by Hana Sheik
“She hurt her head.” His mother continued with her explanation. “It was an accident at one of her worksites a month ago.”
“This is why you called me?” Soaking this new information in and pushing down the useless anxiety prickling over his skin and churning his gut, Manny asked the next logical question. “Is she unwell?”
“She’s healed nicely. The wound itself wasn’t life-threatening.”
Manny’s relief lasted for only a few seconds.
His mother had said a prayer aloud. It had never boded well in his childhood when she did that.
“The doctors fixed her on the outside. But it’s her inside they can’t cure.”
“What do you mean?”
Manny looked at Amal, studying her. She appeared healthy. The veil had to be hiding a scar, but his mother had just assured him the doctors had treated her. A month, he thought, feeling the anguish settling into his bones. Why hadn’t anyone called him then?
The same reason you stayed away—they didn’t want to see you.
Manny clenched his teeth at the thought, annoyed by how much it stung to hear the truth ringing so clear in his mind. It would be easier to concentrate on what his mother and Amal had to say for themselves than to dissect his hurtful self-reflection.
“She’s forgotten things.” His mother shook her head, her brow pleating in sorrow, clearly too overcome with feeling to say any more on the matter.
Amal stared at him with those wild, wide eyes, her mouth set in that grim line again.
Of all the things he’d imagined facing on his return home—of all the things he’d feared—amnesia hadn’t been one of them.
* * *
Tired of how they spoke like she wasn’t present, and shying away from their sympathetic looks, Amal hurried for the steps down from the veranda.
She didn’t so much hear Mansur as feel his hand circle her wrist, pulling her to a stop. She whirled to confront him, bracing herself to endure more of his sympathy—or was it pity?—head-on.
Amal tugged at his hand to no avail. His grasp was forged of steel. She sensed she’d tire out before he did.
Better that you find out what he wants.
As if peeking into her thoughts, Mansur said, “We’re not done talking.”
Of course. That was what it was. He hadn’t dismissed her, so he’d assumed they were still having this pointless conversation. She couldn’t hide or pretend everything was all right now Mansur knew about her affliction. About her amnesia.
“I don’t have anything else to say. You heard your mother. I’m not well.”
“Still, I’d like to talk,” he said. “But not here.”
He glanced around, forcing Amal to note the curious maids and the perplexed driver.
They must be making quite a scene, standing so close, their chests nearly brushing. It was scandalous.
“Show me my room.”
His husky voice stroked something unexplored and forbidden inside her. Unwilling to explore it out here in the open, Amal chose to entertain his request for privacy.
“It’s this way.” She gave his hand a pointed look.
Once he’d released her, Amal turned briskly, her skirt and robe swishing as she forged her path. She wasn’t going to overthink why she was missing the warm and welcoming pressure of his palm. It should be the last thing on her mind. She needed to be concerned about her fried brain and scattered memories.
Still, she hadn’t anticipated the force of attraction she’d feel for Mansur. She had hoped for a personal connection—hoped his face would free a more recent memory than the few childhood ones that were returning to her more rapidly. But the man before her was certainly not the gawky, grinning teenager she fuzzily recalled.
Amal hadn’t gotten the chance to ask Mama Halima much about who Mansur had grown to become, and his arrival had been more or less a surprise to her. It hadn’t been until only a couple hours earlier that his mother had pulled her aside and informed her of Mansur’s journeying home to them. For her.
She now knew he had no clue that he’d traveled because of her amnesia. Mama Halima had left that part out when she’d contacted him.
If she didn’t feel obliged to guide him to the guest room that had been prepared for him this morning, Amal would have scurried off to lock herself in the spare bedroom. Maybe even insisted that she move back next door, although Mama Halima wouldn’t have been too happy about that decision. With both her brothers having moved out of their late grandmother’s home, Amal lived alone. Mansur’s mother hadn’t liked to leave her alone after the accident. She had convinced Amal into temporarily moving in with her.
The new living arrangement had worked perfectly. The two women had each other for company. But now, with Mansur home to his mother, Amal felt as though she had overstayed her welcome. Also, it must appear like she couldn’t take care of herself.
But it’s true, isn’t it? You’re helpless, weak. You need someone to save you.
No! She didn’t need rescue. She was fine.
Forcing herself to concentrate on her steps, Amal closed in on Mansur’s bedroom.
“Over here,” she said, glancing back at him.
He’d paused at the wrong door, his hand on the brass handle.
“That isn’t your room,” she said.
Disregarding her, he opened the door and pushed inside.
Amal followed close at his heels. Frustrated that he hadn’t listened, and embarrassed by the sight of her messy room, she gestured for the door, hoping he’d grasp her cue.
“I told you—this isn’t your room,” she said.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Mansur shifted his attention, his eyes scouring her face. “It used to be my room...long, long ago.”
Amal frowned. “Well, your mother didn’t tell me,” she muttered.
“She didn’t expect I’d return anytime soon.” Walking toward the bed at the far end of the room, he looked around. “Everything almost looks the same. Except this.” He gestured at the headscarves on the bed and the books on the floor.
