Chapter 33
I count to ten before opening the hospital room door, trying to calm myself, because I don’t want to upset her health by making her too emotional.
Just talking on the phone these last few days, I felt more connected to my mother than I ever did growing up beside my father.
The two of them are like fire and ice, not in a good “opposites attract” way, but as two incompatible human beings.
My mother pours sweetness into every word, and even from afar I could feel her love for me; my father, on the other hand, always seemed intent on dumping his bitterness on me, as if I were a receptacle for his rancor.
I grip the handle, and the door swings open.
We didn’t do video calls, so this is the first time in twelve years I lay eyes on the woman who gave me life.
Coward that I am, I first take in the luxurious room, which looks more like a hotel than a hospital.
Kaled spared no effort to keep her comfortable, and the gesture brings tears to my eyes.
My fiancé, who has no idea what kind of person my mother is and owes her nothing, showed more consideration than my father, who was her partner for years.
“Adeela?” She wakes and tries to sit up, agitated. “Daughter?”
“Yes, Mom. It’s me.”
And then, the armor I hid behind while growing up, pretending my father’s and his family’s insults didn’t touch me, crumbles the moment she opens her arms to me.
I don’t know how long we cry. I know I should stop, but I can’t, and only when a nurse walks in to ask if everything is all right do I force myself to pull back a little.
While the woman takes her blood pressure, shooting me a reproving look, I take the chance to really look at my mother.
She’s still very young and beautiful, though far too thin and pale. I know she’s forty-one, but if she were healthy, I think she’d look much younger.
She stares at me as if afraid I might vanish at any moment.
“You shouldn’t get so emotional,” the nurse says, her face betraying more thoughts than she voices.
“I’m fine. I haven’t seen my daughter in over a decade, and nothing and no one is going to keep her from me.”
“Even so, I’ll inform the doctor. We don’t want to be held responsible if the patient’s condition worsens,” she says and marches out.
I feel a twinge of embarrassment, certain the scolding my mother just got is my fault.
“Don’t mind her. American doctors and hospitals are terrified of being sued, so if you sneeze more than what’s prescribed in your treatment, they make a note to protect themselves from future lawsuits.”
I smile, loving this humorous side of her. “I can’t believe I’m here,” I say, stepping closer to the bed again.
“You are,” she says, opening her arms. “And now that I have you back, my daughter, no one will ever separate us again.”
Hours later
“I never lost hope of seeing you again, but I thought it would have to be me going to you, and then I got sick.”
Since the first time we spoke, I’ve been researching everything I can about her illness, and based on that and what the doctors told me, because it was diagnosed early, the chances of full recovery are high.
Actually, the bigger problem is that she was malnourished and alone, which worsened her condition.
Since chemotherapy needs to start soon, I wanted to postpone the wedding date, but even before I came here, my mother disagreed. She prefers that I marry while her health isn’t so fragile yet, because once the treatment begins, there’s no telling how she’ll react.
I tried to argue, but she was adamant.
Even though I worry it might be too much for her, I want to grant her wish.
“There’s something I want to know,” she begins. “When your fiancé sent someone to find me, he already knew I was ill, since the person who came to my house told me I was expected by a medical team. How did he find out?”
It’s a question I knew she’d ask and one I always avoided answering over the phone, certain the truth would hurt her.
“My father told me.”
“How? I haven’t spoken to Arif since the day he divorced me.”
“I’d like to hear about that—the divorce, I mean. I was very young, but I remember . . . uh . . . your fight that day, and then you leaving. One moment I had a father and a mother, and the next, I was alone, because he never made any effort to fill your place in my life.”
“Believe me when I say that if it had been possible to take you with me, I would have. I’ll tell you everything that happened and what led to the end of my marriage to your father, but first answer this: how could Arif know I was ill?
I mean, I know he personally ended my modeling career by spreading lies about me, including accusing me of stealing his family’s jewelry.
It didn’t matter what I tried to do to make a dignified living; he would interfere and ruin my chances. ”
As I listen, I’m sure I hate him.
Maybe, even with the arranged-marriage fiasco, I could someday forgive him for what he did to me, but never for what he did to her.
It wasn’t enough to separate us; he destroyed my mother’s life and left her to suffer, sick and alone.
“He has no power over you anymore.”
She nods, though she doesn’t look convinced. “Tell me how they found out I was sick.”
“He wanted me to marry a man old enough to be my grandfather, so Jazmina took me from Rheadur to Paris.”
“What? How could he?”
“I don’t think he’s ever liked me. He only kept me from you to hurt you, Mom.
The point is, when I refused to return to our country, both because I would never marry someone by force and because I planned to come to the United States to find you, he blackmailed me.
He said you were ill and he would only pay for your treatment if I went back to Rheadur. ”
“Bastard!”
I leave out the part where he told me she was dying. Why wound her further?
Now I know he never intended to pay for her treatment or let me see her to say goodbye. My father knew that with treatment, her illness had a strong chance of being cured.
I believe that once I set foot in Rheadur, I would never have left again.
“And how did you get out of that and end up engaged to a prince?”
“Kaled will be appointed sheikh in a few days,” I explain, keeping it simple because I don’t know how much to say about Naim’s disappearance. “He proposed a union that will be good for both of us.”
“A marriage of convenience?”
“I hate that term. I prefer to say it’s a relationship we’ll try to make work, one that doesn’t necessarily involve love.”
“Is he a good man?”
“He is, yes. Why?”
“Because if you inherited my genes and are as foolish as I am when it comes to the heart, you could fall in love, my daughter. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I don’t know what to say.
I listen quietly as she tells me how her love story with my father began: a romance like so many others around the world, with both of them in love—and I know more or less how it ended.
It wasn’t pretty, nor anything close to the fairy tale she hoped for when she agreed to be one of the wives of an older, seductive, powerful man.
Maybe, in the end, it’s safer not to love.
Perhaps a relationship built on physical attraction and respect is a much more solid foundation.
But a voice deep inside tells me that, at least for me, it will never be only physical. I’m already getting attached to Kaled. My heart already belongs to him.