Rania's Thank-You List

Rania woke at ten to four, half an hour before her alarm. The house was dark and cold, Nottingham was still asleep, and downstairs a floorboard creaked.

She pulled on her dressing gown and fluffy socks and crept down. It was the second week of Ramadan, her first year of fasting every single day.

The lamp in the front room was on low. Ammi stood on her prayer mat by the window, her dupatta wrapped around her, her lips moving softly. Rania curled up on the sofa under the crocheted blanket to wait.

She watched the clock on the mantelpiece. Four minutes. Seven. Eleven. Ammi was still standing, still reciting, her voice no louder than the hum of the fridge.

Rania frowned. Nobody she knew was better than Ammi. Ammi took soup round to old Mr Pearson whenever his hip was bad. She had prayed all five, on time, since before Rania was born. So why did she stand there in the cold for so long?

Rania prayed her five too. Mostly on time. She had always thought that was the deal: you did the things you were meant to do, and then you were good. Done.

At last Ammi ended her prayer with the salaam. Rania couldn't hold it in.

"Ammi, why do you pray for so long? You're already good."

Ammi laughed quietly. "Already good? Jaan, I ask Allah to forgive me every single night. I need it, believe me." She patted the mat beside her, and Rania came and sat down. "But that isn't the only reason. Shall I tell you about the Prophet ﷺ?"

Rania nodded.

"He used to stand in prayer at night," said Ammi, "for so long that his feet would crack."

"Crack?" Rania tucked her own feet deeper into her socks. "Like, the skin?"

"Mm. And his wife Aisha asked him about it. She said, 'O Messenger of Allah ﷺ, why do you do this, when Allah has already forgiven you your past and future faults?'"

Rania thought about that. If anyone in the whole world was already good, surely it was him.

"And do you know what he said?" Ammi's voice went softer still. "He said, 'Should I not love to be a thankful servant?'"

The words sat in the quiet room. A thankful servant. Not only someone saying sorry. Not someone just ticking off homework. Someone saying thank you.

"So it's… a thank-you," Rania said slowly.

"For me, a lot of it is," said Ammi. "Once I really start counting, I can't stop."

In the kitchen, while Ammi warmed the parathas and Abbu came down yawning for his suhoor, Rania began a list in her head, just to see.

One: Ammi. Two: Abbu, even his snoring. Three: her little brother Talha, even when he gave her gel pens back chewed. Four: her lungs. Last winter she had needed her blue inhaler nearly every day; this winter she hadn't touched it once.

Five: her eyes, which could read. Six: her friend Mehreen, who saved her a seat on the bus. Seven: the dates, sticky and sweet. Eight: the paratha, flaky and hot. Nine: the radiator, ticking as it warmed. Ten: her own two feet, which carried her everywhere without her even noticing.

She ran out of fingers, and she hadn't even got to the roof, or the tap, or her bed waiting upstairs. No wonder Ammi's prayers took so long. There simply wasn't a quick way to say all of that.

The mosque timetable on the fridge said Fajr began at twelve minutes past five. It was only twenty to.

"Ammi," she said, "is there time for two rak'ahs? Just… to say thank you?"

Ammi's eyes went shiny. "There's time."

When she had eaten her last date, Rania made wudu at the bathroom sink, the water cold on her wrists. Then she pulled on her prayer scarf and unrolled her own mat beside Ammi's. She stood and recited al-Fatihah, then the longest surah she knew by heart, slowly, the way Ammi did. When she went down into sujood, her forehead resting on the soft mat, she whispered, "Subhana Rabbiyal A'la," and the whole list folded itself into one warm, quiet feeling, too big for any other words.

After Fajr, with the house still again, Rania climbed back into bed. Outside, the sky over the rooftops had turned from black to the deepest blue, and a blackbird on the garden fence had started to sing.

Her feet were warm. Her heart was full. She began her list again, slowly, whispering Alhamdulillah after each one, and somewhere around number twenty-three, which was her pillow, she was fast asleep.