A Secret Birthright

“You know better than to try to appeal to my ego, Father.”

“No, you’re right. What I wish is irrelevant. In matters of state, it always is. I hope Abbas will come around when it’s time for him to take my place. He might not think so, but he’d make a formidable king. While you are more beneficial to Jizaan and the world being who you are, where you are.”

“We’re not talking matters of state here. I mean it, Father. I won’t let you near Ryan.”

“But it’s not up to you.” He turned to Gwen. “I would see my grandson now, ya marat ebni.”

At hearing his father calling her “my son’s wife,” Gwen’s eyes filled.

Fareed stopped her as she moved. “You don’t have to.”

Those eyes that were his world glittered with too much that they took his breath away. “He has more right to Ryan than I do.”

“That’s not true,” he gritted. “You are his mother.”

Twin tears slithered down her face as she tore her gaze away and hurried out of the room.

He stood glaring at his father as they waited for her to come back. She did in minutes, hugging a flushed-with-sleep Ryan.

At the sight of him, Ryan perked up with the smiles and sounds he bestowed on no one else. He was endlessly thankful for that, for he did love Ryan as if he were his own.

Then Ryan realized Gwen was taking him elsewhere and turned to investigate his new destination.

Ryan blinked and looked back at Fareed as if to make sure he hadn’t teleported.

Fareed’s jaw bunched. Surely Ryan didn’t think he resembled his father that much? And even if they did share much of their looks, he couldn’t possibly feel the same vibes from him!

Next moment, Ryan buried his face into Gwen’s bosom.

That was more like it.

Before satisfaction seethed inside Fareed’s chest, he saw Ryan peeking shyly, inquisitively, interestedly at his father from the depths of Gwen’s chest, and his tension roared back.

His father spoke, his voice rough with emotion, “Ya Ullah, this is Hesham as an infant all over again.”

“That’s not true,” Fareed hissed. “Ryan is a replica of Gwen…of her sister, his mother.”

His father turned to him with dazed eyes shimmering with what suspiciously looked like tears. “His coloring is throwing you off and that dimpled chin. But I am the one who hung on Hesham’s every detail from birth. He has his same bone structure, the shape of his features. And wait until his hair grows out. It will be the exact color and curl as Hesham’s. He’ll also be like his father in many other ways. Isn’t that right, ya ebni?”

Ryan squirmed excitedly in Gwen’s arms as if he understood what the king was saying, and that he’d called him “my son.” Then the king reached out to him, and with one last look at Gwen and Fareed, as if he was asking their permission, Ryan reached back.

Fareed’s mind almost snapped when a tiny whimper escaped Gwen as she let Ryan go. He was about to snatch him back when her hand on his arm stopped him. He wouldn’t have stopped if he’d seen dread filling her eyes. But what he saw there…it was something truly feminine, knowing, almost…serene.

He stood beside her, confounded, watched his father caress Ryan, murmur things for his ears only, what Ryan clearly liked.

When the introduction between child and grandfather seemed concluded, and they seemed to have come to an understanding, Ryan made his wish to be held by Fareed clear.

Fareed took him, feeling as if he was returning his own heart to his chest.

Silence reigned for endless moments.

His father finally let out a shuddering exhalation. “I have been more than half-mad since I lost my Kareemah.” He looked at Fareed. “You might now realize how it was for me.”

Fareed grudgingly had to concede that. If he lost Gwen…

He couldn’t even think of it.

“Is that your excuse for what you did to her son and yours?”

“I thought I was honoring her memory, making her son my heir. But I wasn’t sane most of the time. Not when it came to Hesham. He had too much of her, inspired in me the same overwhelming emotions.” Suddenly his father seemed to let go of the invincibility he cloaked himself in, seemed to age twenty years over his sixty-five. “Now it’s too late to right my wrongs. I’m the reason he’s lost.”

Gwen took an urgent step toward him, her eyes anxious, adamant. “You may be the reason for many things, but not that, Your Majesty. Never blame yourself for that. The accident that cost you your son, cost Fareed his brother and me my sister, was an act of blind fate. But I want you to know Hesham and Lyn didn’t live in fear. While Hesham took hiding to unbelievable lengths, he and Lyn soon approached it all as an adventure, one they included me in. I never saw anyone more in love or delighted with every second they had together. The shadow of separation only made them appreciate every breath they had of each other. So in a way, you were to thank for the extraordinary relationship they had.”

His father swayed and reached for the nearest chair, only to collapse in it, dropping his head into his hands.

Fareed stood frozen, watching this unprecedented sign that his father was human.

He finally raised reddened eyes, looking at Gwen. “I wish I could have met your mother, ya bnayti.” Gwen started at hearing him call her “my daughter.” “She must have been a remarkable woman to raise not only you, a woman who possesses such generosity, you’d offer me this absolution, this solace, after the injustices I dealt you and yours, but to raise two women who had my most fastidious sons think their lives are a small price to pay to have them. That was the kind of woman my Kareemah was. I hope she had a man worship her as she deserved, as I worshiped my Kareemah.”

Gwen shook her head, her eyes as red. “Regretfully, no. Our father took off while she was still pregnant with Marilyn. She raised us alone until an accident in the factory she worked in left her paralyzed from the waist down. She died from the complications of a spinal surgery years later, with only me and Marilyn with her. We changed our names to McNeal, her maiden name, because she was our only parent, our whole family.”

Those were more shocking revelations to Fareed. More insights illuminating Gwen’s life and character and choices.

“Your father had better be dead, too, or I will avenge her,” his father rumbled as he rose.

Gwen started in alarm. “Oh, no. He’s not worth it.” Then she gave him a tremulous smile. “And then Mom always said it was the best thing that happened to all of us that he walked. She was happy without him. We were happy together. What happened afterward…blind fate was again to blame.”