PRESIDENT'S SON AND I

10: My Baby

NASRIN

It had become a tradition between the guys, to always meet on Friday nights and watch football. I had even stopped being frightened whenever they screamed at the top of their lungs when they scored. It was as though Zafir looked up to those Friday nights because for two weeks now, I've noticed that on those Friday, he took the whole day without drinking.

But in the mornings, I always saw one empty bottle on the table. Which was so much of an improvement. Because he took the whole day without drinking and managed to drink just one bottle? When on normal days, somedays he took three and even up to five, depending on the kind of day he had.

We had been basically living together for three weeks now. And I don't think I've seen him for more than three times. After that day I caught him eating my food, he had stopped hiding the fact that he ate my food. Everyday, he had never missed a single meal of mine.

In the morning, after I made breakfast, ate mine and went to my room. I'd wait to hear his car driving out of the house and then go out to check. He always left his plate there, as though to show me that he had eaten. And it had been a week since he began coming back for lunch. That was the second time I saw him, actually.

He came back abruptly when I was having my own lunch and when I tried to leave the dining table, he simply waved his hand and motioned for me to go back and sit, and I did. And we had our lunch in nothing but utter silence. And the third time was when I came out for water at night, and I found him downing one of his many bottles. He acted like he didn't see me, but I knew he did, because when I checked the bottle in the morning, he didn't drink it completely.

Muniba had been showing signs of sickness since morning. I wondered what was wrong but among the things Jamal brought to us were some medicines and I gave her the paracetamol. She fell asleep and that was what relieved me because I knew, by the time she would wake up tomorrow, she'd hopefully be fine. I heard when Jamal left and decided it was my cue to sleep. Because if she woke up with soreness of any sort, tomorrow wouldn't be an easy day to work.

I was fast sleep when I heard her labored breathing and when my hand mistakenly touched hers, she was burning! I didn't know when I stumbled from the bed and quickly pulled her to my body. "Muniba?" I called out. I know it's ridiculous, because even if she heard me, it wasn't like she could open her mouth and answer me.

When I turned on the light in the room and checked her body, it looked like she wasn't breathing. Or maybe, her breathing had stopped after that lowered breaths I heard and she felt like a burning coal. Tears had already accumulated in my eyes and were dripping down my cheeks when I placed her down on the bed.

I rushed to the bathroom and got a small towel before I came back with a bowl of water. I dabbed the towel with some water and began trying to cool her temperature. I didn't even know if this applied to small babies, but I was doing it. I was crying hard, not knowing what to do and when I looked at the clock, it was twenty minutes past two in the morning.

Muniba wasn't moving, and I didn't have a phone with me to call Jamal. By this time, after spending ten minutes doing the towel bath on Muniba and no single improvement, I began to get out of my mind. My baby couldn't be dying, please.

"Muniba," I tried one last time. Shaking her a bit, tapping her cute little cheeks to see if she could move, but she was getting cold now. No longer burning and I knew that only meant one thing...my baby is dying. Have died, or would die, whatever it is! It just had to do with dying and I'm not ready to take that.

If Muniba died, I could kill myself too.

I ran to his room with Muniba carefully cradled in my arms. And I could barely see properly because of how hard I was crying. I knocked roughly on his door, praying with all that's in me that he didn't drink too much not to know what I was doing.