Amal skirted past him and collected the headscarves. She walked with them to her temporary dresser, popped them in the first drawer. Then she moved to handle the scattered books, just as Mansur lifted a notebook that the scarves had hidden on the bed.
Her journal!
Mansur smoothed his palm over the spiral notebook’s cover. “You still journal, then?”
“I try,” she replied, accepting the book when he handed it to her. He hadn’t even made an attempt to read it.
“And you’re reading, too.”
He glanced down at her books. She had been in the middle of reorganizing her reading pile. Many of the book covers were worn, hinting at how loved they were. That had to be the only upside of amnesia. Reading the books that she’d enjoyed in the past and getting the ultra-rare chance of reading them like they were new.
So far, her skewed memory retrieval had worked strangely. She recalled some things more clearly now than she had right after her accident four weeks earlier, when she’d woken up in the hospital with stitches to her right temple. But the returning memories were further in her past, which frustrated her more now that she stood before Mansur. Amal had no recent memories of him. The glimpses of the childhood of this man standing with her were hardly enough to assume his personality now. For all she knew, he could have grown to be a terrible person.
Terrible, maybe. Yet still darkly gorgeous.
She wasn’t sure how to feel about her sudden and fierce attraction to him.
“It’s strange to be back.” He drilled his gaze into the side of her head, lips turning down. “I have to admit I hadn’t planned to be here.”
What he meant was, he’d come back because of her.
Reflexively Amal lifted a hand to her temple. Her scar was tingling and a conflux
of noxious emotions was blending in her. She felt her stomach swooping, but she hadn’t eaten anything to heave up.
“There’s a scar, then?” he asked.
She nodded, felt her mouth refusing to open and answer him.
“Does it hurt still?”
She shook her head.
He scowled, but it didn’t detract from his good looks.
“I’m just glad your brothers and my mother were here.” The sincerity in his tone softened his eyes and face. “You have to be more careful. I know first-hand how dire accidents on construction sites can be.”
“Have you had an accident before?” Amal stared at him, forgetting that she should not be seeing him in her private space. Suddenly she was gripped by a new worry. For him.
“Not me, personally. Employees. Contractors. Coworkers. When it’s bad, it becomes devastating pretty quickly.”
Amal should’ve left it there, but she heard herself wondering aloud, “But you’re alone in America. Who watches out for you?”
Without missing a beat, he said, “No one.”
“And you’re not lonely, Mansur?” Her heart felt pain at the thought of his having no one.
“It’s Manny. You used to call me Manny,” he replied, after what felt like the longest silence. “Now I should probably head to my room.”
He smiled then, and she was surprised to see it. Mansur didn’t seem like a man who smiled a lot.
Amal basked in that smile, with a niggling feeling reassuring her that his happiness was due to her. Aware of how crazy the thought was, she shrugged his jacket off and held it out for him to take, careful that their hands didn’t touch when he took it back.
“Lead the way,” he said, trailing her out of her room.
Luckily, she didn’t have to spend any more time with him. She saw Manny to the guest room and left him to freshen up and change. Meanwhile, it was Amal’s turn to help the kitchen maid. Since temporarily moving in, she had become used to relieving Mama Halima of that duty. And today, especially, she anticipated mother and son wanting time alone.
“What’s he like?” the kitchen maid, Safia, wondered aloud. “Nima said he is a gentleman. He didn’t yell when she almost washed his shoes.”
Safia snickered then, her hand poised over the pot of simmering ground beef as she expertly poured chopped onions in. “I think she’s already in love with him. Don’t leave Nima alone with him when she’s cleaning the rooms.”
The housemaid peeked in, hearing her name. “It’s not like I’m going to be in the room while he’s there.” She gave them a scandalized look.
“Amal was alone with him.”
Safia’s arch remark suggested she’d been spying again. She was the youngest and newest member of the household staff. She still had a lot to learn. But Mama Halima had cautioned Safia about snooping before.
Amal was about to remind her when Nima breezed into the small kitchen, setting down the large metal tub of laundry she’d been planning to soap and rinse by hand.
“What were you doing with him, Amal?” Nima asked.
Safia grinned. “Flirting with him, of course.”
The girls gossiped as if Amal wasn’t there, spinning stories about what had happened between her and Manny. And Amal didn’t say anything to correct them. She ducked her head, her eyes blurring from the onions she hastily peeled and diced into a bowl.
She didn’t glance up until Nima asked, “You’ve known each other for a while, haven’t you, Amal?”
Mama Halima must have told her. Nima hadn’t been in her employ for that long.
The housemaid sighed and eyed her with such longing Amal’s chest panged for her. “That’s why I’m sure you two will be married.”
“Nima...” Amal scolded, but too lightly to convince the girls to cease their gossip.
If they didn’t stop, someone would hear them.
As if the girls had conjured him, Amal stiffened at Manny’s deep-timbred voice from behind them.
“Ladies,” he greeted them, breaking up the maids’ giggling. “It smells delicious in here.”
Amal had trouble straightening her face after Safia’s and Nima’s teasing. Her cheeks warmed as she turned and studied Manny.
