by Eve Rabi
“So what?” I ask in a voice strange to me. “Other people helped you when you came to the U.S.?”
“Yes, but we helped your baby too, Megan. We took care of him when Reedwan was searching for you. Reedwan needed us, and we were there for him and baby Wyatt. I bathed him, I … I sang to him and …” She smiles as she thinks about Wyatt. “I played peek-a-boo with him.”
To my dismay, the ice around my heart thaws at her words, so I quickly shift my eyes to Abeeda.
“Reedwan was exhausted and depressed and he needed a break after all he had been through.”
Slowly, I turn to look at the woman. She’s hit a soft spot. I know how hard it must have been for Reed when he first came to the U.S.
“We are so sorry for what happened. Abeeda, she loved Reedwan far too much. She probably thought your husband would simply stop you from leaving him and Reedwan would go back to her. Abeeda loved your baby like it was her own and –”
“Your daughter took whatever she wanted, regardless of the cost. Wyatt is my baby. My miracle baby. Not hers! That night, Wyatt would have also been killed. It’s a miracle he’s not dead today.”
Abeeda’s mother nods. “True, Megan. But you see, Abeeda, she cannot have children …”
“Stop!” Abeeda screams at her mother.
“…of her own, because she has no womb.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Abeeda says and looks at her mother with a crazed expression on her face.
“What?!” My eyes dart between her and Abeeda. “That can’t be true. She was pregnant …?” I glare at her mother. “You’re lying!”
Her mother shakes her head in a condescending manner. “Abeeda was violently raped in Iraq.”
“Stop it!” Abeeda shouts at her mother. “Stop iiiiiit!”
Her mother talks over her shouting. “Her womb had to be removed because it was punctured and she suffered all kinds of –”
Abeeda gets out of her chair and lunges at her mother, her face contorted with rage.
Her father gets up and restrains Abeeda as I look on, stupefied.
“That is why she clung to your family. Wyatt was her only chance of having a baby. She needed a miracle herself, and when you left, she saw one and tried to take it, but …”
My eyes shift to Abeeda – she’s snarling as her father restrains her. This story is crazy.
“She wasn’t thinking clearly, Megan, because she was so desperate. Please don’t send us back to Iraq. We have suffered so much already, leaving our family and our loved ones, and living with the fear that we will be caught and deported. We are so old. What good will it do if we have to suffer again? It won’t bring Reedwan back. Please, Megan, please ...”
“I … I …” I want her to stop pleading with me. I want her to stop telling me all those terrible things about Abeeda. I want her to quit talking such sense to me and making me confused. Now!
“When you left, Wyatt slept with Abeeda most nights, and she comforted him like she was his mother. Wyatt really needed you, but you left for some reason.”
“But that …”
“Wyatt called Abeeda ‘Beeda Momma,’ because he missed you so much. And Abeeda gave everything of herself to Wyatt. Just think of how Wyatt would have suffered if Abeeda was not around. Okay, she made a big mistake. We all make them.”
Hearing how Wyatt missed me is too much for me and tears fall. For a while, everyone watches silently as I wipe away tears with the back of my hands and fight to hang on to my wrath.
It is true; Abeeda was there for Wyatt when I wasn’t, and for that I will always be grateful.
Finally, I raise my head to look at Abeeda. “We were married. He was my husband. You knew Damien, how could you do that to us?”
Abeeda sits with her head bowed.
“I’m pregnant again. How do I raise two kids without Reed? You killed him. You almost killed both my babies.”
Abeeda hangs her head.
Finally, I look around and realize that I cannot have Abeeda and her family deported. Not after what I just heard – her traumatic past, her parents’ struggle...
I can’t do this to them.
Slowly, I sink into a chair and place the gun on the table. After a few moments, I turn to Abeeda’s father. “In two days, I want you to arrange for one of your priests to collect Reed’s body and organize a traditional … a traditional … burial for him.” The word burial is so hard for me to utter. “I don’t care how it’s done or how much it costs. I just want to be there when it is happening.”
