Chapter Eighteen
THE VOW
HASSAN
Umm: Lyric has fallen ill. You need to return home immediately.
Stepping into the suite of rooms we share or would share if kingdom business hadn’t been constantly keeping me away, I immediately notice the smell of cleanser mix with antiseptic, and the copper scent of blood.
Striding over to the door left ajar, I’m greeted by Umm and Fi sitting at my wife’s bedside. Both look drawn and tired, though Fi’s features look more haggard due to her recent ordeal. I can barely see Lyric’s small form beneath the covers. The lights have been dimmed; I assume, to allow her rest. Yet, the monitor beeping at the bedside and the IV lines trailing from her body lets me know just how serious whatever happened is.
Heart slamming in my chest, I take it all in. Noting the attendants silent, yet at the ready, should anyone need them.
This room is like they are keeping a vigil? What the hell happened here?
I want to scream it, but I know deep down the assailant is watching. We haven’t been able to make any connections to Asif. Fear creeps along my spine knowing that the coward is near. Watching every move of my family and the moment I left they struck.
Guilt slices through me no different than a scimitar. I allowed first my anger then the distraction of my work allow my family to be targeted.
The need for answers pushes me to face the women who were here to do what I did not.
“Umm?” Going over to her side I greet her kissing both cheeks. She looks up at me her eyes wet with unshed tears.
“Leave us.” She says in a firm yet still kind tone to the three nurses I didn’t notice when I entered who are standing like sentinels in the far corner of the room. The attendants following behind them all giving little bows.
I knew from her brief message that is was grave but looking at Lyric now she seems to be barely hangin on.
“What happened?” I look from her to Fi for answers.
Taking my hand she pulls me to sit beside her in one of the chairs they’ve placed beside the bed to keep vigil. “She was poisoned. Poisoned in a way to make it look like a miscarriage — or an abortion.” She nods towards Lyric.
“Only the assassin didn’t count on her sharing the coffee with Fariq. They both fell ill around the same time. Only because he doesn’t have a uterus the cramps he suffered didn’t lead to massive hemorrhaging though he’s still in discomfort.” Her words are precise but I know she doesn’t want word to spread among the staff about Lyric’s condition.
“A complete man baby.” Fi pipes in from her seat on the other side of the bed.
Trying to process the news and unable to touch her, really see her, I step closer to the bed.
Her cheeks are sallow. The beautiful dark brown of her skin is ashen. Her lips are glossy though and her hair has been braided down each side and tied off at the ends with silk ribbons. I look over at Fi then.
“We made promises.” She quips to which I nod. Lyric told me about the promises they made to each other when I watched her grooming and changing Fi’s nail polish when she was in a coma.
Touching Lyric’s brow to smooth back an errant curl, I wretch my hand back. “She’s burning up.” My tone is almost accusatory towards my mother. Surely she should not be this hot.
“The doctors said it’s her body fighting off the toxins.” She casts a worried gaze over to Fi — one I don’t miss.
“What?” Looking between them I try to tamp down the dread beginning to spiral as it twists my soul. All I know in that moment is I don’t want to lose her. I can’t fathom not coming home to her and Ayaan.
“She was a couple months along. Too early to tell Dr. Bint Aaziz says.” I swing around to face Fi who looks gutted. “There was a lot of bleeding. We almost lost her.” She continues in a rush to get it all out. “She fought like hell, for Ayaan — for you.” She nods emphatically like she believes that.
My heart feels like it’s been vivisected and had acid poured into an empty space. A miscarriage? It must have been from our wedding night.
“They are giving her lots of medicine to help her fight the infection from the miscarriage. She was in a lot of pain, but she’s made it through the worse part.” Umm, quietly reassures me the there is a heavy pause. “They don’t know much damage all this has caused, son, or how it will affect her ability to conceive or carry another child in the future.” She says with a heart breaking gentleness, knowing how much legacy and heirs mean to men like me. Or should I say meant because the only thing I care about is her waking up.
I don’t voice those words, though. instead I ask, “How am I to care for her?”
“Baba,” my son calls to me from where is playing. His little arms wave for me to join him.
“I’m coming. I have to take care of mommy’s hair first.” Making the last twist on her hair like Fi showed me then tying it off with a silk ribbon, but not too tight to not cause damage.
“Mommy sick?” He asks in a small, frightened little voice, his eyes round with worry.
“Yes, she is still sick.” The words almost choke me seeing how he plaintively asks for her. Something tells me this would be every day should I ever purposely keep him from his mother.
Eventually, the love and trust would turn to loathing if, when he found out, I kept them apart. Our family would be irrevocably broken and all the fault would lie at my feet.
Moving to the other side, I take her hair down, brush then plait her heave thick curls, then again tie off the curled end of her hair with a silk ribbon. I lean over, placing a kiss on her now cool forehead. Her fever broke the day after I returned. Now three days later we still wait for her to wake up. The doctor assured us her body just needed to rest from working so hard. It was initially thought she’d have to undergo dialysis to remove all the poison from her system, but she’s proven far stronger than her small frame indicates.
“Her color is better.” Fi assured me it was not just hopeful thinking on my part when she and Fariq came to check on her earlier in this morning.
Watching over her these last few days has been an honor. My heart feels like it’s sitting outside my chest — open and vulnerable to the point I watch every breath she takes, hoping she wakes fearing she won’t.
