We stood in the parking lot

The phone goes off at two in the morning and my wife doesn't move anymore. Nineteen years of it. I keep the clothes on the chair by the door so I'm not turning lights on in the hallway.

That one was January. It took three turns before the van caught and I sat there with my hand on the key. Nobody had done the back lot yet so I parked where I figured the line probably was.

You want tea? I'll put it on. It's no trouble, I'm making it anyway at this hour.

His name was Hisham. Sixty-two. He had the house off Chase with the tomatoes in the side yard, the ones people used to slow down and look at. It was his heart. His son was driving up from Toledo and wasn't going to be in before six, so they called us.

Nabil came in behind me and stamped the snow off. He's got the plow outfit, so in the winter he's already awake, he's been doing lots since midnight. The plaza on Ford and whatever else he's got contracts on. I've known his face since the old building. Ten years, twelve. We'd never talked about anything except who was coming Thursday.

The room is in the back past the kitchen. Steel table with a tilt on it so the water runs down to the drain at the foot. There's a mixer on the hose because you don't put cold water on somebody, and that's the first thing anybody teaches you and it's still the thing people get wrong.

He stays covered navel to knee the whole time. That includes when you turn him. It was ten to three in the morning and there was nobody in that building but the two of us and he was still covered.

You do his wudu first, same as he'd do it himself. The mouth and the nose you wipe with the cloth over your finger, you're not pouring anything into him. Then the face. Then the arms and over the head and down to the feet.

Then the water with the sidr in it, and you start on his right. Always the right. Odd number of times, three if he comes clean, five if he doesn't, and seven is the most anybody does. I've done seven twice in nineteen years. The last water has the kafoor in it, and you'll have that smell on your hands the next day and on the steering wheel. My girls know that smell. They don't say anything about it.

The kafan is three pieces for a man and you lay it all out before you start, because you're not doing that with wet hands. You bring the left side over and then the right over the top of it. You tie it off at both ends and once across the middle and you don't pull it tight.

Hisham had something on his shoulder. An old one, gone blue and soft the way they go, so you couldn't read it anymore. Might have been a name. Nabil saw it the same second I did and we brought the cloth up and kept going.

We had him wrapped and on the gurney by a quarter to four. Janazah wasn't until after dhuhr, so there was nothing left except the gloves in the bin and wiping the table down.

Then we went out the back. His truck was running the whole time with the blade still down. He never shuts it off in that kind of cold.

It was twenty minutes out there. Maybe not even twenty.

He asked if we were busy and I said we're always busy in January, every furnace in this county waits for January. I told him about the Kroger in Taylor, five rooftop units and four of them went down inside the same month. That's my brother's account. I've worked for Ziad since the old shop on Schaefer and he prays two spots down from me, so.

Then he quit talking for a while and I didn't fill it in.

He said give me your hand. So I gave it to him. He held it a few seconds and said yeah, you're like ice, and gave it back.

And then he said that when the text went out, he looked down the list to see if my name was on it before he answered.

I said something back. I think I said the lot needed salt.

Then he said he had Ford Road to do before six. He got in the truck and backed it around and the blade scraped on the asphalt. I sat in my van a while with the engine running. Then I drove home and made wudu and sat in the kitchen until fajr.

Eight months. And I want to be clear with you, eight months of nothing. Friday I'm in the fourth row and he's up by the pillar and we shake hands on the way out and he asks how's the family and I say alhamdulillah, how's yours. Drink that before it goes cold. That's every single week since January.

Amal's wedding is in May. We've already put eleven thousand down on the hall, non-refundable.

I put his name on the wedding list in June. Took it off the same week. Put it back in July. It's on there right now. He'll come with his wife and hand me an envelope in a line of two hundred people. He'll say mabrouk and I'll say Allah ybarek feek. Then he goes and finds a seat with the men from the committee.

The text still comes out, three or four times a month. I read the names now before I answer. I never used to do that. Last week it was an older lady out in Westland and the sisters handle that one anyway, so it wasn't anything, and I drove over and stood out front with the men for a while and then came home.

Tuesday I was up on a roof in Romulus. Ninety-four out and the membrane's black, so it's hotter than that coming up through your boots. Twenty-ton unit, a ninety-six, and the disconnect on it was mounted so low you're on your knees to get at it. There's a vending machine in the lobby of that building that takes a card, which you don't see much out there. I got two of the orange Gatorades and Yusef got the blue.