I had never seen Jared so quiet as he was that night. He barely talked to me, didn’t touch his food, and he was depressed and sad, feeling guilty because Jeffrey became the monster he was. It wasn’t his fault. Jeffrey was sick. He was demented, his sanity taken away by drugs. Erica was even worse. Apparently, she hadn’t done drugs, but she was still his accomplice.
That night when we got back to our apartment I searched the internet to find a reputable cardiologist, and I found one with excellent recommendations, who had published papers and articles about heart conditions. When I called, I found he was fully booked until the next month. However, when I told him who the patient was and how well he could pay for an emergency consultation, he found room among his appointment to see Jared the next day.
We went to the doctor’s office in the morning. It was one of the few days the sun appeared in Seattle. The doctor was a bald, but elegant man. He was around fifty, and spoke with us for a long time before ordering the necessary tests. He told us that a heart cancer would cause more symptoms than Jared really had, although each case was different.
Grudgingly and complaining that he felt like a lab rat, Jared submitted to the tests right there, including the echocardiogram, a chest x-ray, a myocardium scintigraphy, and blood tests to check glucose and cholesterol. The doctor asked us to wait a few hours while he evaluated the results with his team, and he finally called us back to give the diagnosis.
He had a very subtle smile as we went inside, that made me more anxious.
“So… What is my problem, doctor?” Jared asked, as anxious as I was.
“You have a condition called myocarditis. It’s an inflammation in the myocardium, the heart muscle. It might have been the result of a virus, a bacterium, protozoans or a fungus, as well as abuse of drugs and alcohol. Just forty percent of the cases are fatal to the patient. It’s not as serious as a tumor and you don’t need surgery. You have to take medicine for the inflammation, and in your case, the inflammation is almost gone.
“How about the heart attacks I had?” Jared asked.
“They weren’t heart attacks. The chest pain and numbness in your left arm are peculiarities of myocarditis that are easily mistaken for heart attacks.”
“So… I won’t die?” Jared looked like a boy receiving the Christmas present he most wanted.
“Well…. Not from heart problems.” he answered.
We looked at each other and smiled at the same time, filled with an infinite happiness knowing we’d have a life together. That we could live to enjoy the overwhelming love we had for each other. Nothing could have made me happier.
“Why did he have myocarditis, doctor?” I asked.
“As the inflammation is almost gone, it’s hard to know.” He looked at Jared. “Do you do illegal drugs or abuse alcohol or did you get a disease from one of the agents I mentioned before your ‘heart attack’?”
Jared thought for a moment before answering.
“I don’t do drugs and only drink socially, but I was in Brazil and I got dengue fever a few days before I felt bad for the first time.”
“So, that might have been it. You don’t have to worry, though. You’ll be fine with the antibiotics I will prescribe and a little rest. In a few days, you’ll be fully recovered.
Jared and I looked happily at each other again. We got up and held each other, celebrating the best news we could receive.
It was easy to convince Jared to take the medicine, but it wasn’t so easy to convince him to rest. That afternoon, after we had lunch together in an upscale restaurant near the clinic, we went straight to the police office, to give our statements. As we showed them the results of the tests, it proved that the surgery really was designed to take Jared’s life.
According to the detective, the doctor responsible for the fake surgery was arrested, and they found several other medical crimes committed by him. However, he kept denying Jeffrey hired him, he insisted that he made a mistake interpreting the results of the tests.
Like all criminals seeking revenge, Jeffrey accused Jared of human trafficking and slavery, saying he had negotiated to have five Moroccan girls bought in as sex slaves to his country house near Newcastle. We were glad the detective was corrupt and accepted a ”gift” of a substantial sum of money to keep it secret until Jared took the girls out of the house and got them work visas and jobs or paid for tickets back to Morocco for the ones who wanted to go back home.
