised they'd finished it. Somehow, someway, they'd gotten through the entire tub of Ben & Jerry's in a flash.

“On the way back in the car, maybe,” Lyla said. She couldn't have Amina's brain freezing, not when the main course of the evening had yet to be served.

With the main course, of course, being the whole reason why Lyla came here in the first place.

Thereafter, Amina and Lyla played together in the sand, building a few more castles as the previous ones were washed away, until the sky grew orange (the clouds had, thankfully, decided to part ways with the world) and the evening waned in the sun's departure.

Sunset was upon them.

The time for the main course was almost here.

After hours of rolling around in the sand—why did kids always get so dirty after a day of playing?—Amina sat on her smaller deck chair a little tired. Lyla was exhausted too, but she dabbed herself with energy in a way only a mother could, before raising her eyes to the sky.

And there, she witnessed the first twinkle of the stars.

And it seemed Amina witnessed it too.

“Amma, look,” she said, waving with a little hand up at the billions of white dots that seemed to return the greeting. “It's the stars!”

“It is the stars,” Lyla said, as if to herself more so than her daughter. She sighed, leaned back in the deck chair for a moment, before hauling herself up onto her feet.

The world had grown chilly in the sun's absence, and apart from the odd car that rumbled past behind them, the beach was empty and quiet. Not eerily so, like in a horror movie set on a deserted island. No, this was more comforting.

“Amma,” Amina called, grabbing a handful of sand and throwing it into the wind. “Do you think there's more sand or more stars?”

“More stars.” Lyla brushed off her abaya from the little sand that had collected there, before sitting down again. “Far, far more stars.”

“Like how many stars?”

“Billions and billions of them, all out there in the sky.”

Amina's face scrunched in confusion like a slinky about to set off. “What's a billion?”

“It's a thousand millions,” Lyla explained. “So you have one million, and then make a thousand of them. That's a billion.”

Amina didn't look satisfied with that, but like a slinky falling down the stairs, she moved onto the next question.

“Is there a star in the world? Cos you said it's all outside.”

“No stars in the world, sadly. Or maybe happily since we'd all burn. The closest star to Earth is actually the sun.”

“The sun's a star? But it's so big but the other stars are small.”

“That's because it’s closer,” Lyla said. “When something's closer it’s easier to see, but if it’s far away then it looks smaller.”

Amina stared up at the sky, and Lyla could almost sense the next question. The question she'd been waiting for this entire time.

“The sun's a big circle, like we learned with Miss Aisha.” She must've been talking about Miss Aisha at the daycare. “I wonder what shape the other stars are…”

Lyla stared up at the sky along with Amina, at the hundreds and thousands, millions, billions of little white dots staring right back at her, as if daring her to find a solution to Amina’s question. But she didn’t have an answer for her daughter. She’d come all this way, to the same place her mother had taken her, to answer the same question she’d asked her mother.

And yet, now that the moment came, Lyla found her mind blank. Utterly, utterly blank.

Amina must’ve picked up on Lyla’s pondering, since she sidled up to Lyla’s deck chair before jumping into her lap.

“You want to look at the stars together?” Lyla asked, wrapping her arms around Amina’s waist and pulling her in. She could almost sense the love flowing between them, the warmth that could shade any mother from the cold reality of the world.

It was comforting, peaceful, and more adjectives than Lyla could think of. It was like a drop of paradise had descended, despite how impossible that really was.

“Yeah, let’s look at it together!” Amina exclaimed.

And Lyla and Amina did just that, Amina settling into her lap like a small baby, all whilst they gazed at the myriad of twinkles shadowing over the night sky. The wind caressed their faces with soft brushes, as though painting on their expressions of contentment. The lilting smell of the sea tickled their nostrils, making the air fresher as they breathed it in.

And in that moment, Amina turned in Lyla’s arms, and Lyla glanced at her daughter's eyes and saw the reflection of the stars.

And then the answer arrived. The answer Lyla’s own mother had given all those years ago. And Lyla stared into Amina’s eyes and spoke those same words.

“The stars in the sky, all those small ones—they don’t have a proper shape,” Lyla said. “Actually, they have the shape that you want them to have, whatever that shape is.”

Amina glanced up at the sky, eyebrows scrunched all the while. “I don’t get it.”

Well, I didn’t expect her to get it the first time, did I? Lyla thought, before continuing.

“You see all those little dots. There’s millions and billions of them. If you want to make a picture by drawing the dots, you have almost unlimited stars to choose from.”

“It’s like dot-to-dot!” Amina said.

“Exactly like dot-to-dot,” Lyla said with a wide smile. “So if you want to draw a mosque in the sky, guess what? You can do exactly that.”

Lyla found her own voice growing excited, as if figuring out the answer to Amina’s question was recapturing an element of her past that felt lost forever.

“So can we draw castles in the sky?” Amina asked.

“You’ve had too much of castles today, young lady,” Lyla said with a chuckle. “What about a massive tub of ice cream? I think I see one right…there.”

Amina’s eyes followed Lyla’s outstretched finger to the top right of the world, where indeed, if one squinted hard enough and allowed their imagination to twinkle like the stars, a tub of ice cream could be seen.

Ben & Jerry’s, to be exact.

“What about a big car?” Amina said. “Like our one.”

“There’s a car right there,” Lyla said, pointing to a different section of the sky.

“What about a post office?”

“Right there.”

“What about a football stadium?”

“A little to the right and you should see it.”

“What about Abba?”

Lyla froze in her seat, her heart stopping for what felt like a lifetime. But she was a new person now, no longer shackled by her inaction. And that meant putting the past in the past and living for Allah and for her daughter’s future. No longer dwelling on Adam’s death, but being able to celebrate her husband for who he was.

Not dreams and nightmares. Just dreams. Dreams to aim for, to strive for, to hope for.

“I think if you look that way,” Lyla said, pointing to their left, “you can see a family picture. Me, you, and Abba. All smiling and happy, and they’re waving at us.”

Amina paused for a second. Then, she said, “I see it!”

And with those bubbling feelings almost bursting her heart with the joy of a new beginning, Lyla played that game with Amina, looking for all the different shapes in the sky. Connecting all the different stars.

And it felt like they’d drawn something precious on every single one of them.

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JazakAllahu Khayran for reading.