Page 33 of The Circle of Exile
His scent was heavier, Old Spice warmer. Mixed with something sweeter. Milk. The kind that she had expelled from her breasts for long weeks. The mountain on her chest lifted, became a cloud again. She searched his eyes, the realisation coming on the heels of that determined expression in his gaze. He could not lie to her about this. About their children. About their lives.
They had survived? Something so dead and lifeless inside her began to flutter. They had lived and not had her for so many days? How many days had it been? How had they lived without her? How had he taken care of the two of them alone? Begumjaan was here. She had taken care of them with him?
Iram inhaled, the saliva pooling in her mouth suddenly going into the wrong pipe. She coughed up, getting her bearings straight before his hand came to her cheek. It singed, the carpet-burn feeling hot.
“Is that…” she asked, feeling her facial muscles tighten. She realised then that she was smiling, stretching her cheeks so taut they hurt. “It’s… our baby?”
He frowned.
“It is, right?” She jumped. “Our son. That was ours, right…? Atharva?! Right?”
“Yes,” he croaked.
“Allah,” she gasped, pasting her palms on his chest, scrunching his shirt again lest he vanish and take this news with him. She chuckled — “Where’s our daughter?”
His eyes widened.
“She wasn’t stillborn?” Iram laughed to herself, scared she had dreamed that up in the OT. She had carved a destructive path out to escape something that had not happened? She was going crazy but that was not even the question yet. She would deal with that later. Right now, she had… her twins. Babies.Her babies.
She began to swivel her legs out of the bed when his hands tamped down on her shoulders.
“Iram.”
She smiled — “Put on the lights…”
“It’s only our son, Iram.”
“What do you mean only our son?”
He wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue, staring at her, as if… waiting for her to understand on her own, as if… he didn’t want to explain it to her. All the calculations of a second ago went backwards. All that she had let settle inside her began to vanish. She held on with her everything, holding on to the half that was left.
“Where is she?” Iram asked, knowing the answer and yet hoping for a different outcome.
“She was stillborn.”
Hearing about her baby passing away once wasn’t enough. She died that death twice.
“Our son lived,” Atharva added, as if he could sense her going away. His hold on the balls of her shoulders gentled, rubbing light circles. “He is healthy, very good weight for his age, all senses sharp. He was resuscitated minutes after his heart stopped. They took him to Nowhatta, to Dr. Shankar’s NICU. He spent the first two weeks of his life there. Came home completely ready.”
Iram’s face twisted, this time stretching taut with feelings she didn’t know how to feel. Relief, guilt, sorrow, joy, hope… she held onto hope. Tight. Her fingers jamming but not letting go. She swallowed the saliva that had again pooled heavy in her mouth and nodded, her eyes tearing from his after what seemed like hours. And she found the other side of the bed empty. Gul had been sleeping there.
“Where is Gul?!”
“Safely with her mother.”
“Mehrunisa came here?”
“Yes.”
“Does Faiz know? He cannot find out, Atharva. He is unhinged. And a slave to ISI. He cannot find out about you, or about me or that you are here…”
“Shhh,” his chin pressed down, eyes bearing into hers, stilling her. “Everything is taken care of.”
“You’re not safe here… what happened at Jami…”
“Has been taken care of.”
She stared at him, his face only mildly lit by the tiny lamp.
