Barakah

- Bleeding Man

14/10/2024.

Jalal

He thought of all the things he said he would do as the drip plinked. It hadn't even been a week since that night. He wanted someone to pummel him. She was pregnant. They were pregnant.

And heartbroken and in disturbing distress. In one night he had gone from being her home to her repellent. She refused to talk to anyone except her uncle after the second attack. She was left alone in her hospital room to speak with Abdallah. No one went in for hours. No one knew when exactly she was done talking on the phone. Only that her uncle had called Safah. Barakah had explained what she knew of the situation to her uncle and he had explained it to her immediate family.

He had called his mother. Explaining that the situation had become direful. He called his father too. The situation would escalate to a family matter. On one hand, calls from his mother were being made to Barakah's family to conciliate them. On the other hand, Asmau and Amnah had both called to inform him that his mother was seething. That she had almost called Attahir.

Nuh had called as well. Ameenah was under house arrest. Everything had developed so suddenly. One moment he was in his bedroom preparing for bed, the next Bara'a and Ameenah are yelling. Yahya is holding the two sisters apart. That their father had raised his hand to Ameenah. And Nuh would be helping keep an eye on Ameenah because of her unpredictability. He tells Jalal that he hasn't been this shaken since that night years ago.

It is an upheaval everywhere. Truthfully, Jalal couldn't care less. He didn't care what their families thought about him. Who was blaming who. Who was fighting who. If they all wanted to use his despair to aid in sorting out their grievances with each other, they could. It had all turned to noise in the background.

All that mattered to him was Amal's condition. By the second day, it's as if her body has waited for her to become conscious of the pregnancy to become symptomatic. The morning sickness is vicious and is worsened by her mental vulnerability. At times, he can hear her retching from outside the room. She cannot keep anything down because of the baby and her mind. She's eventually placed on temporary parenteral nutrition. The psychologist informs him that the pregnancy remains associated with his scheming. That she still hasn't recovered mentally enough to disassociate the pregnancy from the trauma of being lied too.

To put it tersely, she's been impregnated by a man who was steadily breaking her trust for two years. So every time she suffered a pregnancy symptom, she regressed mentally as well. On top of all that, pregnancy uniquely altered the homeostasis and hormones of a body. She was completely defenseless. Her body and mind set against her more than ever.

He had returned home to move the kids to his mother's house. Munah is irritable by the end of the week. Being used to her mother's presence. It's bad because she doesn't understand why she is agitated. What is missing. She's still a baby. But she's still better than Farouk. The boy becomes completely unbalanced. He's used to being apart from Barakah for weeks at times. Just not without the regular phone calls. By the end of Farouk's week, he is calling and sobbing to Jalal about Barakah when he's not at his mother's house to visit them.

It takes almost the entirety of the week for Barakah to be discharged. And Jalal acquires a nurse to take home with her. He hasn't seen her properly yet. They'd barely spoken too. He couldn't spend long hours in her room. She didn't really want him in there. He felt more at ease entering the room while she slept under the vigilance of mostly her mother. Sometimes her immediate older brother. Few times her twin sister. Ameenah was no where to be seen.