He was on his way to DC. By tomorrow night, Zainab and the twins would be in the safe house in upstate NY. By Tuesday morning, eight hundred kilos of Rios cocaine would blow to smithereens at the Port of Baltimore. And by the time Rodrigo figured out what happened, I’d have Manny.
I closed the laptop and walked upstairs to check on Quest. He was asleep in the chair next to Mehar’s bed, his hand still holding hers, his head tilted at an angle that was going to wreck his neck in the morning. Mehar was still sedated, still breathing through the monitors, still alive. Their daughter was two floors up, three pounds and eleven ounces of stubbornness on a ventilator that was keeping her lungs going until they figured out how to work on their own.
I stood in the doorway admiring how far my brother had come. He came from swearing he would never be monogamous nor have children to being this guy. They fought to have this baby. And I was prepared to fight the people who tried to kill her.
31
Mehar
Like lifting a rusted shut window, I struggled to peel my eyelids open. And when I did, the first thing I noticed was the ceiling.
After being stuck on an island with no ceilings, it was jarring to see this white, flat surface above me. Had I died? Was I in heaven?
The second thing I noticed was the pain, which was doing the absolute most across my entire midsection.
And the third thing was Quest’s hand wrapped around mine, his head tilted sideways in a chair, mouth slightly open, looking like he hadn’t slept in a week.
Honestly? He probably hadn’t.
I tried to say his name but my throat was giving absolutely nothing. Just a dry, cracked cough that sounded like I’d been gargling sand. Quest’s eyes flew open so fast you would’ve thought I’d fired a gun. He looked at me and his whole face just… crumbled and rebuilt itself in about two seconds. Relief, terror, gratitude, all of it fighting for space.
“Mehar.” He said it like a prayer. “Hey. You’re up. Hold on, let me buzz the nurse.” He was already moving, pressing thecall button, then practically lunging toward the little table by the window to pour water.
He held it to my lips and I drank like I’d never tasted water before. Finished the cup. He filled it again. I finished that one too. And somewhere between the second and third swallow, my brain started catching up to my body.
My hand went to my belly.
Instinct. The same way I’d been reaching for her for months, checking, always checking, needing to feel the curve and the movement and the proof that she was still in there. But there was no curve. My belly was flat. Empty. And under the hospital gown my fingers hit gauze, tape, and a line of stitches that told me somebody had opened me up while I wasn’t awake to have an opinion about it.
“Quest.” My voice cracked hard. “Where is she? Where’s our baby?”
He sat on the edge of the bed and took both my hands and I could see him choosing his words carefully which scared me more than anything. What was he afraid to tell me?
“She’s here. She’s in the NICU. She’s alive, Mehar.”
“The NICU? Why? What happened? I don’t remember anything after the boat, I don’t remember…”
“They had to do an emergency C-section. She came early, about thirty-two weeks. Her lungs needed some help so they put her on a ventilator. But she’s doing better. Getting stronger every hour. She’s three pounds eleven ounces and she’s fighting like hell.”
Three pounds.
Three. Pounds.
I tried to picture what three pounds even looked like and my brain couldn’t do it because three pounds isn’t a baby. Three pounds is a bag of sugar. Three pounds is nothing. Three poundsis way too small to be alive outside my body when she was supposed to have eight more weeks of growing to do inside of it.
The tears came fast and ugly. I’m talking that deep, guttural, can’t-catch-your-breath crying that made my stitches burn every time my body heaved. But I couldn’t stop because she was alive and I wasn’t there. I didn’t get to hear her cry. I didn’t get to see her face. I didn’t get to count her toes or hold her against my skin. I missed all of it because I was knocked out on a table while strangers cut my baby out of me and put her in a plastic box.
Quest climbed onto the bed, careful around all the wires and tubes, and pulled me into his chest. Held me the way he held me in the cave during the storm, like if he let go I’d dissolve. I grabbed his shirt and buried my face and cried until there was literally nothing left in me.
The doctor camein about twenty minutes later. Young, calm, same one from the ER based on the way Quest looked at him. He pulled a chair to my bedside and sat down.
Sat down.
Doctors don’t sit down for good news. Ever. That’s universal. If a doctor pulls up a chair and gets comfortable, whatever’s coming next is going to require you to already be sitting.
“Ms. Ali, I’m glad to see you awake. How are you feeling?”
“I’m in pain. But I want to know about my baby.”
