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.

"Please, open up and save my baby!" I choked on my tears, banging his door as hard as I could while I made sure Muniba didn't slip out of my hold. It took me a minute, banging so hard without any response when I started to panic more than I was. "Zafir!" I called out as loud as I could and before I closed my mouth, I heard the door being opened.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" He asked with an angry expression and threw a dirty look at me. I could tell the moment the situation at hand registered in his brain. Because his facial expression immediately softened and he walked out of the room entirely.

"Is something wrong?" He asked, clearly curious about the tears on my face and how I was holding Muniba to my chest.

I was frantically nodding my head at him. "Please, help me. Save my baby, she's sick. She might die..." I let go of my words and bursted into more tears, as the reality of things settled in me. "Or maybe, she's already dead." My words came out in hiccups and I stared between my face and that of lifeless Muniba.

"Let me see her," he said, and that was the last thing I expected to hear from him.

He stretched out his hands at me and was expecting me to put Muniba on them, but I was reluctant. I didn't want my baby in the hands of this monster. Just because I was in the middle of a moment of weakness, I couldn't just hand her off to the person that could kill her with just a single glance.

So, I hesitated. And he noticed my hesitation because he just pulled Muniba out of my hold and lifted her up to have a better look. He seemed...worried? At least, that was what his facial expression showed, but I wasn't sure if that's what he actually felt in his heart.

"Her pulse still runs, we need to rush her to the hospital." He was walking to the door already when he said that. And I just stood there, watching him rushed to his car because he wanted to save the life of my daughter.

No moment could beat this in my life.

Zafir...cradling Muniba to his chest as carefully as a father would. Hugging her warmly as he kept a steady finger on her neck to keep on listening to her pulse. He was in his pajamas, probably mid-sleep, but he was willing to rush her to the hospital so we could save her life. He didn't seem to mind that he was the President's son and I...just a maid he was supposed to not give a damn for.

But here he was, giving a damn about a part of me that meant so much more than my own self, and I'm grateful.

"I asked you to bring my car keys, are you listening?!" He bellowed, his voice bringing me out of my trance.

"Oh!" I said and wiped at my tears before I nodded my head. I pulled my veil to cover my neck and walked to where he usually kept his car key in the living room. He was outside when I closed the main door and met him by the car.

He collected the key from my hand and handed me back Muniba, and in that process, our hands brushed and I swear it felt as though I was being electrocuted. We both rushed into the car and he silently drove to the hospital. I heard him making a call before we arrived, so, the moment he parked, there were doctors and nurses waiting for us and they rushed her into the ER.

That was when my waterworks came back. The possibility of one of these doctors walking out and telling me that Muniba was no more broke me down completely and I couldn't help but collapse on the waiting table. She was all I had, all I've lived for for all this while and I couldn't lose her just like that.

I didn't know how long it took me crying until I noticed a bottle of water being thrusted towards my direction and I lifted my tear strained eyes and saw what looked like empathy in his eyes. I thought he had went back home. Had he been here all this while and just watched me cry?

I didn't say a word when I collected the water and gulped half of it down my throat and it's safe to say it had done an impeccable job in bringing back my calm. So, I asked him. "Did they say anything about her condition?"

I've been seated on the waiting table all this while, and before he answered, he slipped down next to me and shook his head. "The doctors aren't out yet, but I'm pretty sure she'd be fine."

I nodded my head and palmed my face. Maybe he was only saying that to make me feel better not because she would really be fine. "You should've spoken on time, not when she has lost consciousness."

"I had no idea it was a serious sickness. I thought it was just fever and would go down after I gave her some paracetamol." I lamented and he threw me a look.

"You gave her a drug on your own?" There was accusation laced on his tone and I gulped down a lump in my throat before I nodded my head at him. "And you're even admitting it to my face? What's wrong with you, for heaven's sake?! How can you self medicate that little human being? What if what you did would harm her in any way and she may end up...god forbid, dying?"

The weight of his last question weighed my heart down and the possibility of that happening broke the walls of my heart. But there were also things he had said that I couldn't look past. 'And you're even admitting it to my face?' He sounded so angry that he could slap me right now if I were his wife. Or maybe, if Muniba was his daughter. Well...anyways, she wasn't his daughter. What the hell was I even thinking?

"You sound as if if I come to you and say she's having a fever you'd pay heed to what I'm saying or even offer to bring her here. I'm still in awe at how you reacted today, please don't add more thoughts to my brain." I didn't know I've said that until I saw the expression on his face changed and I recalled the exact words I've uttered.

"Because I'm the most heartless man on earth?" I nodded my head, staring right into his eyes and he sighed. "I know I don't seem like a kind-hearted person, hell, I'm not even one. But you can't tell me that she's sick and I won't offer to bring her to the hospital. At least, I'm not that heartless."