Abeeda’s father nods several times. “I apologize from my heart. I really am sorry about Reedwan.”
I stand up and walk out the door, ignoring his apology. “If you don’t, I will find Abeeda and kill her. And don’t be tempted to try anything, because I will get my husband involved, and he has no time for illegal immigrants. He’s ruthless, as you may have seen.”
Abeeda’s father nods again.
“And please, tell Reed’s family in Iraq. Tell them … tell them … tell them, I … I’m so sorry. Tell them, he was everything to me.”
I walk away before he can answer.
Outside, I rest my weary self on the pavement and reflect on what I’ve just heard. I don’t even have the guts to avenge Reed. I’m spineless. A wave of exhaustion hits me, so I rest my head on my knees and close my eyes.
“He tried to get you out of his system, but he was obsessed with you.”
I look up into Abeeda’s face.
“He was in love with me. Not obsessed with me.”
“I loved him,” she says. “So, so much. More than you did. Not once did he ever tell me he loved me. I longed to hear those words, but they never came.”
Even though I despise what she did, I cannot help but feel pity for her.
“Here!” She fishes in her pocket and opens her palm to me.
I stare at my gold chain with a kitten pendant in her palm. “How …?” It was a gift from Reed I had flung back at him during one of our petty fights. This memory of him surprising me with it, our fight, our make-up, blurs my vision as I reach for the precious pendant.
Abeeda snaps her palm shut. “I wanted to be his sweetheart. You had everything I wanted and I was angry!”
I lunge for the pendant but she swivels out of reach.
“I remember that day – he walked in looking upset, and when I found the pendant, I knew you had a fight. He was moody for days because of that and he shut me out. Do you know how it felt? Whenever you fought with him, he withdrew and barely spoke to me. All because of YOU!”
“How would you have known about the pendant in the first place?”
“I went through his papers and found the sales receipt.”
“What?!”
“Hey, this was the man I planned to marry! I knew everything! I knew about your locket with the photos; I knew about him searching with the flashlight like some crazy man in the night, trying to find the ring you didn’t deserve. I hurt all the time, but I refused to give up because I believed that one day we would be together, and that kept me going.”
“You’re one crazy bitch!”
“I loved Reed since I was a little girl and I loved him again in America.” She swallows hard and her voice breaks. “I cannot believe he’s … he’s dead. I … I want to die as well. If only he didn’t love you so much. At the end of the day, love took him to his grave.”
I take the opportunity to snatch the pendant out of her hand. Slipping it into my pocket, I say, “You put me through hell, pretending to be my friend while secretly talking crap about me and luring him into your arms, planning a birthday party for my baby, cutting me out at Christmas … all the pain you put me through …” I shake my head. “And at the end of the day, Abeeda, you sent him to his grave. You killed him! Thank your lucky stars I did not kill you today.”
“He was NEVER yours to keep, you know! I told him that you would be the death of him. You are a … a femme fatale!”
“You have no idea
of what Reed and I shared, what we’ve been through, and you will never get a chance to experience what we did, Abeeda. All your plotting and planning, your manipulation, your lies, your nastiness – did not get you what you really wanted – his love.”
I get into my car and drive off. Femme Fatale, indeed! The bitch! I loved him and he was my Angelman, my life, my love. I would have died for him.
Sobs rack my body so much, I have to pull over to the side of the road.
Oh, Reed, my wonderful darling, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I am so sorry! I should have left you with her, then you’d be alive today. I am so sorry, baby … so sorry …
Chapter Forty-One
Alicia picks up her phone and dials. “You ready?” she mouths.
I nod.
“Hey! What you doing?” she says into her phone. “I’m bored. This bitch of yours just sleeps all the time. Why you want me to watch her? Let’s do something tonight? Meet me at the apartment for an hour or so.”
Damien agrees. She gives me the thumbs-up and ends the call. “Says it can only be for an hour.”
We high five each other and make our way to the car.
When she sees me pat the 9mm in my pocket, she nods. “You have to or he will come after you.”
