Dr Dara was waiting for them at their office when they arrived, she was being careful with each step she took, forcing herself not to look at the room she stayed only a few months ago. Where their happiness started and all that love bloomed more beautiful than it was. She was fighting herself not to cry and while she sat on the chair as she answered the doctor's questions patiently, she figured how short life was. And how funny and scary it was.

He was dead, but nothing stopped. Instead, his twin brother was the one that brought her to the hospital so they could check and see if she was fine. Her health mattered, no one spoke about him, just prayed for him as everyone waited for his or her time. How funny life was. And to say we all carried it on top of our heads to please the creations of Allah was even funnier.

They finished with the doctor and he told them that nothing was wrong with her, she was just stressed out. And with proper meals and sleep, she would be back and the baby wasn't affected too. She just have to be taking her meals on time and the pills he had prescribed for her. They went back to the car and instead of him to drive them directly back home, Nadia noticed he was taking a different route, none of them spoke and she wished she had enough energy in her to ask him.

She watched as he stopped and when she looked around, she realized he stopped by havilla and somehow, a smile found its way to her lips. He turned to look at her, "Making you eat will you pointless without an ice cream, which flavor would you like?" She stared at him for once and wanted to take her eyes off him but she couldn't. Forcing herself to believe that this man wasn't her husband especially when he's being so understanding was so hard and she felt her eyes pooling with tears. It could be pregnancy hormones for all she cared.

And for the first time in her life, she didn't want all her favorites, "Your favorite, get me that..." She let loose of her words, "I mean, you used to have same favorite with him, right?" He had now turned to being addressed as him between them, which was so sad if you could ask.

He nodded his head and walked out of the car. Nadia didn't stop her tears, she began to cry as silently as she could, thankful for the dim tint he had on his windows if not, someone would be weirdly staring at her. Wait, was it his car or that of Hassan? She didn't even know.

He came back bearing two cups and drove ahead, aware of her tears but he didn't say a word about them. She couldn't wait to go back home and when she felt as he pulled over, she opened her eyes and found them on the outskirts of Katsina, a few kilometers away from Shinkafi local government.

She turned to look with inquisitive eyes and he sighed, handing her the ice cream. "Nature heals me, I just want to be alone and I guess you might need some time away from the house." She was just watching him as he spoke. How each word he uttered weighed so much grief and how he was trying as much as he could to stay strong for his family despite him being the one that was hurt the most.

He walked out and laid out a carpet for them and when he motioned for her to come out just beside the car, she inhaled a deep breath. It was so silent and full of green, with the shade they were in it was almost impossible for the Katsina sun to peek through their skins. She sat down and rested her on the tree trunk, smiling as she watched the beautiful clouds, while she softly licked her ice cream.

They sat that way for as long as they could all remember, deep into their thoughts until they both finished their ice creams and she sighed heavily. "He would've whined to have me take an ice cream on an empty stomach." Softly, she chuckled, but one could hear the grief rolling off her every word.

"I'm a bad influence then, I guess." She heard his reply when she least expected it. She turned to look at him and found that he was staring at her, maybe he had been staring at her for a very long time now. Despite having her eyes red from the crying and her face puffy, Nadia managed and sent him a decent smile.

"Being bad sometimes helps. Just like how I should be at home now, observing the takabah, but due to the excuse of being in the hospital, I exceeded it a bit for my sanity. It isn't a sin, right?" Once again, their eyes met and he didn't even try to look away from her, he only nodded.

"You need to get as much peace as you could for you to pray for him. He'd actually want your peace over how much you'd pray for him so long as it's at the cost of your sanity." She nodded in agreement. The good thing about all this was, they both knew him so well to easily agree with everything being said about him. None of them could misunderstood him or say something apart from who he used to be.

She tried to bring her knees to her chest but couldn't, due to the protruding belly in her stomach and that actually made her chuckle. For the first time in two weeks, she had chuckled and it felt alien to her ears. She stared at the stomach and fondled it lovingly, "I need you out as soon as I could, I want to rest my head on my knees while I cry or watch a beautiful scenery as this. Is that too much to ask, uhm?"

Fascinated by how she was casually talking to a bump as though it were a normal human being that could actually understand what she meant, Hussain smiled. Oh wow, did he actually smile? That was a first. "Are you sure I don't need to take you to the psychiatry? Who in his actual senses speak to an unborn child?"

She looked at him and managed to roll her eyes, even though they were too puff to roll the way she used to. "Are you trying to call me a mad woman?" Almost immediately, tears rolled down to her cheeks and Hussain wondered if she hadn't been looking for an excuse to cry her eyes out.

