Part I
Part II
This is Part III which turned unexpectedly much longer than I had intended; hence the delay in publishing it.
***
Life in Egypt has changed, thought Ayman as he took his first steps in downtown Cairo. He had been gone for seven years, living in the States. However, the more he saw of his beloved Cairo the more sadness held a firmer grip on his heart. People looked more miserable. The homeless had multiplied and the beggars seemed to have invaded the city.
His Cairo. His hometown.
He remembered his friends, the ones he had left behind along with echoing laughter, young dreams and warm memories. The days they have shared hanging out at their favorite cafes and places. He had left his own country to search for fulfillment and personal glory. But none he had found.
He had also abandoned his own then-wife, his love, his home.
The friends he called now were no longer in touch with Zeina. Those he asked were either shocked he was only asking about her now or upset why he was asking about her at all after what he had done. He was told Zeina had isolated herself after what had happened and that she had traveled abroad. No one knew if she had come back.
But he had to find her. He had to reach her.
He sat down and started recalling her favorite places, but nothing particular came to mind. Funny when they had been together, he had hardly paid attention to such things. He remembered her best friend, Hend. He still had her email address and he prayed to God she would answer him.
Hend,
I know you haven't heard from me in ages. I also know how odd this may seem now. I'm back to Egypt and I really need to see Zeina. This is really urgent. Please help me and I shall be forever grateful to you.
Sincerely,
Ayman
He clicked Send and sat back, gazing non-stop at the screen.
***
"It must have been those dreams of hers at night that triggered your memory," said the doctor, a soothing smile on his face.
Zeina had earlier got a severe headache and fainted after staring at her daughter's picture. When she woke up, her memory had returned, and so had the headache. She recalled the car accident and the crushing violence of the whole scene. The crash was so so strong that her daughter's body hit hard against the dashboard and through the glass. They were driving back home when a drunk driver coming fast in the opposite direction lost control of his car and hit their car head-on. The driver died instantly in the crash, she was later told.
She went inside her daughter's room in the Intensive Care Unit. So many surgeries had been done on the little girl of only seven years. So many tubes were attached to her arm and face. She was still in a coma. There she lay motionless in bed like a baby. She remembered when she had given birth to her. She looked almost the same now.
***
The next morning Ayman found a reply from Hend. This had to be one of his lucky days, hearing from her.
I don't know what to tell you, especially after what you've done to her! How could you leave her like that? So what happened now? Your conscience has finally pricked you and you want to repent? What makes you think you could? Do you know how much pain and heartache she had to go through? You're the worst man I've ever met.
Anyway, Zeina traveled to Australia years ago, but has recently come back. Very sadly, she had an accident a couple of months ago while on vacation here and is now in hospital. Thank God I was with her that day, but sadly she was the one severely injured along with someone else.
I have to call her and ask if she wants to see you. You also have to understand and respect her opinion if she doesn't want to. It's just very strange because only yesterday she regained her memory!
May I ask why you want to see her now?
After a couple of emails back and forth, Hend told him the name and address of the hospital where Zeina was. Zeina had agreed to see him.
But very briefly, Hend told him in the email.
A few hours later Ayman was at the hospital. He had wanted to talk to her doctor before he met her. He introduced himself as her ex-husband. The doctor told him she was fine as long as he didn't surprise or upset her in any way.
"And I'm sure in time the girl will be fine,, too," said the doctor.
What girl? thought Ayman as he thanked the doctor.
How...when the mere sight of me might even shock her? thought Ayman.
He walked towards Room 212. He didn't expect to see her so soon. She sat at a desk in the room. Her dark hair had grown much taller, covering her back. But she was much thinner now, he could tell. It had to be the time she had spent at the hospital.
Or sadness, he thought.
She was gazing outside the window. He wondered what she was thinking about.
As if she knew he had been staring at her, she turned towards him quietly. "Ayman," she slowly uttered his name.
He smiled, tears filling his eyes. He walked towards her, his steps hesitant. The sound of his silent prayers seemed louder than anything else around him. He wondered whether he should give her the lilies he had brought her. Her favorite lilies. After abandoning her and disappearing for seven years. Yet, lilies was all he could get her now.