As we left the police station, to my great disappointment, Jared went straight back to work, saying he had a lot to do. As for me, I preferred to take the day off because I needed to organize things, find out how to enroll in college, learn how to drive, buy a car and myriad of other things. I applied for a social work course, which wasn’t too competitive, at all universities of Seattle. It gave me a good chance to become a professional in something where I could help people. The entrance exam would be in a month and I’d prepare, remember what I had learned in high school, which was similar to what the test would cover, and learn a few new things.
As summer arrived, life become more comfortable in Seattle. I was able to go anywhere I wanted without having to wear a heavy coat and I soon became the typical American girl who went out wearing jeans, a t-shirt and tennis shoes, without a veil covering my head. However, things became more complicated at work and no one had much free time. As for me, I was too busy studying for university, not telling about the driving lessons and helping the girls from the harem in town.
None of them wanted to go back to Morocco. Therefore, Jared provided apartments for them in the building where I had lived when I left the country house. Three of them stayed in one apartment, and two in another. He got two of them jobs in an Arabic restaurant nearby, and the other three, all of whom already spoke English fluently, he hired to help with general services at Harrington company. He provided permanent working visas for all of them so they could stay in the USA, and now they owned their own lives.
As for Samir, he went back to Casablanca, and to uncle Jamal’s arms.
At the beginning of August, I entered Seattle Pacific University to study social work, and life got even busier. I didn’t have much time left, especially for Jared. I had to leave my job at the company, where I had dropped to part time because I of my schedule. Jared and I saw less of each other than before, although the main reason was that Jared dedicated himself fully to business. For him It was knowing he had an entire life ahead that motivated to dedicate his time to what he liked most… his job.
He was always busy, and he always had a business dinner to go to and I was usually too tired to go with him. He was always traveling and sometimes he worked on weekends. Occasionally I’d stay with the girls so I wouldn’t be alone at times we should have been together.
Little by little, it gave me the feeling that he didn’t have room in his life for me, that he didn’t have time to spend with me, and even that he might have regretted marrying me now that an ex-fiancé and cancer weren’t in the picture. Our marriage didn’t seem to make sense for him, I felt that didn’t matter as much to him.
Maybe I was just missing our trips, being alone with him, making love all the time in some distant place, and doing what couples did on vacations or honeymoons. As everyone said, married life is very different, and it seemed that we were now part of a passionless routine.
I tried talking to Jared about it, to tell him I wasn’t happy with the distance between us, with the fact that he didn’t seem as much in love with me as before, and that he was cold towards me sometimes, but he was too busy to listen to me, and things just got worse with time.
I thought about the possibility that he had another woman, but there was no one. My only rival was his work, and he seemed to love it more than anything. More than me.
Maybe it was a sign, a way he found to tell me there was no need for us to be married anymore. That his enthusiasm for it no longer existed. I suppose I should understand the signs and leave him, get out of his life, but how would I do when if I loved him more than I loved myself? He was everything to me. I needed to learn how to love him less, because it now seemed that he was never really mine. All of it had been a dream.
The more Jared left me alone, the closer I got to people in University. It wasn’t hard, because most of them where my age and liked the same things. Among those people, there was David, a shy guy with black hair and blue eyes. He was my age who came from Kansas to take the same course as me. We started being friends, but I could see he wanted more than friendship and that was the reason why he was always with me. He supported me, and listened when I needed to talk about the widening distance between Jared and me. About how I missed Jared.
In David’s opinion, I should end my marriage and try the single life in America before deciding to be with another person. It would free me to make new discoveries, go out to party and dance on the weekend, just as I had wanted to do before I left Morocco. Maybe he was right. I just didn’t know where I’d find strength to leave Jared, because he was already such a part of me.
The sun and the rain were gone, giving way to snow and cold. On my birthday, Jared came home early, surprising me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and the keys to a new silver BMW, like I needed another car beside the one he had already given me.
That night, he took me to a fancy restaurant downtown where they played romantic music. The food was delicious, and the tables were candlelit. It was the first romantic moment we had had in months and it made me very happy. How I had missed being alone with him in a place that wasn’t our bedroom.
