My dear Noor,
I ache for you. It’s been four nights since I lost my mother. Time stands still. Every day is an eternity I must endure, and every night my dreams are lonely with you gone.
All I can do to comfort myself is think that my mother must have needed you more than I do. She must have needed you desperately.
The only way for me to survive each day is to be too busy to have any time to think. Thank goodness for Asylum Assist, where there is always twice the amount of work than the number of volunteers. It not only spares me from myself, it is also the only thing that doesn’t bring me guilt.
I can’t swim – I can’t be alone with my thoughts in the water. I can’t read – I tried and found myself reading the same page again and again. The guilt! The guilt engulfs me unless I am working.
This evening at Masri’s we had only one table to serve and two takeaways the whole time. The patrons are scared. Everyone is scared. I have brought fear to a place where there used to be only good food, laughter and music.
Ahmo Fariz called on his insurance company who organised for the windows to be replaced yesterday and the wall repainted today. But already, less than two hours later, the wall was vandalised again. This time the words to hurt us were ‘Go home Muslim freaks’.
The vandals were out of luck though, because a police car happened to be driving by and they were arrested. I don’t think they’ll be back again.
I see the toll all of this is taking on Ahmo Fariz – his frown lines have deepened this week. And Tante Rosa, well, she is praying aloud day and night for Allah to lift his curse on our family.
This can’t go on. Ahmo Fariz will lose everything, and then what will we do?
He met today with a man from the local paper to arrange an advertisement offering a discount voucher for one person to eat free with every group order. The cost of the ad alone is more than he can afford, but he believes this is the only way to bring in new patrons and tempt back the old ones. He’s even organised a three-piece band to come and play on Saturday night to accompany Shamia, who usually belly dances to music from a CD. The newspaper man who came to meet Ahmo Fariz took photos of him and Ricky holding up bowls of Roz Bel Laban to go along with the ad.
Ricky cries every night when he comes into bed with me and falls asleep with wet cheeks. My mother’s death has ignited something in him and he grieves for his own mother and father like they drowned yesterday. I spend most of the night with him in my arms. Now that you’re gone, he does not need to be afraid of my coughing and choking in my sleep.
His warm body in the bed where my mother’s used to be is a great comfort to me.
Thankfully it is only at night when all is quiet and still that Ricky’s sadness hits him. In the daytime he’s mostly settled, if a little subdued. He is young and easily distracted. He still has a good appetite and plays his usual games. He still asks for stories to be read to him and follows Ahmo Fariz like a little shadow when he isn’t at school. And he cries for Nick too. This has added to my guilt tenfold.
But I must not weaken and succumb to my desire to go back to Nick.
Nick left the Mini he bought for me here again last night after I had begged Ahmo Fariz to return it to him. We found the keys to it this morning in the letterbox along with a letter. When Ricky saw it parked outside he jumped up and down and cheered. So I’ve decided to keep it. Having the Mini back was one small consolation I could give Ricky for taking Nick away from him.
But I can’t read Nick’s letter. I will most definitely fall if I see words written from him to me. So I have tucked the letter here inside this diary where it will be safe for the day my heart is strong enough that I can read it and not succumb. Until that day comes, I must work at becoming stronger and braver for Ricky and for this precious baby who’s already creating havoc inside me.
I’ve calculated that I must be five or six weeks along. I begin every morning by racing to the toilet and the nausea stays with me for most of the day. I’m ill after most meals, no matter how small or bland they seem. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have Cornflakes and milk again after today – the list of foods I cannot stomach is growing. And the smell of cumin this afternoon, ugh, I could have been ill again just from that spice!
I’m not going to tell Nick about our baby until his football season is over. He doesn’t need this big distraction when he’s already suffered such a hard season, especially now that he has a chance to redeem himself. Yes, best to wait and it will also give me more time to build a thick wall around my heart in these months so that he can no longer penetrate it.
Even knowing how difficult the road ahead will be by having a child without a partner by my side, I cannot bring myself to regret it.
I find it astounding that I discovered I was a mother the same day that I lost mine. Was it a consolation from Allah? I believe so. Allah is good and loving.
And I want to be good and loving too. Which is why I’m banishing my mother from my mind. As soon as I start thinking about her, I am consumed by such hot anger I can feel my insides burn. This hatred is harmful for my soul and especially harmful for my baby. So I will keep my mother away from my thoughts and my heart to protect this little one who is relying on me to look after her as best I can.
I’ll give our mother what she asked for. She wanted to be dead? Well, she is dead to me. Noor, believe me when I tell you, I will never forgive her what she did, and for the darkness she has brought.
And she took you. She even took you with her.
Please come back, I need you. I am not ashamed to beg for you to return to me.
A x