She looked the other way. "I knew you'd come. Don't ask me how. But I knew you'd come."
He didn't know what to say. For the first time in his life, he had nothing to say. There was nothing he could say.
"I didn't know you were here in Egypt," Zeina said.
"I just got back. I've been thinking of you."
"I've been dreaming of you."
"So have I. And my dreams were...vivid and seem so real," he said.
She stood up. He could see her face more clearly now. Semi-dark halos surrounded her brown eyes. Her eyes had lost their sparkle. He wondered how long she cried after he had been gone. Her eyes met his. Agony squeezed his heart. Her eyes were void of feelings. They were silent. And Zeina's eyes were never silent.
She took his hand and lead him outside the room. It was his heart now that skipped a beat.
"Remember when you took off just like that and traveled? You just cut off all contact with me. Of course there's a price you have to pay for that now."
They stopped before the Intensive Care Unit. She looked at him, her gaze fixed on his face. "Your daughter is inside. She's been in a coma for six weeks now. Pray for her." She paused. "Her name is Yara."
He couldn't make up what she had just said. The walls started closing in on him. A daughter? Had she said a daughter? A daughter he had known nothing about for seven years? Seven years? What kind of a father was he? What kind of a man? And Zeina had raised her all by herself. There lay before them what Ayman believed to be the most beautiful child he had ever seen.
"I think she's an angel from God. And I truly mean that. She has been visiting me in my dreams. I've been seeing visions of her as a baby and a child. I lost my memory and she came to me to bring it back. And she brought you to me in the last dream. This is how I knew you'd come."
He could see the resemblance. The child had taken after her mother, but she had his brown hair and wide forehead.
"She came to see me a couple of weeks ago, too...in a dream. I've seen her before."
Ayman touched his child's hand and he felt his daughter shiver. Oh, there was hope! There had to be hope.
Oh God Almighty, in your heavens! Please bring her to life. If this is the last prayer for me, please bring her back to her mother and me, thought Ayman.
He had left his wife and child for illusions. What could all the money in the world do now? And all the beautiful, sexy girls he had run after...seemingly endless nights or virtual strangers? No, he would never forgive himself if anything happened to her. His own child whom he had somehow turned into an orphan years ago.
But Zeina was somewhere else. Her thoughts had taken her to when they had been together happily in love. And then those thoughts snatched her to when he had walked out on her ruthlessly, without hesitation. Did he have any idea how much she had had to go through to get over him and raise their child all on her own?
"Do you think you can give me another chance, Zeina? Do you think you could ever forgive me?"
She glanced at her daughter. "Let's not talk until she wakes up from her coma. Feel free to come look at her any time. I don't want to talk."
Zeina went outside the room and watched him through the glass. Both his hands were covering his face as he wept next to his daughter. For a moment Zeina imagined what it would have been like being together as a family all along. For a moment, she was lost in his face which seemed a bit older now. Fine wrinkles surrounded his eyes and were accentuated with his smiles. The very same face that had captured before.
Hadn't she known it all along...that he would be back some day, after a certain price he had to pay? Would she able to forgive him now?
Forgive what exactly? she thought again. The abandonment, irresponsibility or carelessness? Leaving her and his daughter for seven years...seeking what?
He came out of the ICU a couple of hours later and went to talk to Zeina.
"Why didn't you tell me?" were the first words that came out of his mouth. Anger had painted his face a darker shade.
She looked at him, her gaze unchanging. "I found out I was pregnant a month after you'd left. You made sure I wouldn't be able to contact you and you did a darn good job!" Her voice was slightly louder now. "You have no family here and your contact details had changed. I sent an email to your best friend, Sameh. I told him I'd just found out about the pregnancy. And now you'll tell me he didn't tell you!"
The anger on his face vanished, replaced by blankness. "He... didn't... tell... me."
