by Lynn, Sophia
Or he was afraid I was a gold digger or something, Penny thought suddenly. It wouldn't have been a huge leap; after all, her co-workers had been eager enough to believe it.
"Be that as it may, it is my duty to inform you that Sheikh Ziyad will not be returning to Rome. He has made provisions for you that are outlined in this message."
At some point, Penny had felt herself start to go numb. The words that Altair were saying sounded as if they came from a long distance away, and when he proferred a creamy white envelope, she took it as if she were a puppet on strings. She glanced at Altair almost timidly, as if she were asking permission to open it, and he nodded encouragingly. She wondered if there was a little bit of pity in his eyes, but then she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and tore the envelope open.
She wasn't sure what she expected. Perhaps there would be a letter or even a picture in there waiting for her. Over the past few weeks, Penny had come to regret not taking any pictures of Ziyad. Somehow, it had simply never come up, and since then she had felt a pang more than once at the lack.
Instead, there was a simple sheet of paper, imprinted with the seal of what she recognized to be a Swiss bank. The script on the letter was brisk and to the point, and when she glanced down at the signature, the name did not belong to Ziyad or even anyone else she recognized.
Penny read it, and then, starting to shake, she read it again.
"Is...this can't be true," she whispered, but Altair nodded at her.
"I assure you that it is," he said gently. "I contacted the financial institution myself, and everything there is precisely as it should be."
The contents of the letter were simple. Upon going to her bank and giving them the information provided therein, the Swiss bank would transfer funds of no less than $500,000 to her account. The money would be available nearly immediately, and after that it would be hers permanently, with no further entanglements.
The letter felt strangely heavy in her hand, and she supposed that made sense. It was a life-changing amount of money.
She also supposed she should have been thrilled, but instead she turned wounded eyes to Altair.
Something of what she was feeling must have shown in her gaze, because Altair looked away. There was nothing obvious in his professional facade, but she sensed a certain amount of sympathy for her in his soft words.
"What does this mean?" she asked, at once afraid of the answer and needing to hear it to make it real.
"It means that Sheikh Ziyad wants to make sure you are taken care of," he said quietly. "Nothing more and nothing less."
"I don't understand," Penny said, shaking her head.
"You do not need to understand," he said firmly. "Only accept."
For a moment, acceptance was the last thing Penny was thinking about. She wanted to roar with dismay, to shout, to throw things, to figure out what the hell was going on and how a man she loved could think that any amount of money was enough to...to take care of her.
I don't need the money, I just want you, I don't care about the sacrifices I might have to...
It suddenly struck her that it wasn't as if Ziyad was going to feel the need for the money. The money he had offered her to simply be with him was comparable. This was nothing to him, but he understood it could change the world for her.
Somehow, she managed to stuff the letter into her purse, wrinkling it badly as she did so. There was something fitting about that, Penny thought haphazardly. She ruined the pretty paper, she was inelegant and clumsy and poor and trashy, and everyone, even this kind man sitting at the table knew it.
Penny garbled out something about leaving, and somehow, she made it up to her apartment, locking the door behind her with a final click. She had been alone every night since Ziyad had left, but now, for perhaps the first time, she felt truly alone. She had been alone before him, but now the loneliness felt like a hundred icicles piercing her heart, and she gave a strangled sob, falling down on the couch.
She cried for what felt like hours, and when her eyes were finally dry, she sat up on the couch. Penny was just beginning to wonder what she should do when her stomach rebelled. She had a moment of stark disbelief, and then she was running towards the bathroom.
After she had emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet, washed her face and walked back into the bedroom, she started to think about how tired she had felt lately and what might make her suddenly start to throw up. Disbelieving, her hands went up to her belly.
She knew there were tests to take and doctors to consult, but somehow, deep inside her, Penny knew.
She also knew she shouldn't start crying again, but as she had before, she simply could not stop herself. She sat down on the couch, hands cradling her still-flat belly, and started to sob.
What's going to become of us? Penny thought wildly, and she imagined three people, spinning off into the blackness of space, unable to reach each other, unable to touch.
Chapter Eleven
TWO YEARS LATER
Washington DC had never been one of Ziyad's favorite cities. Especially during the winter, it was a gray place, full of people who lived hours away but who still came in every day to make each other and themselves miserable. Still, it was a place where things got done, and he had to admit that his last few weeks in the city had been profitable.
"Congratulations, Sheikh Ziyad," said Amira Daher. "I would say that went stunningly well."
He grinned at her, shrugging a little. "I simply made sure that the international community knows not to take the UAE in general and Najma at large lightly. We were never a shivering little colony, and it would be best if they know that."
The writer laughed, a deep chuckle that reminded him pleasantly of a babbling brook, and shook her head.
"You sound like one of the great sheikhs of old," she teased him. "Ready to ride for war at a moment's provocation."
They had been speaking in Arabic, and he started to reply to her when he noticed that a man passing by in a fine suit and wool coat was giving them a nasty look. He stiffened a little, and his lip curled at the lack of welcome his people received in this country.
