Chapter Twenty Six – Waking up to a life lost

As the morning sun’s light touched Zayaan’s face and intensified within the few minutes after the sunrise, he opened his eyes slightly with great difficulty. His eyelashes were wet from the tears that had fallen because of a dream that he repetitively had in his sleep. The dream was so vivid that it almost felt real. And the number of times he saw it made him wonder about how long he had been asleep.

His mind instinctively replayed the scenes of the dream that were heartbreaking to him before starting to wonder about where he was. Suddenly, curiosity overtook his tears. He was not at the home he shared with his loving wife. He was in his room at his parent’s house.

He looked around and saw the machines, monitors and the IV stand next to him. Why were these next to him? He tried hard to remember. It took him a few seconds to remember the fateful day where Saba almost drowned herself. That’s right! He had taken Saba to the hospital. Then why was he lying down at home and not with Saba? Zayaan asked himself without even thinking further because of how worried he was about Saba.

Zayaan was almost about to get himself up when the doorknob of his room. He stopped trying because of how tired he felt and at the same time realizing that help was coming. It was his mother who came into the room. Zayaan wanted to speak but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to. To his surprise, his mother’s eyes widened, and she placed a hand on her mouth in shock when she saw him.

“Farooq call the doctor! Zayaan is awake!!” his mother cried in a shaken voice. Her words left Zayaan in wonder. For how long was he unconscious?

Within a few minutes, Zayaan was being checked upon by a doctor and a couple of nurses. From their conversation, Zayaan got to know that he was in a coma for almost half a year. Those words reminded him of the accident he got into when he’d gone out of the hospital to get food for Saba.

Zayaan could not believe that half a year had passed since that incident. He remembered it like yesterday. If months had conceded after that day, where was Saba? Was she alright? Had she gotten over her trauma? Why wasn’t she there when he was bedridden all this time?

Tons of questions invaded his mind and not being able to ask any of them almost lead him to a panic attack. Thankfully, the doctor was able to handle his breathlessness with the oxygen mask in the room and told him that he should be able to speak within a few weeks along with speech therapy. His parents were told that his vitals were normal hence he should recover fully within around a month. Zayaan saw his parents smiling and thanking Allah at those words with tears in their eyes.

Zayaan too, was thankful that he gained consciousness, but he was too worried about Saba to be able to smile. He wondered why they weren’t even mentioning Saba in this critical moment. As Zayaan kept on looking, his parents came near him as the doctors and the nurses left the room.

“Are you feeling better now, Zayaan? Do give us a sign if you feel anything going wrong.” Farooq said standing on the left side of the bed while Zeenath came from the right and caressed Zayaan’s forehead.

“My little boy! Mom was so worried about you all this time. I’m so grateful that you made it.” Zeenath said in tears.

Zayaan desperately tried to speak words but was only able to get his voice out. His distress was evident on his face when Farooq spoke.

“Don’t try too hard, son. You’ve suffered from a brain injury in that accident which is making it difficult for you to speak…. Zeenath, I think he wants to know about her. We should tell him.” Farooq said, with a sad look that made Zayaan even more anxious.

At once, Zeenath’s facial expression turned into one with hatred and intense anger.

“Farooq leave us alone for a little bit.” Zeenath said, not looking at either of the people in the room. Farooq sighed and left the room and Zayaan looked his mother, desperately looking for an explanation.

Zeenath looked at him as soon as Farooq closed the door of the room. Zeenath could almost hear Zayaan asking ‘where is she?’ with the look on his face.

“She is no more, Zayaan.” Zeenath said. Zayaan’s breath came to a halt with those words. A mixture of fear and pain engulfed his heart when tears formed in his eyes.

“No need to grieve over her. She had left you just a few months after you went into coma. If you don’t believe me, here is the note she left you. She kept it in your hand, but we removed it for your physical therapy whilst in coma.” Zeenath said, showing the small, folded paper she took from near the pillow Zayaan was lying on.

“Zayaan, I really don’t think I can do this anymore. I’m sorry that I can’t be with you. I need to leave…. this is what she wrote. Don’t tell me this is not her handwriting because she wrote this one in this house, gave it to you and left!” Zeenath turned the paper around to show the writing to Zayaan. Zayaan looked at it in disbelief and was sure it was Saba’s handwriting. He was also sure that she must have had her reasons for leaving this note. She wouldn’t have left just because he was bedridden as his mother is suggesting. Zayaan wanted to ask the question but he wasn’t able to, and his mother continued to talk.

“She left for Nigeria with her father. A week after they left, there was a fire at a train station in Nigeria. We got to know from Aleesha that she died in that incident. Apparently Aleesha has an acquaintance with her sister-in-law. Aleesha said that she was too burnt for anyone to recognize her.” Zeenath filled in details that broke his heart into a million pieces.

It wasn’t obvious in the first few seconds from the outside. He just lay in bed, looking at the ceiling. But as the tears rolled down from the edges of his eyes, sadness took over his face and he began to cry, more bitterly than he ever did in his entire life.