“What happened?” I croak, my vision slightly blurry. I can hear a woman crying nearby, and when I look over, I see Aydin is trying to help her up.
“We have to get her to the house, she’s going into early labor. I have no idea what that man did to her.” My sister’s voice is filled with fear As she helps me to my feet. I say nothing about what happened, for all I know it was as a result of a slight bump on the head. “Are you alright, you just passed out. You freaked the man out, and he fled.”
“I’m all right.” I lie.
We make it back to the Shah mansion but instead of taking Salina to the main house, Aydin carries her into Avery’s small cottage located on the premises. My sister shouts out instructions, and Aydin and I do our best to follow them. Hot water, towels, scissors, medical bag. We find it all and bring it to Avery’s make-shift hospital room.
Salina is slipping in and out of consciousness. “Hold her hand, try to reassure her.” Avery tells me. I do as I am told. I hold her hand in mine and tell her that she and her baby are going to be just fine. When they’re open, her gray eyes hold me hostage. Beads of sweat run down her forehead, and I dab at it with a warm cloth.
“I knew you’d come.” she says, smiling at me. I frown looking at Avery, sure that Salina is delirious. “Your mother, she told me you would. And that we’d bring him into this world safely, and that your daughter-” she shrieks in agony.
I didn’t dream it.
“You have to keep calm, okay?” I tell her, and she nods before letting out an ear piercing yelp.
“You remember everything we spoke about, Lina, everything. You’ve got to push, okay, you’ve got to help me get this boy home.” Avery speaks confidently, with purpose, but there is a gentleness to her tone.
Aydin is out in the hallway, and I can almost imagine him pacing the length of the small corridor. This is out of both our comfort zones. I have never had to serve as a nurse’s aide or birthing partner before. I look at my sister who is helping Salina with her breathing while encouraging her to push with all her might.
Avery shouts for me to help her, and I have to leave Salina’s hand for a minute which has the woman reaching for me in panic. “I’m right here, okay, I just have to help Avery to get your son here safely.” She nods, and I move over to assist my sister.
After a grueling hour, we hear the musical sound of a baby’s cry. I never thought I could think of a screech that way, but there is a whole bundle of musical relief being pressed against his mother’s chest, swaddled in a large, beige towel. Salina’s eyes overflow with tears as she starts to gasp for breath, handing me her son. “Save him.” she whispers.
I hold the baby with shaky hands. The door bursts open, and Avi Shah barrels into the room. His face is red, veins in his forehead close to popping. He shouts at me, Avery, Aydin… at this point, I’m not certain who he’s screaming at. He holds his wife in his arms, gathering her up in his arms like she’s a fragile doll. She smiles at him.
“Don’t leave me, Hayatim, don’t go.” he cries, his hands holding her face. “Salina, please.” His shoulder shake, and he tugs her closer, placing kisses on her as if that will save her. My heart aches for this cruel, heartless, man, my tears falling over the crying baby. She slips away in his arms, but he didn’t cry. He howled Like a wounded animal.
“You.” He turned red eyed to my sister, setting Salina back down on the bed like a delicate flower he didn’t want to break. “You did this.” He lunges for Avery, and I step between them.
“No. You did!” He looks at my face, then at the baby in my arms, his eyes widening. The baby boy’s face scrunches mid cry.
Avi steps back. “I want you gone, all of you. And leave that in the room my wife made for it.”
“It?” I hiss. “This is your son, asshole. And I will not leave him until you assure me you have somebody to care for him.”
He turs on his heel, glaring at me. “You dare speak to me like that?”
“I do. You don’t deserve my respect. Now get a caregiver for the baby, or I call the cops.”
He snickers then leaves the room, stopping to face Aydin. “You’ll pay for this Tekin. The Society doesn’t take kindly to traitors.”
Aydin doesn’t budge or cower, instead he boldly faces Avi Shah. “Not as much as you will.”
I look down at the baby, at his light skin and head of perfectly dark hair, matted to his forehead. He stopped crying and is squinting from the light, trying to focus his eyes. Then he looks at me, and I know that I’ll see those eyes again someday. “Be safe, sweet boy. I’ll be watching over you from a distance.”
“Like an angel.” Aydin says.
“Yes.” I smile. “Like his guardian angel.”
Avery hugs me around the shoulders, looking down at the boy she helped bring into the world. “Avi won’t let this go.”
“No. But he’s already lost, Avery. What more can a man lose when his soul is lost?”
19
Sai
I hang on every word,and when she’s done, I’m sure I’ve cried out all of my tears. Hearing about my mother touches something inside me, something I’d believed was long lost.