He’d traded his suit for a collared T-shirt and cargo shorts. The crisply pressed shirt and shorts accentuated his toned arms and legs, and his corded, lean muscles flexed as he moved into the dim kitchen. Even in the weak sunlight, Amal could make out his attractive features.
A smile softened the angular planes of his long face, and at Safia and Nima’s giggled greetings he flashed another smile, his straight white teeth popping against his rich umber skin and the short black curls of a beard growing in. It was scruffily sexy—and not what she should be thinking about at all.
“Did you need anything?” Amal prayed he’d say yes. She needed a break from the girls. But Manny shook his head.
“Just looking for my mother. I thought she might be in here. She was always fond of the kitchen.”
Amal knew that much even with her amnesia. Mama Halima would be in the kitchen all day if Amal didn’t insist on relieving her. “She should be in her bedroom, if she isn’t in the living room. I could check—”
Amal made to stand, but Manny gestured for her to sit.
“I’ll find her myself.”
He left as quietly as he’d entered.
Nima and Safia traded knowing looks. The saucier of the two maids, Safia, winked at Amal. “So, when is the wedding?”
Somehow Amal managed to get through dicing the onions for the sambusa wraps. Then, discerning the hour, she poured a cup of spiced tea, prepared a plate of sour flatbread—anjero—and ladled tomato soup into a bowl.
She ignored the maids’ teasing about her organizing Manny’s late breakfast. It was only right she fed him; Mama Halima would have expected Amal to see to the comfort of any guest.
It was one of the things she loved about the older woman, aside from her abundant patience, kindness, and generosity. Mama Halima didn’t treat her like an invalid. Amal’s amnesia was a concern to Manny’s mother, but she didn’t handle her like she was fragile, expensive china. Quite the opposite. She believed Amal should be helping Safia and Nima with the household duties. And it was a great relief that she was allowed to be...normal.
Which was why the maids wouldn’t stop her preparing and traying Manny’s breakfast. On reaching his room, Amal noted the heavy oak door was ajar. She was about to set the tray down and knock when she stilled. Sharp voices spilled out, the words clearer now she was listening for them.
“Think about what you’re saying!” Mama Halima’s displeasure pulsed in each word. “You’re going to abandon us now, after you’ve traveled so far?”
“I don’t know what you want me to do. I’m no doctor. I can’t help her.”
Amal flinched at this brusque statement, her hands tightening painfully on the tray.
“I’m of no use to you and Amal. Better I leave. I have business in Addis Ababa anyways.”
Manny sounded exasperated and at the end of his rope. Amal knew it was because of her. They clearly hadn’t anticipated her hearing, or else they’d have shut the door.
“Mansur, please,” Mama Halima begged.
Amal hated it that Manny’s mother had to do it on her behalf.
“Please, don’t do this. Don’t leave us.”
“If it’s money you need I can wire it to you as usual. But I won’t stay here!” Manny stressed.
After that exclamation, the silence inside was deafening. It spilled out into the foyer, washing over Amal. She was nearly knocked down by the force of the burden she’d become on people who were her family, of sorts.
Family she’d forgotten. Family she was hurting unconsciously.
Unable to stand around and contemplate why she should feel so humiliated
by her injury and uncertain recovery, Amal acted quickly. The watery heat burning her eyes hurried her movements. She wouldn’t cry—not openly, for anyone to happen on her tears.
Setting Manny’s breakfast tray to one side of the door, where he’d be able to find it and not step on it, Amal hurried away.
“Amal?”
She froze at Manny’s imploring tone. She’d lingered too long and he stepped out, catching her fleeing.
“Amal,” he said again.
When he called to her Amal rounded on him. She knew he could see her tears. His lips stretched into a grave line and his dark eyes were steely. They held zero comfort for her.
It was all she needed to hear and see—all she needed to know. Mansur was leaving. He wanted nothing to do with her. She’d overwhelmed him, and he was washing his hands of her memory problem, like most everyone had. It wouldn’t be too long before Mama Halima gave up hope, too.
“I have to go,” Amal said, her voice sounding choked by the tears she’d tried so carefully to hold at bay.
This time he didn’t stop her leaving.
CHAPTER TWO
NOTHING SHORT OF Manny finding Amal and begging her forgiveness would satisfy his mother, and she left him in a flurry of long black skirts and robes. She refused to speak to him until he apologized to her precious Amal.
One of her comments in particular circled his mind like vulture on carrion.
“Do you not care for Amal?”
Manny had flinched when his mother had hurled the question at him, her accusatory tone laced with bitter disappointment. There had been one other time when she had looked at him like that—after he’d missed his father’s funeral, nearly a year ago.
Manny hadn’t been too warm on his father, and he hadn’t cared to lay a stranger to rest. In hindsight, he regretted showing up at all. Maybe if he hadn’t he wouldn’t feel the relentless remorse of having failed his mother again. Only now his failure concerned Amal and not his father.
In the end, he hadn’t been able to answer her. So his mother had departed his guest room with her dramatic ultimatum: either he fixed what he’d broken with Amal, or he could leave Hargeisa and never bother contacting her again.