I’m really not comfortable with her asking me to kill Damien, even though I do trust her. But she makes sense. I do have two babies to protect.
I nod. Inside, I’m all white flag.
We arrive an hour before Damien and slip the all-important tape into his VCR. Alicia goes outside to wait for Damien, while I, gun in hand, grab the remote and hide behind the curtains. And wait.
After a long wait, a laughing Damien enters with Alicia. “It’s great to see you so unrestrained today,” he says as he grabs her ass and crushes his hips to her. “All the way here, I’ve been thinking of what I want to do to you.”
“Did you now?”
“Yeah. And, what I want you to do to me.” He shoves her head toward his crotch.
With a laugh, she pushes him away and starts to perform a slow striptease. With a huge grin on his face, he lies on the bed and props himself up on his elbows.
Alicia undresses him and tosses his clothes over her head, into the other room.
“Yeah, baby!” he cries.
“Tonight, baby, it’s all about you,” she says in a seductive voice.
“Now you’re talking!”
“I’m gonna do bad things to you cos I’m sooo bad.”
“You are? Show me. Ooooh, yeah, show me, baby!” He starts to writhe in anticipation.
“You’re a bad, bad cop, who needs to be punished,” she says as she fishes into a drawer and removes a pair of handcuffs, which she slaps onto his wrists.
“Punish me, baby,” he pants, holding his cuffed hands over his head. “Now.”
Grabbing a silk scarf from his bedside table, she straddles him and blindfolds him.
“Easy now,” he says and tries to sit up.
“Shhh!” she says as she tightens the scarf, then presses him into the bed.
“Oooooh, yeeeeaaah.”
I step out from behind the curtains and hit play on the remote.
“You think you can run away from me? I have a looooong arm, Megan!”
Damien stiffens. His whole body, that is.
With a chuckle, Alicia jumps off Damien and starts dressing.
Handcuffed and blindfolded, Damien still leaps out of bed and turns around. “What the fuck? Alicia! Alicia!”
He tries to shake off the blindfold, but it’s too tight. “Alicia!”
“Don’t you look stupid with your limp dick,” I say.
He freezes for a moment, then fights off his blindfold. When he sees me pointing a gun at him, he swings around to look at Alicia. “You fucking bitch!” Since he’s handcuffed, he tries to kick her, but she laughs and darts out of his reach.
I squeeze the trigger. He screams as the bullet shatters his kneecap.
“Thank God you have a silencer on this one, Damien,” I say as I blow on it.
“You slimy bitch!” he cries. “You whore!”
I squeeze the trigger again and catch him on the femur. “Ooops! I was aiming for the other kneecap. Can you stay still for a minute, please, so I can?”
He lies on the floor, moaning in pain, his cockiness rapidly dissipating.
“Take me on. Man to man …” Reed’s voice can be heard on the TV.
“Hear that, honey? The attempted murders are on tape.”
The look Damien gives to Alicia – I’m so glad he’s handcuffed.
Alicia and I sit down as he looks at the TV.
After a few painful moments of watching the incriminating tape, he looks at me. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Nothing. I’m here to kill you.”
“What?”
“Then, I’ll be free of you.”
“You’ll go to fucking jail, you crazy bitch.” He looks past me at Alicia. “You too, whore.” He bristles with fury. “I will expose her. I have stuff that will ruin her and make her wish she was dead.”
I shake my head. “With what? The tapes? I have them.”
His eyes fly to his safe in the ground.
I stroll over and lift up the carpet. “Deceit? That’s your magic password? Buuuusted! As for my file containing details of my rescue – I have that too. Found the entire thing in your safe. My rescue statements, interrogation reports, et cetera – I have them all. It will be very hard to lay charges against me when no one can locate my file. All thanks to you. Hey, I even have Reed’s file! Again, all thanks to you. I stole it from you. Every single page, document – all in my possession. He can’t be traced. Ha!”
Damien snarls like a trapped animal.