"Sometimes I feel that it wouldn't be such a bad thing," he said, shaking his head.
Amira followed his glance and made a face of her own. She was an expatriate, a Najma writer making her way in the world, and when he had heard that she was living in Washington DC, he had been eager to secure at least a dinner with her. He had wanted to honor her for writing so passionately about a country they both loved and still had issues with, but to his surprise they seemed to have connected as friends as well.
"It's not always easy here," she said with a sigh. "But there are rewards. If you like, I can take you to one tonight."
He raised an eyebrow at her. A handful of years ago, he would have seen that as invitation to something possibly scandalous and salacious. Now he could see that it was a simple offering between friends, and that pleased him more. He could have wondered what in the hell had happened to him, but he thought he knew.
"I'm doing a reading tonight at the Hollowtree Bookshop, and there are meant to be a few other readers as well, one other from Najma, and it promises to be quite an entertaining evening. At the very least, I know a fair number of the UAE expat community will be in attendance, and you can mingle or fade into the background as you like."
Ziyad frowned. On one hand, he planned to be on a plane first thing in the morning to fly for home. On the other hand, a dull night in his hotel sounded unpleasant and boring, and he could always sleep while flying.
"All right," he said with a smile, and with that same water-laugh, Amira hooked her arm through his, leading the way through the rapidly darkening evening.
As they walked, a part of Ziyad wondered if he could convince her to return to Najma with him. Despite her current residence in the United States, she was a member of Najma nobility, though of a rather cadet branch. He had vague memories of her parents, and he knew from her writing that she had
a lineage that could be traced back nearly as long as his could be.
The pressures on him to wed were never going to grow lighter, and Amira, aside from being a beautiful woman who had the right pedigree, carried herself like a queen and could carry on a charming conversation.
It was not a terrible idea, and he pondered it all the way to the bookshop where she was going to be doing her reading.
The Hollowtree was one of the oldest bookshops in the city, and it was enormous, the shelves paneled with dark wood, and an actual chandelier hanging over the center area.
"I've got to go make contact with the manager," Amira said, looking around. "I'll be going on somewhere in the middle, but all things considered, I should stay until the end. If you need to leave, go ahead, and I won't be too worried."
He smiled at her.
"I think I would prefer to stay," he said softly, and he was amused when she looked slightly dazed before nodding and walking away.
He remembered when charming women and claiming them was a game. It was never one he’d played cruelly, but there had been an element of sport about it until...
He tried not to think of those days.
Instead, he focused his attention on Amira. The more he thought of it, the better it sounded. A woman like Amira, strong and confident, brilliant and aware of her own power, could make a very good sheikha, one who would help him mold his country as it should be molded. He decided then and there to invite her back to Najma with him tomorrow. At the very least, he could explore the possibility.
The crowd for the reading was a healthy one, and he was pleased when he noticed that there were people of all races there. Though the gathering was mostly Middle Eastern, there were plenty of black, white and Asian people throughout, and it made him feel a small puff of pride that his people were doing so well in the international community.
He took a seat at the edge of the crowd, half-listening as the owner of the bookstore, a tiny black woman wrapped in a gleaming purple shawl, came to the front to announce the first reader. The man was a poet from Dubai who he didn't particularly care for, so though he paid nominal attention, he let his mind wander.
Then the applause came, and as Ziyad glanced around for the next reader, wondering if it was Amira, he spotted a gleam of red in the crowd.
As it had every time he had seen a redhead with just the right shade of red hair over the past few years, his heart leaped. As he had learned to do, he calmed himself down, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to look closer. He’d found that if he tore his glance away, he might end up being bothered for days, convinced that he had seen exactly who he wanted to see and that he had let her go by. It was far better to take a second look and ascertain that it was someone else entirely different. There would be a moment that felt ever-so-slightly as if his heart was cracking, but then he would know, and that was always better.
Or at least, that was what he told himself.
So now Ziyad forced himself to glance at the redhead sitting on the other side of the audience. As the next reader began his piece, Ziyad tried to keep his head pointed forward while he only turned his eyes. It was a little awkward, but after a few seconds, he found the redhead in question again.
Instead of feeling the now-familiar shattering feeling, however, his heart only started to beat a little faster. There was something terribly familiar about the woman, who was only visible from the shoulders up. If he had been asked to describe it, Ziyad didn't think he would have the words for it. There were likely hundreds if not thousands of red haired girls in Washington DC. He had likely run into dozens over the past few years.
None of them had made his heart beat like this, however.
It was as if his heart recognized her even as his brain couldn't quite make the leap.
I must be making a mistake, Ziyad thought. There was no way. There was no way that after all of these years it should be her, the woman he had sent away, the woman who had never really left his mind and heart.
The bulk of the people in the room were between them. Every time he shifted to try to see her better, someone moved or coughed or got in his way. Ziyad tried again to convince himself that it was not the woman he thought it was, that though the color and something about her posture was very similar, it simply couldn't be her.
