by Eve Rabi
Abeeda tenderly strokes Wyatt’s hair. “He’s become part of my life. My only chance of a son. I love him so much.” She smiles at Wyatt. “You must never forget Arabic, okay? It’s your roots, baby.”
She kisses his forehead and continues smiling at him. Wyatt responds by placing both his hands on her cheeks and grinning happily at her. “Beeda Momma! Beeda Momma! B’loons! B’loons!”
She laughs. “Yes, I’ll buy you balloons, baby. Lots of them.”
“What do you want from me, Abeeda?” I ask.
“Megan,” Maya whispers, “she’s in pain too.”
“She’s in pain? What about me? I’ve been in pain for so long! I’m tired of having to hold my tongue with her. All those months of keeping my mouth shut when she tried to cut me out – speaking in Arabic to Reed and Wyatt, getting my son to call her Mommy, arranging a wedding on what was supposed to be my wedding day, stealing my wedding dress, threatening to tell Reed about Damien so that Reed can leave here and never see me again! Always holding a sword over my head! I hated how she made me feel so helpless. Now she comes to me asking for my forgiveness? After cheating me out of a wonderful man who I just b … buried? Huh?”
I swing around to look at Abeeda. “I can’t forgive you, Abeeda. You killed my husband and you must suffer. I wish you dead and I wish you would go straight to fucking hell when you die!”
Abeeda stares at me, and for a while, no one speaks.
“I need your forgiveness, Megan.”
I shake my head slowly. “No, Abeeda. You wanted Reed to live. So did I, and so did Wyatt. But with one phone call, you robbed us all of him. You had no right to love him, because you were only there by default. I believe that Reed was sent to me to give me a child – children. You killed my husband and you almost killed my baby. I don’t want to live without him. And I can’t believe I’ll never see him again. I keep listening out for the telephone, thinking he’s going to call. I listen repeatedly to his voicemails, just to hear his voice. I cannot bear to erase his cell phone greet …” Grief returns with a vengeance and I feel myself literally crumbling. “Reed, he was happy with me.” I clutch the back of my knees, crouch to the ground and weep. “I want him back. I want him b … back.”
She crouches to the ground with Wyatt. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.”
“It’s too late, Abeeda. He’s gone. He died trying to save me.”
Jake and Maya hoist me up. I grab Wyatt from her and almost run to the car, where I collapse in the back seat and drown in grief.
Chapter Forty-Four
Jake sits in his beach house bouncing a tired and sleepy Wyatt on his knee and listening to my fragmented plans to leave the U.S.
“Sydney it is then,” I say.
I swallow hard when I see Wyatt snuggling up in Jake’s arms, his eyes closing.
“He misses Reed so much. He’s not eating.”
“I know what it is to pine for someone, Megan,” Jake says softly.
I look at him. With all that’s happening in my life, it’s easy to forget that he too is grieving. For a while, we both fall silent.
Until Jake clutches Wyatt to his chest and squeezes his eyes shut. “Lucas!” Jake growls. “Oh, God, Lucas!”
I walk over, take him in my arms, and share in his grief. Nothing can compare to losing a child.
“Megan!”
I look up into Maya’s anxious face.
“Megan, Abdul …he’s on the phone. Abeeda … oh my God! Here, take it! Take it!” She shoves the phone at me.
I extract myself out of Jake’s embrace and put the phone to my ear, unsure of what’s going on. “Hello?”
An emotional Abdul informs me that Abeeda has attempted suicide. “She’s in the hospital and she wants to see you,” Abdul says. “Please, can you come? Please!”
“I … I …” Fuck! I don’t know what to think or say. To me, it seems like this is just another attention-seeking ploy, and it is hard to muster any sympathy for Abeeda.
Feeling annoyed yet concerned at the same time, I say, “Okay.”
“Well?” Jake looks concerned.
“She’s taken an overdose of sleeping pills.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
I shrug and walk into the kitchen. I warm up a glass of milk and sip on it as Jake watches me silently.