Zeina continued like she hadn't heard him. "He never even replied to my email. I sent him a couple of text messages and he never replied to those either. It was very clear you wanted nothing to do with me. Another shock from you. What the hell? You know I sometimes think you only married me to torture me. Why? WHY? I've never done you wrong. I've never loved anyone as much as I've loved you. You were my whole world. You never even gave our marriage a second chance. I hope whatever or whoever you were after was worth it... worth your marriage and family. You were just so freakin' delusional. And now you're back. For what? Why are you here?"
"He didn't tell me," he repeated again, more clearly this time. "Why didn't he?"
She had been lost in thought before she answered. "May he thought it wouldn't change things between us! May be he even thought I was lying to get you back. How should I know? He's your friend, not mine."
"I've seen Yara in my dream," he said softly.
"I don't think we need you in our lives now, Ayman. Even if we want you, we don't need you. You'll only cause us more heartache. You can't commit. You can't raise a child." She paused. "You have missed some of the best years of her life, you know. She's the most brilliant child you could ever know. She started talking really early, too... and she's got this artistic side... and she can be so funny and charming. She's my gift from God. I know she'll get through this. She's a survivor... just like her mother. Just like I didn't think I'd survive the breakdown of our marriage, but I did."
Now his weeping turned to sobs. It made her almost shiver. It would have been the perfect moment to run towards him and take him in her arms. But she couldn't move. She did not want to move. She looked at him, tears frozen in her eyes.
The following week Ayman would show up very early and stay by his daughter's bedside all day long.
Days later, Zeina was looking through some of her daughter's poems. A poem titled Forgiveness caught her eyes which she didn't remember. She started reading:
Forgiveness
I ask you
To land here
Take away all the fear
in my mother's heart
Make her see
The power of forgiving
And how it shall heal
So that's what's meant to be
Can find a way back to me
Was that the answer she had asked God to send her? She hadn't read that poem before today and would always make her read her poems. When had Yara written it?
Was that why she had come to her in the dream with him? But he had broken her heart and stepped brutally on the shards so she couldn't even heal.
A nurse knocked on the door. "I think you need to come with me." Her smile brightnned Zeina's heart.
The doctor was waiting for her near Yara's bed. "She's been showing more responses...and this is really great news. Could be her father talking to her. He does it for many hours every day."
Zeina's smile was wet with tears. "Thank you, Doctor. I'm sure it's helping somehow."
Well, it would take time for the past to heal. She might be able to forgive him fully one day. The process had already started. How could it not when he was apparently helping Yara come back to life? Had she missed her father that much... that her soul was seeking him in dreams and now responding with him next to her?
She went inside the room and stood quietly by the door. He hadn't noticed. He was talking to Yara as if she was really wide awake and listening to him. He was telling her about his life away from them and how lonely he had been... how it taken him seven years to find out they were all he had ever needed. He told her how much he missed her and how he wanted to talk to her face to face. He told her how much he loved her mother and how much he had lost by losing her. And how much he was willing to do to now make them a whole family again.
Zeina approached him and sat quietly next to him. Slowly she rested her left hand on his, a gesture she had been used to years ago. As if electrified, he looked up at her. She didn't take her eyes off her daughter. A smile was drawn on her rosy lips. How he wanted to cry in her arms. How he wanted to hug her and diffuse all the pain in her heart.
"Will you be able to forgive me?" he asked, avoiding her eyes. "I know it may be too soon for this, but I want us together again. Me, you and Yara."
She reached in her pocket and gave him a folded paper. "Read this," she said.
Dear Beloved,
Our future daughter came to see me again last night. She looked so lovely. And she seemed sun-tanned. Too much fun days in the sun, I hope. She was watching us silently. You were crying and asking for my love. I cried, too, and told you how much I loved you.
I promise I shall give this letter to you when you’re with me so you know how I lived my days until having you for real.
Yours Forever,
Zeina
"I wrote this when I was suffering from memory loss a couple of weeks ago. It's for you," she said. "Even my memory loss which I had so once wished for didn't remove your love from my heart," she said.
There it filled the air around them.
Forgiveness.
***The End***
© Marwa Ayad
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