He tried to make himself pay attention to the reading, but the words were a jumble flowing around him and swimming like fish, impossible to catch.
Look towards me, he chanted in his head. Look at me. Let me be sure. Give me some peace.
At the bottom of his heart, in a chamber he didn't dare open, however, were locked the words please be her.
The second reader finished to a round of thunderous applause, and then the crowd shifted slightly. For a single moment, the girl turned, and he could see her face. There was no denial this time, and this was not a mistake his heart or his eyes or mind would ever make.
Across the room, separated from him by some seventy people and two years, was Penny Bright.
***
SOLA SAT SNUGGLED in her mother’s lap, looking around her with wide, dark eyes. Penny could already see people watching her warily as she came in. Crying children weren't really welcomed anywhere, and having one at a reading would be remarkably disastrous, but Penny could have told them that they had never met Sola before.
Sola was a startlingly quiet child, a little owl, the nurses had called her. She had been born with a full head of hair and eyes that seemed more focused and aware than a baby's should be. One of the nurses had said it was because Sola had an old soul, but sometimes when Penny was alone with her beloved daughter, she wondered if some of her sadness had attached itself to her daughter while Sola was still in the womb.
It always made her tear up when she thought of that. Penny remembered her own childhood as a time when she’d had to help support her mother through a dark time, emotionally and sometimes even physically, and she was determined that Sola would not walk the same path.
"We're in this together," she had said the first night of Sola's life. The nurses had left the baby in a small crib with an open side towards Penny in her hospital bed. It had been easy to reach over to lightly touch the brand new life in the world, and even though she’d been exhausted, she couldn't sleep when she was so excited to finally see her daughter.
"I'll make you a deal," she had said that night. "I'm going to do my absolute best with you. You're going to have an amazing childhood. I'm going to give you everything you need, and probably a lot of the things you want, and we are going to have so much fun. You are going to learn and grow and become the best little kid you can be. Just try to grow up with a good heart, and we're all set..."
For some reason, talking to her daughter had brought tears to Penny’s eyes and a resurgence of grief for Ziyad. As Penny’s pregnancy had come to term, she had thought of him less and less, but once her daughter’s birth was over and Sola was here, those emotions wouldn't be put off anymore. There was a part of her that was certain there should have been two voices reaching to Sola through the dark, two hands lightly touching her dark fluffy hair.
She’d told herself that she had mostly gotten over Ziyad, but when the stress of the birth was over, she’d realized that wasn't true. In some ways, the breakup still felt fresh. After all, this was his daughter, with his dark hair and his dark eyes. She wondered if Sola would miss him in the years to come, and what Penny might say to explain his absence. The thought had made her want to cry all over again.
But the next year with her daughter hadn't been all tears. Sola was also a cause for joy, and even if she didn't smile as much as Penny thought she should, her smiles were brilliant enough to stop strangers in their tracks.
At one year old, Sola was determinedly trying to absorb as much of the world as she could, whether it was trying solid foods or doing her best to make herself understood, and one day, it struck Penny like the force of a hammer that Sola had a heritage and birthright that could not be found with Penny in thei
r small condo in the DC suburbs.
"You belong to two different worlds, little one," she had murmured a few nights ago. "I suppose I should make sure that you know it..."
Penny had read up on the history of the UAE, and she’d played Sola children's songs from the region. She smiled when it looked like Sola put on an especially alert expression for the songs. She had started to look for events related to the UAE in general and to Najma in particular, and that was when she’d found the reading.
It's not really for kids, but maybe it would be good for Sola to hear people speaking Arabic as well as English, she thought.
To be honest, a part of Penny had just wanted to get out of the house. She had a woman come in three times a week to help her keep up with the cleaning and sometimes the cooking, but for most of the year, it had been she and Sola on their own, making the rounds of the pediatrician's office, making their first forays out into the world, at home at night cuddling and learning about each other. It had been intensely lonely, and Penny wondered if she was finally beginning to come out of her shell.
The drive to DC that evening was an easy one, and Hollowtree Books was simple to find. Some people certainly looked askance at a baby at a reading, but Penny sat close to the side, ready to bolt if Sola should become unexpectedly fussy, and soon enough, everyone was focused on the readings.
Sola, strapped to her chest in a cloth baby wrap, seemed to look up at the sounds of the reading, but Penny couldn't tell if she was getting anything from it. Penny knew that for her part, she loved it. Some of the readings were in Arabic, others were in English, but the flow of the words around her, the images in the works that she could understand and the simple joy of being with other people who also loved literature and words was wonderful.
One striking woman, Amira something, stood up to read, and her passage about growing up as the daughter of a nobleman, lonely, proud and yearning for another place, struck Penny to the heart. She wondered if Sola would grow up to look like Amira. So far, she could not see a great deal of herself in her daughter. Sola was a constant reminder of Ziyad, and Penny, surprising herself, loved her even more for it.