With a groan, I dump the milk in the sink and say, “I’m going to the fucking hospital!”
“I’ll drive you,” Jake says, car keys already in hand, as if he expected me to go.
“No, no, I’ll be okay. You’ve done enough. Anyway, I’m sure Bailey’s waiting for you.”
When he doesn’t answer, I look up at him.
“Bailey is …” He clams up and slips on his jacket. “Let’s go, Megan.”
“Jake? Everything okay? I mean, Bailey …?”
It’s a while before he answers. “We talked. She came clean – she’s been seeing this guy for the last six months.”
Six months … okay, so it’s a half truth, but it’s better than not telling him anything.
“Says she ended it and wants us to give it another shot.”
“Well, that’s great, Jake. I mean, people make mistakes …”
“Yep.”
“Well, I …”
“Told her I needed time to work things out in my head.”
“I see.” I lunge at him and give him a hug. “So sorry to hear all that, Jake. I’m just so sorry.”
“Thanks.” He pats my back.
“What can I do to help you?”
“You can find the guy who fucked me over and put a bullet between his eyes for stealing my wife and disrespecting me.”
I did! I did! I did! I did!
My chuckle is shrill and guilt-laden.
“You still have that gun you fucked up my offices with?”
“No, I got rid of it.”
“Too bad.”
“Jake, you think you and Bailey can work it out? In time?”
“I don’t know, Megan. I feel bad because she was feeling rejected because of what I said about you. You know – me wanting to marry you …?”
Ah, so he did say that then! He denied it a while ago. I smile inwardly, but say nothing.
“But, I don’t know if I can. Guess I need time to think.”
I nod, feeling responsible and guilty.
***
Any thoughts of Abeeda faking it vanish when I see the number of tubes she’s hooked into. Menacing ones – through her nose, her arms, her bladder …
“Oh, God!” I gasp and move closer to her. “Abeeda, what the hell have you done, you silly girl?”
Abeeda’s eyes flicker, then open briefly to look at me. “You came, my friend. You were my first real friend in America,” she says.
“I … I …” Fuck! What exactly do I say now? If Abeeda was upright and had the audacity to utter those words, I would have a million and two retorts, each laced with equal amounts of sarcasm and profanity. But right now, she looks so pale and weak and on death’s door, that I can only stare. Suddenly, a sob escapes me.
“For … give me?” Abeeda croaks.
Wide-eyed and still in shock at the sight of my former friend, I nod vigorously. “Y …Yes. I forgive you, Abeeda. I know you didn’t mean to hurt Reed. I forgive you, Abeeda. I forgive you. Maybe … maybe I would have done all that you did if I was in your position. I mean, a baby is such a driving force and … and coupled with love for the baby’s father … I guess all’s fair in love and war, isn’t it?”
Please, God, don’t let her die too. Give her another chance. I’m prepared to.
“Thank you,” she murmurs. “You always …were for … forgiving. You have a … good … heart.”
“Hey, I got friends in Immigration. I’m gonna work something out for your family, so you must like … you’ve got to get better quickly so you can help me with that, okay?”
“Really?”
“Absolutely!”
Abeeda’s waxen face
breaks into a slight smile as she reaches out for my hand and clutches it to her. Her hand in mine feels bony and cold. With a nod, she closes her eyes. After a minute, her hold on my hand slackens.
“Abeeda?”
When a machine around her starts beeping, nurses rush in and draw the curtains around her.
“What the hell?”
“You need to step out!” a nurse hisses at me. “Now!”
“Why…?”
Jake pulls me out of the room as about twelve medical personnel surround Abeeda.
“BP forty-five over thirty-seven!” I hear.
Outside her hospital ward, in Jake’s arms, all I can do is weep at the carnage following me since my days in Iraq.
“I didn’t mean those harsh words I said to her at Reed’s funeral,” I sob. “I just couldn’t forgive her when I was burying Reed. I was hurting so much. How could I have been expected to think of the feelings of my lover’s killer? On the day he was being buried too? I didn’t mean all those things. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t. I didn’t.”
