by Hana Sheik
She was willing to sever her relationship with him for Amal. As if he wasn’t her biological child. Her only child.
Manny gnashed his teeth, frustrated to have been put on the spot like that. Halfway through dragging his suitcase to the bedroom door, prepared to catch his mother out on her bluff, he grasped the brass doorknob and froze.
Despite his resolve to leave after his mother’s stinging dressing-down, he couldn’t do it.
Manny smoothed a hand over his weary face. He closed his eyes and touched his forehead to the cool, solid oak door and counted his inhalations and exhalations. What he needed, moving forward, was a clear head.
Several thoughtful breaths later, he opened his eyes and confronted what had been staring at him all along. In that moment he relinquished some of the barriers around his hardened heart to the sharp pull of culpability. He had played a role in pushing Amal away. The least he could do was leave when they were on a neutral footing. Though he struggled to admit it, he didn’t want Amal to hate him.
Grunting, he turned from the door and dragged his suitcase back over the worn carpet, setting it by the guest bed. He hadn’t touched the breakfast Amal had prepared for him, though he’d carried it inside. The tray rested, forgotten, atop the crisp, freshly scented bedspread. It was only one more reminder of the daunting task before him.
Did he not care for Amal?
He cared for her plenty—obviously. Or else he wouldn’t be leaving this room hungry and annoyed, with guilt gnawing at his insides, doing exactly what his mother would have him do.
Satisfied the foyer was empty, and that no one would witness his short walk of shame to Amal’s bedroom, Manny resisted barging in and dredged up enough patience to rap on her door. He gave her three biting warnings with his knuckles before he turned the doorknob, pushing the door open cautiously.
There was no need for caution. Manny faced her empty bedroom.
Stepping inside and closing the door, he looked about, as if preparing for Amal to burst out from under the bed or pop out of the stately wardrobe that had once belonged to him. It was different seeing her belongings in the space he’d called his own through much of his childhood. Worse, they looked so natural there. Like they always were meant to claim this room.
He hardened his jaw and scowled at the memories in the room, looking at Amal’s new touches.
The scarred pale yellow walls and the old wrought-iron single bed had once been his, and now they held Amal’s books and her headscarves. Her journal was now tucked away somewhere he couldn’t see, so he couldn’t be enticed to riffle through its secreted pages. Had she ever mentioned him in there? What were her thoughts of him now, with her amnesia?
Manny stilled his hand, stopping shy of opening the single drawer of his old nightstand. It took considerable strength to pull back, calm his itching fingers. Even when she wasn’t present she tempted him.
Recognizing lingering snatches of the fruity notes of Amal’s perfume over the sharper, spicier frankincense trailing in from outside, Manny caught himself soaking in her aroma. It took great effort to stir from the side of the bed, stalk from the room and from the main house to the kitchen, adjacent the side entrance. There he hoped he’d find answers for Amal’s disappearance.
The temperature outdoors was beginning to warm as morning crept over the blue, cloudless sky. He stepped in from the sunlight, his eyes adjusting to the change in lighting within the dim kitchen, and startled the housemaid who’d been carrying the mop and bucket earlier. She gawked up at him from her stool. It appeared she hadn’t gotten used to his presence yet.
“Is Amal around?” he asked, moving to a door near where the shocked housemaid sat before the charcoal stove.
The roomy pantry was empty. Disappointed, he turned and discovered the other maid was joining them in the kitchen. She was the one who had originally sat in front of the stove with Amal.
Manny repeated his question to her.
“She left for work,” the kitchen maid said in Somali, leading Manny outside. She obviously trusted that he understood her, not slowing her rapid speech. “You might be able to catch her. Ask Abdi for a ride.” She pointed out the small guardhouse in the corner of the gated property.
Manny had to round the dirt-caked truck that had brought him there to find the driver, his much older relative. Once he had the other man’s attention, Manny asked, “Can you drive me to Amal’s workplace?”
“I can,” the older man replied, a carefree smile at the ready. He pushed himself off his worn mattress, tucked his phone away and made for the driver’s end of the pickup.
As Manny climbed into the truck he acknowledged the lengths he was going to for Amal. But the sooner he found her, the quicker he could be done with his apology, be back on amiable terms with his mother, and the faster he’d be able to leave Hargeisa.
Reaching for the seatbelt, he paused, remembering that it was broken. Gripping the roof handle, Manny girded himself for yet another teeth-rattling, bumpy ride like the one he’d endured from the airport.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought to grab an antacid from his suitcase. Not that he truly believed an antacid would reverse the heartburn creeping up on him. Intuition warned that it had to do with his impending meeting with Amal. And until that was done he’d have no relief.
* * *
Amal looked out her office window at her firm, AK Designs Architecture.
It still floored her that she had a firm, even though she now remembered having purchased this fourth-floor office for her business. At one point, a few weeks ago, she hadn’t even been able to recall that she owned a business.
Progress in her amnesia.
It gave her hope that she’d eventually regain what she had lost, and all would be as right as the heavy rains that would come as soon as spring changed into summer.
