Darkness is dissolving over the city, lingering only in pockets, as the Mahad family arrives at the accident and emergency department at Bristol Royal Infirmary.
They have very little information, no more than a scant outline of what’s happened to Abdi.
The officers accompanying the Mahads greet two colleagues outside the rear entrance to A&E. They’re speaking to a man who has his back against the wall and blood matted in his hair. He’s sucking hard on a cigarette. He’s talking about salvation. Half of his face is in darkness, but a caged light fixture throws out just enough of a glow to show Sofia that his pupils are pinpricks. When he catches sight of Maryam, his agitation increases.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” he says. “They wear them dresses so they can hide bombs under them.” He lurches toward the Mahads. “You can go back to your fucking country! You’re ISIS, you fucking terrorists!”
The officers react instantly, containing him, but not before a gob of his spit has landed near Sofia’s feet.
Nur stands between his family and the man and ushers the women into the hospital. His face is perfectly composed, though his chest heaves. He knows that these are the words of an ignorant and almost certainly crazy man, but they still wound.
Inside, the waiting area is filled with rows of chairs arranged in an airport configuration so the injured and unwell can pass the time by eyeballing each other. The police officers make sure the family bypasses the queue at the reception desk. A nurse takes them down a narrow corridor where there are bays containing beds, each with a curtain at one end that offers scant privacy.
A police officer stands at the entrance to one of the bays, mainlining takeout coffee. He steps aside so the Mahads can slip past the drawn curtain.
Abdi lies in bed. He looks at his family, yet he seems not to see them.
His parents and sister search his face for clues as to what he’s been through, and find nothing to reassure them. He hardly resembles the boy they love.
There’s no animation in his face, no spark of life in his eyes, no twitching of the muscles around his mouth to hint that he’s about to smile or gently tease. He’s withdrawn to a place that’s blank and still.
At the sight of him, Maryam feels fear flap darkly inside her. She doesn’t dare look at Nur in case she sees her mounting sense of dread mirrored in his expression.
“Oh, Abdi,” she murmurs.
Sofia watches her mother lean in toward Abdi and place her cheek against his. She sees how Maryam tries to embrace him fully, but Abdi does nothing to reciprocate. Maryam withdraws and takes his hand instead. Sofia thinks there’s a strange energy between them.
The space around the bed is cramped, but Sofia and Nur shuffle around each other so that they can try to embrace Abdi, too. He responds to neither of them. Both think that he feels somehow rigid yet not really there. They shuffle back, and stand awkwardly around the bed, trying to not stare, not knowing what to do or where to put themselves.
Sofia watches her mother for a cue, because Maryam often sets the emotional tone in their family. Sofia’s not sure whether their mother will question Abdi, chide him, or tuck the blankets up around him and stroke his forehead. She expects Maryam to do one, if not all, of those things. She thinks of her mother’s love as a soft rain. It drenches gently, and when it’s warm, it’s the most gorgeous feeling in the world. When it’s cold, not so much. Either way, Sofia experiences Maryam’s love as intense and unwavering.
Maryam stares at her son for what feels like a long time. She looks to Nur, and reading her silent request, he takes her place at Abdi’s bedside.
“Abdi, we’re here for you. Whatever happened, you can tell us about it.”
He runs the back of his fingers gently across the boy’s temple.
Abdi flinches and moves his head across the pillow.
Sofia feels the prickling of tears. She thinks she would probably rather see Abdi physically injured than in this state.
“It’s okay,” Nur tells him. “It will be okay. Nobody will be angry.”
Abdi shuts his eyes.
Nur persists. “Abdi, can you tell me what happened?”
Nothing. Sofia can hardly bear to watch.
In the bay next door, a doctor’s treating somebody, and she tunes in to and out of their conversation.
“Why did you do it?” the doctor asks. He gets a mumbled response from his patient that Sofia can’t quite hear through the partition.
“Abdi.” Nur won’t give up. It’s killing him that Abdi’s unresponsive. He shakes the boy’s shoulder gently and Abdi rolls onto his side, turning his back.
“Why?” The doctor’s voice is raised in the bay next door.
Nur looks at Maryam and she shrugs. She doesn’t know what to do to get through to Abdi, either. Her hand covers her mouth.
“Why did you do it?” the doctor says again. “Tell me why you did it.”
It must be a suicide attempt, Sofia thinks. It’s unbearable to listen to. No wonder Abdi’s in such a state. He shouldn’t be here.
As Nur makes another attempt to get Abdi to talk, Sofia whisks back the curtain, surprising the police officer outside.
“Why is my brother here?” she demands, her shyness forgotten as she thinks only of getting Abdi home. “This is the wrong place for him to be treated. He should be at the Children’s Hospital. He’s only fifteen.”
“The only ID we found on him was a library card, so if he won’t talk to us, we can’t know his age,” the officer says. A strip light flickers above them. “We had to guess, so we assumed sixteen or over because he’s a big lad.”
Sofia doesn’t really care what the explanation is. She wants action.
“Well, he’s fifteen, and we’d like to take him home.” She’s convinced that Abdi’s in shock, that he’ll talk to them and become a more recognizable version of himself again if they can just get him out of here.
She waits for the doctor to come out of the bay next door and presses him for an update on Abdi.
“He checks out fine physically,” the doctor says, stripping off a pair of bloodstained gloves and tossing them. “But we think he could be suffering from shock. You can take him home, but you’ll need to make sure he’s warm and comfortable and keep an eye on him.”
“Has he said anything at all since he’s been here?”
She thinks of the way Abdi behaved when he came to meet her after one of her days on placement at this hospital. There was nobody on the ward he didn’t greet effusively. No hand he didn’t shake and no end to the questions he asked the consultant who took the time to chat with them.
“I don’t believe so. It’s possible he’s suffering some kind of emotional trauma relating to what he’s witnessed.” The doctor seems to take pity on her, throws her a bone. “Resting up at home will certainly be better for him than being here.”