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CHAPTER1
Meri
“President O’Connor, are you sure you want me to keep this a secret?” I asked, hoping I had heard her incorrectly.
Reesa O’Connor whispered, even though we were alone. “Yes. No one can know about this.”
“Including your husband?” I asked. She nodded.
This was an awkward position for me to be in. Finn wasn't just her husband, but he was also my boss. As nursing staff, you did not hide things from the chief of staff of the hospital. At least not if you wanted to continue to be employed. Not sure but if I was right, the president of your country swearing you to secrecy trumped all else. She wasn’t giving me any time to think about my decision either.
“I will tell him when I am ready to. If he learns about this now...then he will insist I step down as president. I can’t let that happen. Not right now. There is about to be an election in a couple of months. Have you seen the other candidates?” she asked.
“None of them are people who I would vote for,” I replied. It wasn’t just because they were men, but they didn’t have the same vision for Tabiq’s future as Reesa did. She was meant to be president. And I understood how this information getting out could impact her chances of re-election severely.
I wasn’t just doing this for Reesa, but I was doing this for the entire country. Tabiq needed Reesa. She’d done so much for the country in just a few years. More than what her predecessors had in decades. Another change now could set us back and I wasn’t about to risk that. I remembered what it was like, all too well. Granted, things had already started to change when the Hendersons, for some unknown reason, decided to plant roots here in Tabiq. The violent human trafficking seemed to stop, almost abruptly. Was there a correlation between their arrival and our corrupt government being overturned? No one ever talked about it. We surely didn’t feel comfortable about asking. There always will be an underlying fear in the heart of Tabiqians. Fear of all the good things being ripped away from them.
But the Hendersons alone could only do so much because this wasn’t their country. They could never really understand what we’d been through, or what we needed. Reesa, on the other hand, did. She knew it wasn’t just about making opportunities for us, but also about helping us believe that we could achieve anything we wanted and if we were willing to fight for it. Work hard for it. Her being president in a country that had once only viewed women as property for profit, proved just that to us. I know I wouldn’t be the nurse-in-charge at the hospital if it weren’t for Reesa. So many others wouldn’t be where they were either if she hadn’t continued to fight for Tabiq.
She might not know it, but she was a hero to many of us Tabiqian women. She was living proof that a better tomorrow was possible if we persevered.
You have my loyalty. I’ll do whatever you need of me.
“Then you understand why I must do this,” she said.
I nodded, still feeling that there had to be another option. Hiding it from everyone else was one thing, but her husband, that made no sense to me.
“What does it have to do with Dr. O’Connor? I’m sure he’d want to know,” I said, honestly.
She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t. Maybe you can explain it to me.”
Reesa fiddled with her fingers for a moment before replying. “Something happened and it is not public knowledge. Only Finn knows.”
“Okay. What happened?” I prodded her to continue.
“There was a lot going on. It was as though I was being pulled in several different directions. Not getting enough sleep, and not eating well and it had been catching up with me. I was under a lot of stress. Eventually, I was exhausted, feeling dizzy and weak all the time. I couldn’t keep anything down, and when I did, I got the worst stomachaches. Then one night, the cramps were horrible. Finn had been working late because someone had suffered a massive heart attack. I thought it was food poisoning. I didn’t know, there was just so much pain. It wouldn’t go away. All I could do was lie on the ceramic tile floor in the bathroom holding my stomach. But the waves of cramps continued and I...I...”
“Lost the baby,” I added softly. She nodded.
“I had been so busy that I never even knew I was pregnant. I wasn’t gaining weight. In fact, I was losing. But when Finn got home and found me on the bathroom floor, he confirmed it. And he...he was beside himself. A man who deals with life and death situations all the time, looked white as a ghost, eyes filled with tears as he just held me,” she said, trying to hold her composure.
Even though her husband Finn had seen a lot of death due to his job, this was different. It was personal. It was...family… his family. But he had never shared that with any of us. I recalled a week last year when he wasn’t himself. He was quiet and spent little time at the hospital, which had been extremely odd. Now it was understandable. He’d been mourning the loss of his baby.
If I had known maybe I could’ve....
There was nothing I could’ve done or said even back then to make the situation better. Grieving was something one had to do at their own pace, and we all did it differently.
My heart went out to Reesa. I could see how even a year later, losing the child still affected her. How could it not? But like Finn, she never let us see her suffering. I couldn’t believe she was sharing it with me now. I was touched by her vulnerability and the trust she was showing in me. I was going to be honest with her as well. “President O’Connor...”
“Please, call me Reesa.”
In Tabiq, we rarely used a person's first name unless they were a close friend, or you were asked to. I felt honored. “Reesa, this is all the more reason why you should tell your husband,” I said softly.
“And if I do, then Tabiq will be without a president. That cannot happen,” she stated firmly. “Not for a day, never mind for however long it would take for someone to be elected. And think about it. A rushed election could be devastating for Tabiq. That person would step in and take control and set us back years. That’s what happened in the past.”
Hiding this from Finn was going to be nearly impossible for Reesa to pull off. But the stress of Tabiq falling under the rule of scum again was going to be a lot worse for her. She was right, and Tabiq was still fragile. We didn’t normally allow ourselves to dwell on the past, but we also never forgot what it was like. It was hell on earth, and families still hadn’t recovered from the brutality.