She looked away from the bustling world down below—the traffic, the people, the wandering goats, all under the morning sun’s golden blanket. She moved from the window to her desk, stroking her fingers over the smooth cherry oak surface.
This was all hers.
Amal sat in her office chair, picking up where she’d left off in trying to make sense of the technical drawings on her laptop. Only now it wasn’t because she was worried that she’d forgotten her job skills, but rather that she couldn’t tap into the right emotions for a project that should have been near and dear to her.
A hospital in Hargeisa. One that actually had up-to-date medical technology and the right crop of professionals with the training to handle the equipment.
As Amal now understood, it had been on the worksite of the hospital that she’d had the accident that had led to her amnesia. She had no recollection of having ever set foot on the construction site. But those newer adult memories seemed lost to her at the moment.
“Or forever,” she said, with a weighty sigh whooshing out of her.
She leaned back in her office chair, tipping her head up to the ceiling, her mind straying to Mansur, of all people.
She snapped her head down, annoyed at herself. She was in the middle of giving her head a good shake when a knock stirred her into grasping the perfectly timed deflection.
“Come in,” she called, standing and waiting for her visitor.
She sucked in a sharp breath when Mansur opened her door, his height and muscled frame filling the doorway. Somewhere behind him Amal could hear the impatient snap of her office manager and friend, Iman.
“Excuse me, sir! You can’t go in there.”
Iman’s annoyance thickened her accented Somali. She was practically growling when Mansur stepped into the room, and Amal could see her glowering on the threshold of her office. The women exchanged a look and Iman rolled her eyes, crossing her arms, waiting for Amal’s signal to call some of their junior technologists—all young men who would be happy to drag Manny out of the building for them.
As amusing as that might be—especially after her last interaction with Mansur—Amal gave Iman a little shake of her head. She had this covered. Seeing that she wasn’t needed, Iman offered one last frown and then swiveled on her tall heels, disappearing from the open door.
Mansur’s intense stare had stretched on throughout Amal’s silent communication with her office manager. Now he said, “We need to talk.”
Those four words had her even more on edge than when she had lived through his discovery of her amnesia.
Amal gulped softly, and stammered, “D-Do we?”
She hated it that her wariness was so apparent to him. She wanted the advantage of at least appearing unaffected by his sudden arrival at her office. She’d come here figuring she was safe from the hurt and dismay that had chased her once she’d learned he planned to leave Hargeisa immediately—when he’d all but stated she was a hopeless cause.
“I think we do,” he told her. His eyes tracked over her features. “I’d also like to apologize if I’ve offended you.”
She looked from him to her computer screen, and the schematics for the hospital that were still throwing her a bit. She had thought to add some alterations to the technical drawings, but she’d require all her focus for that. And she wouldn’t be able to concentrate much on her work now her thoughts were preoccupied with Mansur.
“If you’re all right with it, I’d like to have breakfast with you,” he said.
“Now?” she asked, staring up at him.
He nodded. “I’ll understand if you’re too busy, though.”
She knew that he would, given his own high-powered job.
“Amal, don’t feel pressured to come with me.”
Hearing her name from his mouth did it for her. He spoke with a kindness that had been absent in his tone when he and his mother had been discussing her amnesia.
“All right,” she said. “But it’ll have to be a quick breakfast.”
“I can do that,” he agreed.
* * *
Manny needed this breakfast to be his closure with Amal. She’d already surprised him by agreeing to join him. The relief he’d felt had been eroded quickly when he’d realized how affected he still was by her, emotionally and physically. Case in point: Amal moved ahead of him, her steps short but fast, her thick hips swishing from side to side, whipping up more of that unwelcome desire in him.
Concentrating on the dusty beige world around them, instead of Amal’s sensual curves, Manny marveled at how the only pops of color came from the garbage bags that were like tumbleweed in the downtown marketplace. The concept of trash bins didn’t exist here. Sure, there was some waste management, but not nearly enough effort to keep the streets free of pollution.
A pale, thin goat snacked on a piece of cardboard. The animal lifted its head on their passing, its black, glassy eyes tracking them. More livestock wandered aimlessly alongside the beggars on the street. Young and old, male and female, sick and healthy. They all had reasons to be asking for loose change.
Amal paused for a thin, sickly woman and her trio of small, wide-eyed children, and then again for an elderly man rolling his wheelchair.
She doled out more donations, her heart as generous as he remembered it being. When she paused for a shirtless, sad-looking boy, Manny rooted out an American twenty-dollar bill. The boy grinned wide before he sprang off with the money, as if his benefactor might change his mind.
“You’re still stopping for them?” he wondered aloud, not expecting a response.
Her frostiness had suggested there would be no conversation until they reached a restaurant. So, he was taken aback when she said, “I try. There’s only so much I can do, though.”
She looked both ways and crossed the street, marching ahead. Manny shadowed her, his hand bumping her arm when a minibus stopped inches from collision, the driver honking wildly and shouting for them to clear his path.