I can admit, if only to myself, I don’t know how to do this alone and not only that I don’t want to. I need Lyric here with her soft lullabies, reading African American Folktales with me to our son.
“Baba!” Ayaan’s cheerful smile welcomes me as I sit with my legs crisscrossed beside him on the floor. Today it’s cars and trains he wishes to play with. Each one has its own personality. He’s divided some into family groups. Some speaking English and other Arabic, I notice as he takes time explaining who is who.
We lose ourselves in our play until he demands more than asks to play horsey.
He’s chiming, “Giddy-up, giddy-up,” when I hear a faint giggle.
“You better not let any of your people see you doing that, not very princely.” Comes a scratchy voice from the shadowed recess of the bed that has both of us freezing mid-play.
Easing Ayaan’s excited little body off my back, I stand, pulling him up to my chest so that his feet are dangling and kicking excitedly as he switches between, “Umm and Mommy,” squiggling to get to her.
Carrying him over to where Lyric is sitting upright watching us, my heart trips over itself seeing her finally awake. It nearly breaks seeing how small and fragile she is in our bed. A bed I haven’t shared with her for most of our marriage either by choice — forcing myself to stay away or by the tragedy that struck, requiring me to be away for long hours. Pushing the regret down, I try to focus on the fact that she is back with us now — alive.
Her gaze is steady on us as we sit beside her on the bed. Silently, she reaches for Ayaan.
I sit his solid little form in the crooked her arm. At least this side doesn’t have the IV lines covering it.
“Mommy, Umm,” Ayaan voice is so mournful it shreds me. All his worry bubbles over as he lunges to into Lyric’s chest to hug and hold her close.
“Umm,” he cries into her neck.
“It’s okay, handsome. Mommy is okay now. I was just tired.” Burying her head into his little neck, she tries and fails to not weep. Her small shoulders shaking as she sobs.
I find my own eyes stinging from the emotions threatening to cleave me in two.
Brown wounded eyes look up at that moment and whatever she sees there has her reaching out to me.
My world caves and rebuilds itself in that moment.
Moving over to cover them both, making sure I neither crush nor cause her more pain, I wrap my arms around my little family. I don’t stop the tears when they come knowing in them I have found my safe place.
We hold each other. Amazingly Ayaan doesn’t squirm, he just lets his mom and me hold him. The tears from my wife subside and he looks up into her face, little tracks that have long since dried up speckling his cheeks.
A smile blossoms. “Bear Hunt, mommy?”
Softly my sparrow starts her song.
“This is so good.” Lyric hums around a fragrant spoonful of oats drizzled with honey. I’m reminded of our first meal together. How I was incandescent with rage but still couldn’t take my eyes off them — her.
“It’s porridge.” I deadpan all but rolling my eyes yet still unable to stop the smile nor the happiness at seeing her devour the small amount of food the doctor cleared her to eat.
“Maybe the best porridge in the world. We call it oatmeal, but it’s still better. Maybe it’s the honey.” She licks the spoon and my thoughts border on indecent, watching her tongue slide over the spoon.
Dragging my gaze away, I look at our son, now sprawled on the other side of the bed, now all the medical devices have been removed.
“I should put him in his own bed.” She stops me with a touch to my arm as I reach over to gather him in my arms.
“Let him stay with us just tonight.” Her eyes are pleading and still hold bruises beneath them.
“Of course, he can stay,” I murmur, my heart doing double-time when she lights up with a smile. Getting up I adjust the pillows around him so a boundary is erected to prevent him from rolling out the bed or crashing into Lyric, who though she’s eating and smiling still has a ways to go before she can take on a twenty-five pound toddler.
“Good idea. He’s always in a different position from where we put him to bed when I go check on him during the night.” Her soft chuckle is a balm to my soul.
“He’s a little acrobat.” I agree, moving back to the opposite side hesitating. She’d said, “Stay with us.” but I’ve not been sharing her bed since I’ve had to split my time between here and Marrakesh.
“Will you stay, Hassan?” Her vulnerability guts me. Her bravery in meeting my gaze with an unwavering honesty fucking slays me.
I nod because she’s robbed me of words. I feel humbled and blessed all at once.
Settling beside her on the bed I rest my back against the headboard, drawing her into my arms. Burying my face into her curls, I breathe in the fragrance that is unique to her. My eyes burn, my vision blurs.
I vow. “I will find who did this to you and I will flay them alive.”
She shudders and though I don’t regret my words, I hate I’ve uttered them aloud and caused her upset.
“Dr. Bint Aaziz said they made me miscarry.” Pulling her closer, I press a kiss into her curls. She said as much to me, but my focus was on Lyric. If she’d ingested any more of that tainted coffee, she wouldn’t be here.
“You’re alive. That’s all that matters.” My words sound gruff and she shudders again. I feel the hot tears scalding my chest as she weeps for the child taken from us.
Hatred burns hot in my chest. I want to roar with the anguish that engulfs me. Stroking her back, I let her pour out her grief quietly.
I hold her until she quiets. Brushing her hair back, I look into her luminous eyes.
“I hate to say it. I really do, but I want you to get them, Hassan. They killed our baby. I want them to suffer.” I let her solemn words wrap around me.
“I will see it done,” I promise.
Knowing I will die before I break this vow to her, I hold her. She and our son are my purpose. Avenging her will bring me unmitigated pleasure.