"You hate children, I'm sure you'd love it more if she doesn't make it right now." He threw me a look that made my insides melt with fear. He looked...murderous. And if we weren't in the hospital where I could easily be saved and all his efforts would go to waste, he would've strangled me to death right now.

I expected an answer from him, but he kept silent and it took him forever before he said. "Yeah, you're right. I really hate children and right now, I'd be really glad if your daughter doesn't make it alive. It's always better if they're dead." He got to his feet and just walked out of the hospital before I told him what a beast his words made him look. And that I knew he felt that way about her, he didn't have to repeat the words I've known all along.

It took half an hour after he had left, and I was still thinking of his words, reeling with rage and hatred when the doctor came out and stared at me. "Does His Excellency left?" He asked and I nodded my head at him. Duh! It wasn't like he was the President, was he?

"How's she doing?" I asked, agitated. Now that they were out, I was afraid that maybe he had teamed up with a doctor so they could euthanize her and make it look like a natural death.

My heart was beating so fast as I awaited his response. "She's doing fine, but will be better in a few days. It's just a very high fever and she's allergic to one of the medicines you gave her at home, that's what caused the reaction in her body, it wouldn't have gotten worse."

I closed my eyes and leaned back on the wall; Alhamdulillah.

We were given a room and all that we'd need and I just sat beside her on the bed and stared at her sleeping face. How innocent and harmless she looked with an IV attached to her body and I wished I could take the pain away from her body back to mine.

This room was a VIP room, so there was all we could ever need in it. I knew I couldn't sleep even if I tried to, and it would soon be time for Subh. So, I went to the toilet, performed ablution and prayed some nawafil. I sat on the prayer mat and couldn't help when I began to reminisce about our exchange of words with Zafir.

When I replayed everything, it all became clear to me. I shouldn't have said what I did to him. He might be a monster, but at least he showed me he cared about her even if he was just faking it. Not that I was certain that he was. Because why would he need to fake care about a two months old baby in the middle of the night?

He could simply tell me to get the hell away from his room and let him sleep, but instead, he took her into his arms and rushed her to the hospital. And instead of me to thank him for that, I accused him. Even though it hurt me so much when he said 'I'll be glad if your daughter doesn't make it alive' and I wish I could shoot an arrow to his chest for saying that, I couldn't help but know that I pushed him into saying it.

It might be that he had the words hidden in his heart, but at least he didn't say them out loud until I provoked him to. And those words 'it's always better if they're dead', there was more to that than just us talking about Muniba.

I kept on trying to wrap my head around things until I heard the adhzan being called for Subh and I stood up to pray. He must've went back home, and because I made him angry, he must've downed two bottles of beer or even more and was now probably wasted in the living room, loosing his salah.

No matter how much I didn't want to, I ended feeling guilty.

And I really shouldn't be feeling guilty for doing something to Zafir. For hurting his feelings. Because when he hurt mine, it was as worse as it could ever get. And the most painful thing? He didn't even recognize that I was among the thousand lives he had destroyed. And I'd never forgive him for that. I'll forever hate him for that.

§

I woke up to the sound of Muniba crying and someone trying to cajole her with loving words. "Shhh, it's okay Muniba. Do you want us to wake Maama up? She had a very rough night and we should be good enough to let her sleep, don't you think?"

The voice was slowly getting registered in my brain as much as I was panicking. Who was together with my daughter? And was this how I would be deadly sleeping and someone might even run away with Muniba?

At that thought, I quickly opened my eyes and laid them on Anisa, and she smiled warmly at me. "I'm sorry, I came in while you're asleep. I'm on morning duty and had to check up on the patients that were admitted at night. Turns out my baby was sick yesterday."

I managed to smile back at her and nodded my head while I sat upright. "She got a very high fever." I smiled, rubbing the sleep away from my eyes. "Good morning, Anisa," I greeted and she smiled at me.

"Morning, you seemed pretty exhausted. I can take care of her while you sleep. I'll take her to the nurse station, feed her and stay with her for an hour while you get yourself collected with some sleep."

I tried to shake my head at that but she had already gotten up. I saw that the drip was over and she had removed it. "I mean it, Nasrin. Or you still don't trust that I won't run away with your daughter?" She chuckled at the last part and I shook my head with a shy smile.

"Thank you, Anisa. I didn't know there were amazing nurses like yourself." I waved at Muniba from her hand and smiled until they walked out. If only Anisa knew how rough this morning was for me. Because I had a dream, and in my dream, all the worst days of my life got replayed as though I was watching a movie. And it was hard to have that kind of dream and not have a mental breakdown, just like I was about to.