“Megan, honey, no one is blaming you,” Jake says. “Abeeda was a troubled soul and you … you had your own grief to handle. You’ve been through a lot too.”
“I don’t want her dead, Jake. She was my friend once. She loved Wyatt. He loved her! I want all this to end. All this … this pain – it has to end. Now! Please, make it end. Please! Please! Please!”
In spite of my low spirits, my lack of energy, and my guilt, I drag myself to Abeeda’s funeral. To see her family so distraught at the loss of their only daughter, their only child, breaks me, and I hold them and weep with them. As I said before – to lose a child is the worst thing ever.
“I’m here for you,” I whisper to both of them. “I’m going to help you both. You can rely on me.”
Her father nods his thanks. Her mother hugs me again.
I really did mean it when I told Abeeda I was going to help them with their immigration status. After all, what’s the use of having connections in low and high places if I can’t wrangle help out of them for needy people?
Reed will be happy I am helping them.
Chapter Forty-Five
There are so many issues to handle – flights to Australia, the sale of my properties in the U.S., accommodation in Sydney, the issue of money, Wyatt to be taken care of … but I have no energy to do anything.
I just lie in bed, like I’ve done for the past three days, sometimes awake, sometimes near-awake, and ache for Reed. The adrenaline has worn off and my grief abounds.
I’m ashamed of my thoughts – I don’t want to live without Reed.
Yes, I have two children to think about and my thoughts are selfish, and I shouldn’t allow myself the luxury of those words; but the pain of living in a world without him is so intense that I just want to die. Now.
I play a game of maybe with myself – maybe if I used my teeth to cut through the duct tape that night … maybe if I didn’t piss off Abeeda so much … maybe if I had used contraception … maybe if I didn’t flirt with Reed and lure him back to me, make him fall in love with me again … maybe if I didn’t allow Reed to help me with my suitcases that night …
6 p.m. Every day, every evening, at 6 p.m. I look at the door, waiting for him to … to barge in, to fling his case on the chair, yank off his tie, and yell, “Kitty? Wyatt?”
The numbness, the shock, the denial, and the anger has faded, and all that remains is pure grief. To make matters worse, I have to handle Reed’s suitcases from the night of the murder. For so long, I’ve delayed doing that, but now, I just have to.
Slowly, with a heavy heart, I unzip his suitcase. The strong whiff of his aftershave hits me, and the familiarity brings about a flood of memories, both painful and beautiful. Everything in this case is now precious. Every single thing, and I will part with nothing. Like the shirt he wore on Christmas day. I close my eyes and hold it to my face and remember the locket, how we made love, how beautiful he made Christmas for me.
I sit on the bed and close my eyes as I picture his twinkling eyes when he smiled, his frown when he was mad at me, the way he’d scratch his forehead when he didn’t know what to do.
I wrap my arms around me and hug myself. If I just had one last day with him … just one more time to hold him, to feel him, to tell him how much he meant to me.
Just one more day with him.
***
Alicia and Abi accompany me on the long flight to Sydney. I’m grateful for their assistance and kindness, but their effervescence and excitement secretly angers me – how dare they be so happy when I am struggling with my loss right now?
I just need to be alone, to think, to absorb my new country, my new surroundings, my new empty life. I find everything so daunting and I feel close to tears all the time.
Not only am I in a new country I have never visited before, but I’m a single parent with a baby on the way. How do I manage it? How do I manage life alone without Reed?
How I wish he was here. He took care of everything. He took care of me.
At the airport, we are subjected to a vigorous search by customs. Something about a little bongo drum Wyatt has brought. It was given to him by my parents and it quickly became one of his favorite toys. Now customs has a huge problem with it.
“We can bin it or we can quarantine it,” they say.
“Just bin it and we’ll buy another one,” I mutter.
Finally, we’re on our way to our new home. Abi and Alicia fiddle with the GPS to locate the address and take turns to look at me, then at each other.
