Break Of Dawn

Chapter 12.

Note :
This is a POV, Aisha's.

POV : Aisha.

Eva called me and told me that she wanted to come over.

I couldn't remember her face exactly ,

Just the vague image of a tall teenage girl,
who wore a red shirt,
and who asked a hevulla lot of questions about my religion
when I'd rather be with my son at his dying moments.

A girl, my Achmed loved very much.
Achmed.

Honestly I didn't really want to remember that terrible time of my life,
when my son had fought so hard for his life, but never made it.

Near the end of his time,
I heard him talk about Allah so much,

Explaining to the other sick kids, the foreign concept of a God who they'd never heard of.

He explained as best as a six year old would, and I felt so proud of him.

My sweet sweet boy,

Tears balanced dangerously on my eyelids, threatening to flow any second.

My hand found its way to my stomach,
To the baby bump,
I patted, and run my palm over my belly.
New life was thriving in me,

He would have been an amazing brother,

He was an amazing son, who was thoughtful beyond his years.

He would have grown up to be a great man of substance and faith,
Even as young as six,
he had sparked a flame in a teenage girl unknowingly,
made her want to know Islam more.
I had  my hand on a picture of him,
smiling so wide with two missing teeth,

He was on a hospital bed, with a pipe sticking out of his hand,
and his hair so thin and lost,
it stood in patches on his head,
Chemotherapy for his leukemia.

He was so sick, but he still managed to be so happy.

I run my finger over his picture,
And tried choking back my tears, but I couldn't.

I cried, and held the picture to my heart,

"I'm so proud of you Achmed,
I'm so proud of you my child, "

And visions of the good times we had together flashed in front of of my eyes,
and I cried more, sobs racking my chest.
Then I felt strong, warm arms behind me,
holding my shoulders. Dado, my husband.

He turned me towards him and held my face in his hands, wiping the tears with his thumbs,

Days later she came home,

Sweet girl, naive at times, who stayed up late at night reading this book or another under the covers with a flashlight.

But boy was she a lousy cook, eager to learn but it didn't just seem her thing,

When I had told her that she had to leave,
she looked like she had been stabbed with a thousand knifes.

It was such a broken look in her eyes,
I wished there was something I could do so she could stay,

It was two weeks before schools reopened.
She was supposed to be a senior this year,
Me and my husband dealed camel milk to different retailers in and out of town ,
it was good money,.

It could support the two us, it could support the new baby who was coming in a couple of months,
but there was no way it could support a form four students education.

She had to go home,
where her education could be fully supported,

I knew it would make her upset, but the brokenness in her eyes was far from what I expected,

When I looked at her, her eyes seemed to say,
"If you let go of my hand, I'll
die, "

She didn't talk for the rest of the day,
only replied when I inquired. Didn't eat,
and when I went
to check on her at night,
there was no light shining from under her sheets as was her norm.

Now as I leaned on the door post of her room,
she whimpered in her sleep, and turned her head agitatedly, nightmares.

She had taken good care of my son, at his worst. Achmed liked her very much, so did I. I had to do something,

There had to be another way,
There had to be..

*****     *****     ******   *****
That was Aisha,
What do you think of her...

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See you in the next chapter,

Until then,

Happy reading.