“That was dangerous,” he observed, his fingers itching to grasp her wrist. He was worried she’d hurt herself, navigating directionless traffic. It was one of the many things he hadn’t missed about Somaliland.
Amal didn’t respond until she paused before a fenced construction site. “The hospital,” she said.
He studied the leveled ground and the deep hole. The foundation was still in progress. Only it appeared the construction site was abandoned. Glancing around, he imagined it should be filled with workers at this early hour on a weekday.
“A project of yours?” Manny asked, not questioning how she’d remembered the hospital. It was becoming clear her amnesia was fickle about what she recalled and what she didn’t. And that didn’t set him at ease at all.
Amal nodded once, her attention dead ahead and her voice soft and disconnected. “It was supposed to be a new hospital, but the development of the infrastructure was stopped after my accident.” A frown furled her eyebrows. “It happened here. I hit my head somewhere on site. I don’t recall it, but that’s what everyone’s been telling me.” She touched her temple. “The government has since pulled their funding. As I understand from my employees, it wasn’t too supportive of this project to start with.” She dropped her hand and balled it into a fist. “They’re all greedy politicians who want to line their pockets rather than care for their constituents.”
Manny regarded her profile. Could she be thinking of her mother when she looked at the abandoned grounds and the would-be hospital? He had been eleven and Amal only eight when she’d lost her mom to childbirth complications from eclampsia—the baby had died, too. But he recalled how his mother had said the hospital had been ill-equipped to cope with the medical issue.
Grief-stricken, Amal’s father had admitted that he couldn’t care for his surviving children, and without any other relatives willing to feed three extra mouths he’d dumped them on his mother-in-law—Amal’s maternal grandmother.
That was when Amal and her brothers had moved in next door. And that was how Mansur had gained three childhood friends.
But Amal’s amnesia must have robbed her of those few memories of her mother, too. Mustn’t it?
“My mom...” Amal trailed off, as if she’d taken a peek into his mind and now answered his doubt. Her throat fluttered, undulating with quiet but powerful emotions. “A new hospital could help someone like her.”
“You remember?”
Manny frowned, his mind whirling. Did she or did she not have amnesia? He knew it was a complicated, loaded query. And this wasn’t some daytime melodrama. It had to be more complex than whether she’d lost all her memories or not and would regain them in a plot twist.
Shoving off the selfish unease building in him, he stumbled on the tail end of her soft explanation.
“I’m recalling more of my childhood, if anything. My adult memories—they’re the ones I can’t fully access yet.” She sighed, forlorn. “Sometimes I wake up not knowing who I should be. And wondering if it was that way before the amnesia.”
“You aren’t having problems at work, though,” Manny said, suddenly driven to wipe the despondency from her pretty face. She’d looked confident and at home in her office.
“Not with my skills, no. They did need a bit of brushing up, but my procedural memory’s been good to me. Thankfully. I wouldn’t have known what to do if I’d had to cancel all my clients’ projects and close the firm.”
“Small blessing,” he murmured.
Sympathetic was what he was. Being CEO of an in-demand, top-earning company meant there was added pressure on every delivery to a client. He imagined it was the same for Amal, running her own company.
The fact that they had both succeeded in their respective and similar careers hadn’t gone over his head. It reminded him of the dreams they’d once shared as children. How they had both wanted to rebuild Hargeisa, usher the lively city into new infrastructural heights and brighten the futures of its citi
zens.
He’d ended up leaving for the States, but she’d stayed. She’d continued living their dream.
“Do you love what you do?” he asked out of the blue.
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“I know,” he said, nodding and looking at the excavation site and beyond it, to what it could be if Amal’s vision came to life. “We’ve both studied in similar fields, and now we’re building our dreams into reality. Despite being in the industry for nearly a decade, the feeling of being at a ribbon-cutting ceremony and seeing the final product can’t be beat.”
She smiled. “The faces are what I remember most. What I love most. Seeing how happy clients are with the reveal.”
Manny chuckled. “How could I forget?”
She laughed lightly then, her eyes sparkling, the hint of gloominess from earlier gone. He wished he didn’t have to ruin the peaceful moment. But time was pressing, and they couldn’t stand around reminiscing all day. Soon she’d want to return to her office, and he still had his piece to say.
“Amal, what was your doctor’s prognosis for the amnesia?” he asked. Saying her name was tripping him up. It sounded too familiar on his tongue. Like coming home. But he was undeserving of the happy relief that welled up in him.
As for this amnesia business—he couldn’t shake the absurdity of it.
Her memory loss was perfect for him, and yet terribly painful, too. Perfect in that it saved him from explanations and reliving heartbreak, and painful because he was going through it alone.
She had no recollection of their long-distance conversations about building a future together, let alone his marriage proposal and her hasty rejection.
In her mind, it seemed their long-distance romance had never existed. While he recalled—and replayed, clip by clip—how their friendship had blossomed into...more. Something he’d had no name for until she herself had shyly confessed to liking him romantically.
No, she said she loved me.