As we drive, my anxiety peaks – something is not right here. These two are acting really suspicious. Like they’re hiding something from me. What have I let myself in for?
I take a deep breath and hold my son’s hand.
Please, God, don’t let these two be in cahoots with Damien after all.
Come to think of it, I just accepted everything they said and did for me – trusted them without doubt. Okay, true, I was in no position not to trust them. They were all I had, but still …
If they hurt me now, I can do little about it. I have a toddler, I’m pregnant, I have no family around me, and I’m in Australia.
I stare out the window.
Finally, I can take it no longer. “What is it?”
For a few moments, there is silence, which adds to my fears.
“We have something to tell you, Megan,” Alicia finally says.
A bubble lodges in my throat. “Wha …?”
“Reed’s funeral … the man we buried … it wasn’t Reed.”
“What?!”
“It was Damien’s body.”
“You kidding me! Damien?”
She nods. “It was a way to get rid of his body, Megan. And it worked.”
“So … so … so, if that wasn’t Reed … then where is Reed’s body?”
“Reed is alive, Megan,” Abi says.
“Whaa ...?” I must have misheard.
“Allow us to explain.” Alicia takes a deep breath then speaks. “Remember when Damien wanted us to finish Reed off in the hospital?”
“Yes, yes, yes …?”
“Well, myself, Abi, and some Damien Haters, as we call them, swapped Reed’s body with a John Doe’s to save Reed.”
I stare at her, flabbergasted by what I am hearing. “But … but Damien, he would have verified it.”
“Oh, yeah, he did. Abi and I, his trusted skivvies, had to do the verification for him, because he had to be at your side. So it all worked out.”
This has to be a dream. “So, where is Reed if he’s still alive?”
“Well, you know that person who posed as Damien and entered Australia?”
“You’re kidding! That was Reed?”
Alicia nods. “He’s here, waiting for you.”
Slowly, I run my hands over my face. “He’s waiting for me?” I whisper, my hand on my chest.
She nods again, a sad smile on her face.
This has to be a
weird dream. I shake my head hard.
As if reading my mind, Abi says, “It’s not a dream, it’s true. We didn’t want to spring it on you, with you being pregnant and all, so we thought we’d prepare you for the reunion, the moment we touched down in Australia.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “So, Damien, he’s not officially dead?”
She shakes her head. “Mr. and Mrs. Damien Saunders have relocated to Sydney, Australia, while Reedwan Kader is dead. However, with a little help from our friends, we’ve swapped essentials like signatures and eye color, et cetera, so if anyone investigates, you guys will come up clean and hopefully, you both will be okay. In time, you can both change your names to whatever you want.”
“Any problems,” Abi says, “contact us immediately.”
“Though Reed hates the name Damien,” Alicia chuckles.
“Yeah, he does,” Abi says with a short laugh.
“Why didn’t you tell me all of this?” I demand. “Why did you let me sit at a coffin and mourn a man I killed?”
Abi shakes her head. “You were volatile, Megan. Going after Jake, going after Abeeda, kicking the shit out of Bailey – we couldn’t afford a slip. It had to be done this way. We had too much to lose.”
I nod slowly as a lot of things fall into place – no wonder Alicia was so adamant about me killing Damien and leaving the U.S. It all made sense now.
I stare out the window.
Reed is alive. Reed is alive. Reed is alive.
Shell-shocked, I look at Wyatt. “Daddy is alive, baby,” I whisper. “We’re gonna see him in a few minutes. He’s waiting for us.”
“Daddy go!” Wyatt says and points heavenward.
I hug him. “No, baby, no.”
Then I look at Abi in the rearview mirror. “How is he?”
“He’s pretty banged up,” she says. “They did brain surgery to remove the bullet, so he’s got a buzz cut and he’ll have headaches for a while. His arm is in a sling as one of the bullets hit him in the upper arm. Another wound in the stomach, but … overall he’s fine and recovering nicely.”