“I wonder how Abdi feels in that environment.”
“Depends how they treat him, I suppose. I think the story about the friendship issue being resolved sounds too good to be true.”
“What makes you think he was lying?”
“I think he believed what he was saying. I expect our Mr. Jacobson sat the boys down, metaphorically banged their heads together, and figured that he’d done enough. They were probably smart enough to tell him everything was fine if he checked up on them again.”
“He’s a big bloke.”
“Yeah. I’d tell him everything was fine if I was a nerdy fifteen-year-old.”
It’s got me thinking.
“Any progress on getting an appointment to speak with Noah’s therapist?”
“I’ll contact the Sadlers first thing,” Woodley says.
“No. Contact the hospital directly. Let’s see if we can get a conversation without the parents’ involvement. A subjective opinion of Noah would be useful.”
It’s a very long shot, because I expect the Sadlers will have to be notified, and I’m not even sure the therapist will tell us anything at all, but I think it’s worth a try.
Nur Mahad needs to sleep after his night shift, but he can’t. He and Maryam sit together in their kitchen at the small table. Between them is the iPad.
He knows that the recording has destabilized Maryam, and he’s afraid for her.
She has two fears that overshadow all others.
The first is that their past will revisit them, and the second is that her children will become strangers to her in this country. Her fears are at the root of her complex relationship with Abdi. He delights his mother at some moments, but she finds it hard to love him at others, and it’s been that way since she entered the UK with him bound to her body.
Her inability to bond with him meant that Nur and Sofia spent many hours holding the baby and playing with him, because Maryam often felt unable to. When they first settled in the UK, she took to her bed, swathed in depression for a long time and gripped by what Sofia once told Nur she thought was PTSD.
For her, Abdi represented the transition from one country to another, the journey from war to peace, and all of the hope and fear. He was also an unknown quantity: the boy who shouldn’t have been born after all the miscarriages, and the fact of him was too much for her to handle at first. It had got better as he got older and began to shine and to smile. He cracked open her heart, eventually, but if she’s honest, a small part of Maryam has remained wary of him.
What she can’t forget is that Abdi saw her faint at the Welcome Center. He was standing just a few feet away from her when it happened.
She fainted because she looked into the face of a man she thought she knew from a long time ago. The effect of seeing him was instant: Her legs gave out, her consciousness departed. When she came around, the man was gone, and nobody else seemed to have noticed him or thought him remarkable. She thought the incident had passed until now. Because Abdi has recorded himself talking to Ed Sadler about a man who sounds similar.
But she can’t understand how Abdi’s made the connection that could break them apart.
“Do you think he overheard us talking last week?” Maryam asks Nur.
She’s referring to the nightmare she had on the night she fainted. How the man returned to her in a dream and she woke in terror. Nur comforted her and they whispered into the night, discussing the incident, rationalizing that Maryam couldn’t possibly have seen the person she thought she had.
“I’m sure he was asleep,” Nur says. “I’m sure.”
“I can’t remember if we said too much. What did we say?”
“We were careful. I’m sure we were.” He can’t remember exactly what they said either, only the terror in his wife’s eyes when he woke her from the nightmare and reminded her that they were safe, and then the long minutes it took for her heart rate and her breathing to slow.
Maryam has a feeling they said enough, but she keeps this to herself. Nur murmurs more reassurances into the silence: “It will be all right. Don’t be spooked.”
He yawns, once, twice.
“You need to sleep,” she tells him.
Usually Nur naps in Abdi’s bedroom when he’s done a night shift, but as that’s not possible today, he settles down on the sofa. He falls asleep quickly and Maryam places a blanket over him.
In the kitchen she looks at the iPad and then plays the recording again. When it’s finished, she makes a few swipes and jabs across the screen.
She deletes it.
She doesn’t want it to exist. It feels too much like a bad omen.
What were you doing?” Abdi said as we crouched on the steps beside the cathedral. “That was really stupid.”
Noah’s Bucket List Item No. 10: Do something reckless. On purpose. Dad was surprisingly okay with this one—I think because he’s super reckless—and I don’t think he thought I had it in me to do anything this mad.
If I’d had the strength to, I would have said, “Shut up!” to Abdi, but I was still gasping for breath.
“We shouldn’t be here,” he said. “You should be at home.”
“No! Come on. Please, let’s just go. We’re nearly there.”
When I finally caught my breath and stopped trembling, we carried on down the steps and crossed over the road into Millennium Square, where the lights were bright and the gigantic mirror ball that is a planetarium inside looked amazing. We sat down for a bit because I was still panting. It felt much safer there.
“Noah . . .”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re not.”
“Really, I am.”
I had a packet of dextrose tablets in my pocket. I ate three and offered him the packet. His fingers felt chilly when he took it from me. It was time to move.
“We should be taking photos!” I said. “We should make a record of our expedition.”
We took selfies with my phone in front of the planetarium, in front of the water feature even though it was turned off, and then with our arms around the Cary Grant statue.
As we walked out of the square I said to Abdi: “Close your eyes.”
He gave me a look, but I insisted. I took his hand.
“I’ll lead you,” I said. I pulled him around the corner and then got behind him and walked him forward with my hands on his shoulders until he was in just the right place to get a glimpse of it.
“Open your eyes,” I said.
Pero’s Bridge didn’t disappoint.