Chapter 12 - Quiet Certainties

Chapter 12: Quiet Certainties

The morning was still.

A soft drizzle pattered against the windows, tracing lines down the glass. Meilin sat on the edge of her bed, the Quran resting in her lap. Her thumb traced the edge of the ribbon marker, hesitant.

She had woken with a strange kind of calm—a pull toward something she couldn’t quite name. The day didn’t demand anything from her. No meetings. No errands. Just time. Space.

She opened the book again, this time with intention.

Following a bookmarked section, she read slowly. The translation was clear, unadorned. Some verses spoke of mercy, others of patience. One spoke of hearts that turn, again and again, yet are never turned away.

She didn’t understand everything. But she didn’t expect to.

There were words that felt too vast to grasp, and others that lingered like whispers on the edge of memory. She reread one line three times before realizing it wasn’t about decoding—it was about being open.

Each verse felt like a door left ajar. Not demanding entry, but offering welcome. And for the first time, she didn’t feel like a stranger. Just someone willing to sit in the hallway of something sacred.

And somehow, that felt okay.

She closed the book gently and sat with her thoughts.

There was still a quiet fear within her—of doing it wrong, of not understanding deeply enough, of what others might think. But layered beneath that was something more grounded: a sense of movement, not in leaps, but in small, intentional steps.

She realized she didn’t need to have certainty in every verse. What mattered was the openness. The willingness to keep showing up. To read even when the meanings felt distant. To let the questions sit without needing immediate answers.

She thought of her old journals. How she’d once tried to write her way into clarity. And now, here she was again—reading her way toward something not yet defined, but deeply felt.

This journey wasn’t about replacing one identity with another.

It was about expansion. About integration.

About holding both who she had been and who she was quietly becoming, without needing to rush the end of the story.

Later that afternoon, her mother called. Meilin answered while watching the rain streak the pavement below. Her voice had that slightly sing-song lift it always carried when she was trying to sound casual—but Meilin knew better.

“How’s your week?” her mother asked.

Meilin smiled faintly. “Quieter than most.”

They chatted about lunch plans for the weekend, about work, about whether pineapple tarts should be frozen or refrigerated. Her mother mentioned trying a new filling—less sweet, more ginger—and Meilin teased her about becoming a food influencer at her age.

It was light. Familiar. The kind of conversation that lived between routine and comfort.

But underneath it, Meilin sensed her mother was listening closely. As if trying to read between each sentence, measuring her daughter’s steadiness.

Then, just before the call ended, her mother’s voice turned gentler. Slower. As though she had been building up to it all along.

“You’re still planning to convert?”

There was no judgment in the question. Just the weight of care.

Meilin paused. Then answered, steady.

“I’m learning, Mama. And it’s making me feel more… whole.”

Her mother didn’t respond right away. Meilin imagined her sitting on the living room sofa, turning that answer over like a stone in her palm.

When she finally spoke, her voice was warm—but tinged with something deeper. Not worry, exactly. But love trying to catch up with change. “Then keep learning. Just don’t forget who you are.”

“I won’t,” Meilin said. “But maybe who I am is also still becoming.”

—

That evening, Rafiq came over with their usual takeout—halal nasi goreng and keropok from the hawker centre nearby.

They sat cross-legged on the floor, containers between them, the comfort of routine settling into the space.

Meilin looked at him, curious. “When did faith become personal for you?”

He thought for a moment, chewing slowly. “Fourteen, I think. After Maghrib prayers one evening, I stayed back while everyone else left. Just sat there. I didn’t even know what I was doing. But it felt like… being heard. Even without words.”

She nodded, quietly taking that in.

Later, as he rolled up his prayer mat, Meilin asked, almost shyly, “Can I sit with you while you pray?”

Rafiq looked surprised, but only for a moment. Then he nodded.

He began the prayer with quiet recitation, his movements fluid, reverent.

Meilin sat beside the mat, cross-legged and still. She didn’t try to mimic him. She didn’t even know the right way to sit or whether it mattered. But she stayed.

As Rafiq moved through each position—standing, bowing, prostrating—she watched not just the gestures, but the stillness in them. The way his hands rested with quiet purpose. The way his words, though softly spoken, felt like they reached far beyond the room.

She didn’t understand the Arabic. But she felt the cadence, the pauses, the rhythm of something ancient and rooted.

There was no performance. No pressure. Just presence.

And somehow, being near it felt like being invited into a space too sacred to name—but not too distant to sit beside.

The silence between the verses was not empty.

It was full of breath, of quiet surrender, of intention.

And when he finished, Rafiq looked at her—not asking, not expecting. Just there.

And she smiled.

But long after Rafiq had gone home, and the lights in her flat dimmed to a gentle amber, the moment lingered.

She found herself reaching once more for the Quran—not with urgency, but with a soft curiosity. She flipped back to the verse that had stayed with her in the morning, letting her eyes rest on its translation.

Indeed, in the remembrance of God do hearts find rest.

She read it again.

What did it mean for her heart to rest?

Not to abandon thought. Not to quiet her questions. But to feel held in the presence of something wider, something deeper. Something that didn’t demand perfection, only honesty.

And in that thought, she felt something shift.

A little more trust.

A little more clarity.

Not an answer, but a beginning.

—

That night, Meilin reached for her notebook again. The Quran sat beside it on her desk.

She flipped to a fresh page and wrote:

Understanding doesn’t come all at once. But love… maybe it begins in the quiet spaces where we choose to listen. Where we stay curious, even when unsure. Where we let our hearts turn—slowly, willingly—toward something greater.