RUWAIDA ✔️

CHAPTER FORTY

A baby-pink painted bedroom. Hung on the walls were counterfeit plants in small attractive clay jardiniere, then some few cartoon characters atop the P.O.P, just right for a growing little Princess. Zainab smiled as she tucked the girl into bed then sat beside her laid frame, the beautiful shawl on her hair hung loosely over her left shoulder and she chanted the night duas softly.

On the table near the bed sprawled around the girl's toys, crayons and some white papers which weren't white anymore. She'd made so many attempted drawings of her and her mother. Her family. Zainab smiled at the girl's creativity. She looked over at the girl once again, and she, she felt pride swirl in her heart. Keeping Leila was the best decision she'd ever make!

She arranged the table, walked to the door and switched the lights before she exited. Instead of her to sleep too, she sat down alone in the living room, in the radiance of the faint lightening.

Her eyes descended on the laptop she'd left on while getting her daughter ready for bed, and her face became more serious than before.

'Being able to make a change...means being at the top Aabu'

Her hands reached for the bridge of her nose and she huffed a tired breath. When would she stop relating happenings to her mother's wise words? She knew what her answer might be.

It would be impossible to erase the teachings and principles which her mother instilled in her. But behold...seemed she was the only one who knew how much she'd never drag those teachings in the mud. One mistake, and everyone judged her; one decision and she'd been disowned.

She pushed her head backwards and hit the edge of the black sofa in an attempt to dismiss her depressing thoughts. The cotton shawl on her hair was toppling off and she held onto it, took up the laptop and went to her room, adjacent to that of Leila.

'When you find something right
And it keeps you happy,
Aabu hold onto it'

She closed the laptop with great force then laid down, but as always she wasn't able to sleep, not that she'd care, but then, surprisingly...that night something else appeared to keep her awake. Revolving here and there in her mind.

Ruwaida Mahmoud

She sprang up on the bed, brooding over Dr Muhammad and his wife's last visit to her office. She looked around the room without a course. She'd never felt such attachment with any of her patients before.

Again, she dragged her laptop and brought it to her laps, soon, talking to one of her college mate over her Skype application.

The video call went in instantly and she heard a feast of shuffling in the background. "Do you have to call me this early? Oh- forgot the time is quite different," the small voice hoarsely spoke, then appeared over the screen.

"Yeah it is," Zainab laughed at her friend's bushy hair. "Quite late here too,"

"I see...so what's up? You don't just call me anymore...," the young woman joked, even tho, there was much truth to it, but Zainab had her reasons for not keeping in touch. They both knew she couldn't. It was impractical to bury memories, but better for the heart to stay away from that which brings them back; afresh.

"Tasha you're an oncologist and that, a great one...I need your help,"

"Sure bruh! whatcu need?," Tasha adjusted her phone and sat properly, all signs of sleep leaving her system instantly.

"I'm sending you some transcripts of a leukemia patient's medication records...if feasible, I would like to know the therapeutics that could possibly work at her stage of cell overgrowth,"