thing.
“Dr. Hussein, I mean,” she said, using his surname, which nobody ever did. “He’s just finishing up his last rounds before the holiday, topping up prescriptions, that kind of thing.”
“Of course,” said Lorna, her courage suddenly deserting her. She couldn’t bear looking foolish in front of Jeannie; she was terrified of giving herself away.
Jeannie, likewise, couldn’t bear the fact that she had guessed, seeing Lorna away every time Saif had booked leave, and busied herself with paperwork. Then something occurred to her. “Everyone’s been dropping off doctor presents! Have you got one too? Is it from the school?”
“Uh, yes,” said Lorna, grateful for a way out. “Sorry . . . we should have got you something.”
Jeannie gestured dryly to the piles of chocolates. “I’m fine, thanks.”
Lorna smiled. “Oh yes.”
She also had plenty of boxes piled up, along with some really not very helpful personally made artwork from children and—thank God—a bottle of island-made gin from the kind family at Rubhan Taigh, who had to make up for their five naughty redheaded chaps somehow.
SAIF SAT IN the car in the shadow of the parking lot, watching her leave. It took everything he had not to jump up, run out. When he saw her face as she left, so sad, and her hands deep in the pockets of her long student-y coat, and the red hair under a black velvet cap that made her look so young, so lovely, so undeserving to be so sad when happiness was always circling and never in reach, he wanted to run to her, grab her, who cares what the world saw.
He looked again at his phone. On his Facebook. Nothing.
WHEN HE FINALLY got back in, Jeannie handed over the little parcel from Lorna with a kind look that bypassed Saif completely. He held on to it as he went home, heated up the lasagna kind Mrs. Laird had left for him, and tried, completely unsuccessfully, to calm down a highly overexcited Ash. There would be presents tomorrow, then they were booked in to the Rock; Flora wouldn’t hear of them having Christmas on their own and had absolutely insisted. Of course it wasn’t entirely unselfish; she wanted the place filled with people she knew would appreciate it, plus Ash could keep Agot distracted, which could only be a good thing.
He looked at the sparkly tree in the corner, smiling again at the joy Ash had gotten out of it. Sighing as it marked another year without . . .
Well. He had driven himself crazy for so long. And she now . . . Had she had the baby? She must have. Or perhaps that photograph had been old, perhaps that child was growing up. Did he look like her other children? he wondered.
After the boys were finally asleep, he sat downstairs, feeling the silence weighing heavily on him.
He held Lorna’s parcel in his hands, found himself opening it, his heart heavy. He wished, more than anything . . . Well, what did he wish for? He was in love with two different people: one who was there, one who was not, and could never be again, but was still his wife, his legal wife. Sworn to him before God. Mother of his children.
At first he couldn’t quite believe what he was looking at. It wasn’t possible.
It was the same—the exact same edition—of the book he had looked up online, for the message that may or may not have come from Amena.
This couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be real. How could she know? Could she have sent it? No, of course not, how could she have known about the crocodile? How could she have known? And Nizar Qabbani was a very famous poet, of course he was. Of course.
It was a coincidence, that was all.
The volume was beautiful, gold and bright blue. There was a bookmark in it, placed as if it could have been almost put in at random. But he knew, of course, that it had not been.
إذا كنت صديقي
ساعدني لأتركك
أو إذا كنت حبيبتي
ساعدني حتى أتمكن من الشفاء منك
لو كنت اعلم
أن المحيط عميق جدا . . . لن أسبح
If you are my friend
Help me to leave you
Or if you are my lover
Help me so I can be healed of you
If I knew
That the ocean is very deep . . . I would not have swam.
Saif sighed heavily. He got up and stared out the window. Just at the very edge of his vision he could see the beam of the angel statue light up