That much was true. She’d showered again over the Atlantic, not wanting her hair to be tangled or to smell like sex when she got to the hospital. It made her feel marginally more human, to accept the reality of the situation spinning out around her.
Her mother frowned, finally noticing that her husband wasn’t with her. “And where is Bahan?”
“He’s…we had a fight.”
“I don’t understand.”
She sighed and hugged her mother tightly one more time. “I don’t know if I do either.”
“Is he still in Paris?”
“He had sudden business come up in Yemen.”
Her mother pulled away and narrowed her sharp blue eyes at Jennifer. “Really?”
“Don’t you want that bath now, Mom?”
“Yes, but don’t think we won’t be talking about your missing husband more. I’m very disappointed in Bahan. He’s been so caring and generous so far. This doesn’t feel like him at all.”
She didn’t say anything as they entered her sister’s room. It felt like a hot poker searing her heart to see Sydney’s pale form laid out on the bed. Her face was the only part of her skin poking out from under her blankets, and it was as pale as a ghost. Her eyes didn’t even flutter under her eyelids, and the huge plastic tubes were pushing down into her mouth. Sydney was lost in wires as well, a mass of them plugged in around her heart to help monitor its slow but steady beat.
Jennifer stumbled and almost tripped into a chair.
“Honey,” her mother said, “are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, resettling herself and reaching out to hold her younger sister’s hand. It wasn’t cold but it felt so tiny and frail in her own, and she’d have given anything she had if she could take her younger sister’s place.
Anything.
Her mom offered a hesitant smile before scooting to the bathroom, and as shallow as it seemed, Jennifer was glad. She needed a few minutes to absorb the shock of seeing her daughter so still and pallid. If she could just steel herself, gird herself against the crushing waves of sadness, then she could be the pillar of strength that her mother needed.
Come on, Jennifer, get it together.
Squeezing her sister’s hand, she also reached up and stroked Sydney’s soft, golden bangs back from her face.
“You’re going to need a haircut soon, kiddo. You wake up from this and you’re going to hate us because your bob is so growing out. No, when. You are going to wake up from this,” she said, forcing the sadness out of her voice. “I’ll so kick your ass if you don’t.”
There was no answer, of course, but sometimes she just had to treat Syd like the bratty little sister she could be.
Just one hint of normalcy wasn’t too much to ask, was it?
“I love you,” she said, kissing her sister’s forehead. “You have to come back to me.”
Chapter Eleven
The next two weeks were the longest of her life. At first, Bahan called and e-mailed her daily. Jennifer sent those e-mails directly to spam, but once or twice she played the voice mails. He didn’t beg or sound desperate. A sheikh as commanding as Bahan Munir would never do that. But he did sound a bit scared, not for himself or their future, but for her and Syd. Jennifer texted him after the first week and promised she’d have Rose contact his secretary daily with updates and that, of course, he had complete permission to speak to the treatment team. She’d signed all the papers for that. But with her sister’s life at risk and their fight huge still lingering in her mind, she couldn’t speak to him.
He checked in with Rose and the doctors every day and gave his best wishes and any extra funding that Sydney needed. He even stopped calling her, following her wishes.
The thing about their fight that haunted her the most were his words. He had stated the truth. That had to be why it burned so deeply, because there was nothing she could do deep in her soul to tell herself he’d just made it up. She was scared. After her father’s and then Dustin’s betrayal, how could she not be? But this time she had struck first, and if Bahan hated her for all eternity, then Jennifer couldn’t blame him.
Sighing, she picked her book back up and started to flip through the pages. Her sister had always loved Harry Potter. It had never been her cup of tea. Sure, she’d seen the movies. Who hadn’t? Still, it wasn’t something she liked reading, although Jennifer wished she had a magical wand right now. She would wave it and say a few words of Latin and then make everything better. Maybe Harry couldn’t solve all his problems like that—he certainly couldn’t banish Voldemort in one go—but she wondered if there were magic or a totem or anything that could just wake her sister up. God, she wished that much magic actually existed in the everyday world.
“Well, let’s see. I think that he was about to fly in his first Quidditch match. Do you think it’s going to go alright?” she asked, winking at her sister and pretending for her own sake that poor Syd could react. As she focused on the words before her, she heard a knock on the doorframe. Looking up, she offered her broadest and most forced smile to her mother. “Hey, Mom, we’re managing just fine,” she said, wishing that Syd could reply and it wasn’t just the droning of her machines.
“I think we need to talk, sweetheart,” she said, pulling a chair up next to Jennifer. “You’re miserable.”
“How could anyone be happy? Dr. Singal says that she’s stable in the coma and she might recover, but he doesn’t know when or for certain.” Jennifer halted for a minute to take in a few deep breaths. It got harder as each day passed to keep her voice level and her smiley face up for her mother. “I just feel so awful.”