When we got home, I was dizzy from drinking the delicious wine, and we entered the apartment kissing each other. He ran his hands over my body, awakening my desire.
“How I’ve missed this.” I whispered in the living room, while Jared kissed and nibbled my neck.
“Missed what?” he asked. His hot breath caressed my sensitive skin.
“Being alone with you. Having you without a phone, talking business with someone.” It wasn’t the first time I had mentioned it, but, as usual, Jared pretended not to listen. He kept kissing me, touching my breasts, knowing he could make me forget the discussion by being intimate, but I stopped him. I pushed him back with both of my hands on his chest, deciding I would make him listen. “Let’s travel this holiday, Jared. Just us, somewhere warm.”
“It would be great, but I can’t. I have things to do at the company.”
He moved close to me again, trying to hold me, but I avoided him.
“Just the for the holidays, then we can come back. Your job can wait.” I insisted. “Please, let’s go. I miss you.”
“What do you mean? I’m right here with you.”
“It’s not the same. When you’re here you prefer your job over me.”
“Again, Inaya? That isn’t true. You’re my priority.”
But it was true. He said that every time we talked about it, but he didn’t keep his word. He’d rather work than stay with me. I could almost understand why Jeffrey felt abandoned by him. Jared’s priorities were business and money before everything else.
Again, he tried to touch me, because he knew it was the easiest way to make me forget the subject and be content to wake up alone next day, but I pushed him. I was upset and I wanted to finish the conversation.
“No, I’m not. Your job is.” He was irritated. “Jared, I know you married me to save me from been sent back to Morocco because of my fiancé, but that problem no longer exists. I want to know if you want to break up.”
He looked at me, astonished. “What are you talking about? Of course I don’t. I love you, Inaya. You’re my life. How can you say that?”
“You’re not the same. You don’t have time for me, you prefer working to being with me.”
“That’s not true. I have always worked a lot, I’m like that. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you or that I regret marrying you.”
His argument was the same, but his attitudes spoke volumes. I knew the next day he’d leave me for work again and I’d only see him briefly at night. I couldn’t take it anymore. He had promised me a marriage in a church or a mosque, a decent ceremony with guests, not on some island with just a judge and witnesses. I wanted what we had before, because I loved him too much to settle for just half of him. I’d rather separate and forget him.
“No, this isn’t you. I want the Jared I fell in love with.”
“He’s right here, let me show you.”
He moved to me, holding me around the waist, and kissing me until I forgot my name. He made me forget the subject again. He took me to bed and loved me like it was the last day of our lives, driving me crazy and stopping me from leaving him.
However, next day I woke up alone again. Jared went to work and he didn’t even wake me to kiss me goodbye. This was our life. It would never change. He would always be half mine. It would never be like it was in the beginning.
That morning, I made the hardest decision of my life. I’d leave him. Not permanently, just for a while to see if I could live without him. Maybe it was for the best. So, with a broken heart, I packed some things, wrote him a note explaining that I couldn’t go on like this and took a cab to Afaf’s new apartment, that Jared didn’t know about. I’d stay with her until I could get a job.
The day passed without me crying, not even once. Although I felt miserable, I followed my routine, going to college and staying there the whole day. I signed up for some extra classes to keep myself occupied and stayed with my friends during the breaks.
At the end of the afternoon, I went home and cooked myself dinner because Afaf went out with her boyfriend. However, when I went to the single bed and laid alone, I felt the most painful anguish, bringing me all the tears I didn’t cry during the day. It felt like a knife was cutting through me, and I knew how stupid I was. I loved Jared and I couldn’t live without him, that was the only certainty in my life. Although I had just half of him, it was better than not having him at all, but it was too late. I had made my decision and I couldn’t go back.
My cellphone started ringing and I saw his phone number. I gathered all my strength and turned it off without answering and kept crying. I felt the pain until my tears dried up and then I fell asleep.