"You've been looking for an excuse to cry, right? I'll pretend I'm not here, and if you want, I can sit in the car until you're done."

He tried to stand up when she shook her head, "What if a snake snuck its way towards me?"

"Aren't you strong enough to either run or shout my name? I'd come at the very next second." He wanted to smile at how her face looked with tears on it, the pout on her lips and the grief amalgamated with mischief in her eyes.

"This..." She pointed at the baby bump, "I can't run with it and I've used up all my energy to cry for the past two weeks. You should just stay, I'd pretend you're not here either." He sat back, pulled his legs to his chest as he placed his head on his knees, forcing himself to become deaf to her cries.

She was now crying in hiccups, her whole shaking and he had to close his eyes to stop himself from pulling her to him to console her. Just when he thought her tears subsided, she began to speak. "Do you know all that we've planned to do with him? It's just so heartbreaking knowing he's gone, not just for sometime but forever." He wanted to speak, maybe if he could cry too, it would be less painful him too but it felt as though his tears had been sucked up.

"He said that when this baby is eight months along, we will always go for strolling in the evening together, the only days he wouldn't be together with me are the days he's either in Abuja or Kano. He wants to be there when I give birth, do you know what he planned to name the baby?" She turned to him, trying to wipe at her tears with more gushing down her cheeks. Hussain simply shook his head, realizing that no matter how much he wanted to wipe her tears with his thumb, there was this invisible line between them.

"Hussain. And if it's a girl, he will name her Hussaina. We had a fight with him that day because at first I thought he was joking, because who would name a single child like a twin?" She chuckled sadly, feeling as her heart constricted with so much agony. And what was more painful was that seeing a replica of him right by her side but then she had to force herself into believe her husband was gown and all that was left was her husband's twin.

Hussain surged in a breath, she was making it soo hard for him to stay strong with all these stories. He wished she didn't tell him everything, because it would only serve as a remembrance of how much Hassan loved him and what a treasure he had lost.

She continued, "We later agreed that he or she would be named with your name but I can call him or her with any name I desire, that was the end of the argument. Do you know?" She smiled amidst tears and didn't wait for his response when she continued, "We've already started baby shopping together. I mean, he bought baby items every single day, I've never seen him so excited about something like this baby. He kept saying that..." She stopped mid-sentence and her eyes dilated with amusement, pain and a feeling he wasn't able to fathom.

"Wait, you didn't know about the baby!" She exclaimed, wiping at her tears as he went to the car, brought out a bottle of water and she washed her face with it.

He sat down before he replied her with a soft and painful smile, "I didn't, I guess it's the surprise he kept talking about, right?"

She nodded her head and lifted her face up to stop her tears from coming back. The pain was too much for her heart, but she was going to stay strong for her baby. "It was, and he kept saying how it would be ridiculous for the two of you to go for baby shopping together but he would have to drag you to every supermarket he could lay his hands on until he bought everything and nothing about a baby ever produced in this world." She chuckled, "It's so sad knowing that he didn't live long to see this baby." She fondled her stomach and before Hussain replied her, a call came through his phone.

He place the phone on speaker, "Hajia, we're on our way back." He motioned for Nadia to stand up so they could leave already when Hajia ended the call. Nadia stood up and he folded the carpet and in a minute, they were driving back home, a soft melodious Qur'an recitation booming from the speaker as they both felt how peaceful the recitation was to their hearts.

She had a soft and small smile on her face by the time they arrived home, she might've cried and remembered all those memories that were once happily made but now made her cry, but at least she got a lot of things out of her chest and it was therapeutic. The ice cream, the greenery, the talk, the tears, him, everything.

She was about to get off the car when he spoke, "He might not be here to fulfill all those promises he made, and I feel there are over a thousand you've not mentioned yet. But I'll fulfill them all." Yes, they had always been the same, but why did he have to give her Hassan vibes now?

He softly stared at her bump, "And for the baby, I hope you could tell him or her nothing about First H, I'm his or her father and would never let him or her feel the absence of one, please?"

She felt the words deep into her heart but to lessen the awkwardness, she softly chuckled. "But I won't live here forever. What happened to the marriage?"

Oh, maybe the old Singleton was back, Hussain mused. "Divorced, maybe? Or perhaps his mother was just so stubborn that I got tired of her and needed a break." The first thing she laid her eyes on was a half drunk water bottle and she threw it at him.

"You better not make that mistake, Twin." Ouch, that hurt. She thought he was Hassan!