“Move again and I will shoot you in the peanuts, you prick.”
“You won’t get away with this, Megan, I’m warning you.”
“Kill him, Megan,” Alicia says. “Kill him.”
“Oh, yes, I will,” I say, ignoring her prompting. “You’ve cleared the way for me, remember? The Muslim extremists who were seeking revenge on me and my loved ones? You told everyone that, remember? They did this.”
Sweat beads form on Damien’s upper lip and forehead. “Megan, I … I … I love you. I just wanted you back.”
“Yeah? Well, I loved Reed, not you. Tell me more about how you planned Reed’s death.”
“FUCK YOU AND FUCK THAT LOSER!”
“Huh-uh! Shouldn’t have said that, because that loser fucked your wife.”
He starts to bare his teeth.
“Yes, we fucked in every position available. He fucked your wife, Damien. Fucked me everywhere – in the bedroom, in the car, on the beach, in the laundry … imagine your wife with another man, fucking the night away. It was ecstasy. Multiple orgasms, Damien! Multiple! I came before him too. Howzat?”
Alicia laughs and Damien goes nuts. “You fucking slut! You FUCKING HOE!”
“I had his child and here’s another one.” I smile and stroke my stomach. “Imagine, his seed in your wife!”
“But … but … you aborted …” He looks at Alicia with hatred in eyes.
Alicia smiles and shrugs. “I fucked you over, Damien. Because I’m a bitch.” She laughs again.
“Shaddup you whore!” Damien screams.
“And Damien, your dick – it’s like, really small,” she says. “I needed more, but I didn’t want to say anything for fear you would experience failure to launch. Again. Sorry.” She smiles sweetly at him.
I look at her with my mouth open. “You too?”
She nods.
“I’m, like, relieved,” I say. “I thought … maybe, it was me, but you … you’re so pretty and fresh and –”
“Nope,” she turns down her mouth and points both thumbs downward.
Damien is livid at our conversation. “I will kill you! I will …”
I walk over to him and boot him solidly in the ribs. He lies on the floor and moans in agony. “I nee
d an ambulance. I’m hurt … please …”
“Funny, those words sound familiar. Oh, yes, that’s what Reed said when he saw me hurt. It’s all in the video. Remember?”
Damien looks at the ground, his face contorted with both agony and fury.
“Hey, I saw you in the tapes with the women you were blackmailing. You’re so bad at it. I’m embarrassed to admit I put up with your lousy sex for years. Luckily, Reed came along and fucked me the way a woman should be fucked.”
Reed’s name and the word sex in the same sentence – drives Damien crazy. If I had to guess – I’d say Damien’s fighting the urge to get up and choke the life out of me.
Suddenly, Damien keeps really quiet. This is not lost on Alicia or me.
“I’ll get you bitches, even when I’m not around,” he says in a low tone. “No one crosses me.”
“How?” I ask.
“Your Plan B?”
“Something like that,” he says.
“The stuff you left with your attorney for safekeeping?”
He nods, a smug look on his face.
“At Jake’s?”
Surprise registers on his face.
“We got that too,” Alicia says.
His jaw drops.
“Sorry, honey,” I say.
He turns to look at Alicia. “You … you think you can get rid of me, huh? Let me tell you one thing – even in death, I will find a way to keep you. When I think of the fun I had with you all these years …” His smile is leering. “You’re too juicy for me to let you go. So you, my little butterfly, you will never shake me. Ever!” He says it with such determination; a shiver of fear runs through me.
I look at Alicia. She is biting her nails, her face a mask of terror.
Damien looks at me. “As for you; your child – children, whatever – they’re the reason I lost out. The products of deception, lies, and betrayal. Think I can let them be?” He shakes his head from side to side. “No can do. Even if you kill me, I will find a way.”
Here again, the grit in his voice, the magnitude of his threats, turns my knees to jelly for a moment. My fear must be visible because his smile turns smug.
“Now, get your fat ass off that chair and go call me an ambulance.”
Slowly, I get up and walk to my mobile phone.
