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“You lost your parents, and so did I,” Jessa interrupted, her heart pounding so hard in her head, her throat, that she thought she might faint. But she could not, so she did not. She searched his remote, angry face. “You know what it’s like to be ripped away from everything you know. You know! How could you do that to your own child?”
The door to the cottage opened, and it was as if time stopped.
“Aunt Jessa!” cried the sweet baby voice. Jessa’s heart dropped to her shoes.
“Tariq, you cannot do this!” Jessa hissed at him urgently, but she did not think he heard her. He had gone pale, and still. Slowly, he turned.
And everything ended, then and there.
My son.
Tariq stared at the boy, unable to process what he was seeing. It had been one thing to rage about a child in the abstract, and quite another to see a small, mischievouslooking little boy, still chubby of cheek and wild of hair from an earlier sleep, toddle out the front door.
Tariq was frozen into place, unable to move, as the boy scampered down the steps. Jessa threw a look over her shoulder as she moved to intercept the child, scooping him up into her arms. She murmured something Tariq couldn’t hear, which made the boy laugh and wiggle in her grasp.
The boy. Why could he not bring himself to use the child’s name? Jeremy.
Another figure appeared at the door. Jessa’s sister. She looked at the scene in front of her and blanched, telling Tariq that she knew exactly who he was. For a moment she and Tariq locked eyes, both struck still.
“Jessa,” the other woman said, keeping her voice calm for the child’s benefit though her eyes remained on Tariq, wary and scared. “What are you doing here? I thought you were on holiday.”
Jessa shifted and put the little boy back on the ground. “I was,” she said. She shrugged, half apology and half helplessness. “We thought we would stop by.”
She looked at Tariq then, her cinnamon eyes swimming with tears. She put out her hand and cupped the top of Jeremy’s head in her palm.
Jeremy, Tariq thought. My son’s name is Jeremy.
“How lovely,” the sister said, her voice strained. “You know how much Jeremy loves his aunt.”
Jessa stood before him, still touching the little boy, her gaze silently imploring. Tariq felt something rip apart inside of him, and the pain was so intense for a moment that he could not tell if what he felt was emotional or physical.
Jeremy shook off Jessa’s hand, his dark eyes fixed on the stranger he only just then seemed to notice standing before him. Tariq’s heart stopped in his chest as the little boy moved toward him in his lurching, jerky dance of a walk, stopping when he could peer up from beneath his thick black hair. He was close enough to touch, and yet Tariq could not move.
His eyes were the same dark green as Tariq’s. Tariq felt the impact of them like a body blow, but he did not react, he only returned the solemn, wide-eyed stare that was directed at him. Jeremy was as much Jessa’s child as his. Tariq could see her in the boy’s fairer skin, the shape of his eyes and brows, and that defiant little chin.
“Hello, Jeremy,” Tariq said, his voice thick. “I am…”
He paused, and he could feel the tension emanating from both Jessa and her sister. He could almost hear it. He glanced over and saw that Jessa’s sister had covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes wide and fearful. And then there was Jessa, who watched him with her heart in her gaze and tears making slow tracks down her cheeks. She stood with her arms at her sides, defeated, waiting for him to destroy everything she had worked so hard to protect.
She mouthed the word, Please.
“I am Tariq,” he said at last, gazing back down into eyes so like his own, because it was the only thing he could think of that was not threatening to anyone, and was also true.
Jeremy blinked.
Then he let out a giggle and turned back around, to hurtle himself toward the door of the cottage and toward the woman who stood there, still holding her hands over her mouth as if holding back a scream. He buried his face against her leg, his small arms grabbing on to her in a spontaneous hug. Then he tilted back his face, lit from within with the purest, most uncomplicated love that Tariq had ever seen.
“Hi Mommy,” Jeremy chirped, oblivious to the drama being played out around him.
Jessa’s sister smiled down at him, then looked back at Tariq, her own face stamped with the same love, though hers was fiercer, more protective. But no less pure.
Tariq felt his heart break into a thousand pieces inside his chest, and scatter like dust.
Tariq stood by the gate, his back to the cottage, while Jessa carried on a rushed conversation with her sister. She kept sneaking looks at his strong, proud back, wondering what he must be feeling rather than paying attention to Sharon. When her sister finally went inside and closed the door, she hurried down the path to his side.
