Chapter 12: The Fears of the Father

The Persian returned to his abode for a second time, chilled to the bone yet composed. Any trace of tears in his eyes had been blasted away by the driving winds. He made a point of shutting the door with more effort than usual – alerting Erika to his presence without having to shout. Firelight from the salon flickered into the hallway, and he heard the soft crackling of the timber it burned.

As Nadir prepared to round the corner, a feeling of déjà vu caused him to stagger. There had been a night like this already; a night when he had lurked in another demi-lit corridor, with Erika and his child on the other side of the wall. For a single second, he was back to that night: his stomach wanting to empty itself, his body vibrating with the onset of heartbreak...and his mind trying not, not, NOT to picture his six-year-old's throat being crushed mere yards away.

Nadir steadied himself against the door-frame, lightheaded as the traumatic memory went through him like a bullet. He recovered his wits with a long, slow breath and continued into the room. Within, he found what was the ghostly echo of that terrible night: Erika holding the still, silent body of his son to her chest. Before the claws of dread could seize him, Nadir heard the subtle squeak of the babe's breathing. The demons of paranoia were sated. Izad slept sound against the plate of Erika's bosom, just below her protruding collarbone.

Nadir tiptoed to the unoccupied armchair by the fireplace. "That was not so difficult, was it?" he whispered with a smirk, setting the wicker basket he'd returned with on the seat.

Erika rolled her eyes and shook her head. She was trying to look annoyed – he could tell – but the disfigured corner of her mouth was quirked up enough to notice. Nadir often wondered if she was aware how expressive the missing side of her face could be – for he caught her trying to hide little expressions there from time to time, when her mask wasn't on.

"He is 'not so difficult' when he's warm," she whispered back. "Perhaps you should fix that draft in your chambers? You do, after all, have a very charitable donation to pull from."

"I do, indeed," Nadir said with a nod, indicating with a gesture that he wanted to take up the baby. He re-swaddled Izad in a thick wool blanket before returning him to the cradle, hoping it may keep him comfortably asleep a while longer.

Afterward, Nadir ventured to the kitchen with his basket of cargo – in time to catch Erika tipping a half-full wine glass into the sink. "What is that?" he demanded to know.

Erika flinched when he spoke, clearly unaware he had been there. "A gulp of wine," she answered without facing him.

Nadir ran a weary palm over his beard. "Tell me you were not drinking while watching him."

"No, not a sip."

A glance to the wine rack told him a new bottle had been opened. "Then why open the chardonnay?"

Erika cocked her head to the side. "Well, I was under the impressionthat the child would not be in the flat."

He squared his jaw. "So, you were drinking."

Now Erika faced him. "Not after I realized you lied to me. Look at me. Do I look drunk to you?" She shook her head incredulously and wrung out the knotted cloth she'd had on her lap in the parlor. "Please, let's not do this now. I do not have the energy."

Nadir eyed that rag with suspicion. If she wasn't drinking, why was a glass out? Had she dipped that soother in alcohol to keep Izad docile? There mere notion set him alight. "Swear to me that you didn't drug my son."

Erika's jaw gaped open, as if hung loose from its hinges. In his haze of anger, to Nadir it seemed an expression of guilt.

"I would...I..." she stuttered, "Nadir, I would never."

"I said swear it to me." Nadir's eyes flared down at her like green fires.

The air in the room became thick around the Persian, and it choked him. When Erika bared her teeth through that mutilated, disgusting snarl, the Angel of Death once more stood before him.

"How fucking dare you!" the Angel shrieked at him. "I could kill you for saying that to me!"

Nadir ignored the Angel's wrath, walking a wide arch around her to the ice box. He nestled the basket of milk-filled bottles inside while feeling the poison of the Angel's glower seeping into his shoulders.

"Are you not going to believe me?" The Angel asked, closer than Nadir realized she was.

He shut the box and backed away, unwilling to let the Angel out of his sights. He thought he saw water building in the creature's eyes.

"Why?" she asked, the sharpness dulling on her tone. "Why are you so sure I want to hurt him?"

"Because I know you are capable of it, that is why." Nadir thought he heard those words ring out, loud and clear, in his mind. It confused him when the Angel gripped her heart. It alarmed him when the look in her eyes was that of a lamb mid-slaughter. When she sank to her knees and began quaking, it shook him from his bought of madness.

When he woke from what could only be called a waking nightmare, he realized those words...had been spoken aloud – and he could never take them back.

"Erika..." he fell to his knees at once and wrapped her in his arms, "Erika...I am so, so sorry."

But, she didn't respond. Her trembling relaxed and she fell limp, as if unconscious. Nadir prevented her from slumping over and found her eyes to still be open. Built up tears dripped from her eyes, but she made no move to dry them. Instead, her eyes lazily drifted to focus on various points in space...but they clearly were seeing nothing.

Unsure what else he could do, he carried her to his cold bedroom. He covered her in the duvet, but still she continued to look at nothing. Although it was midday, Nadir slid off his shoes to join her beneath the blanket. Erika didn't enjoy being held while falling asleep, so he contented himself to lay close beside her – only rolling over once to kiss the place where her lip disappeared into her cheekbone.

He didn't sleep. He lay watching the sky fall in white tufts outside the window, the light fading from the sun minute-after-minute. At some point, he heard Izad wake in the cradle; but the babe only made the small noises of sucking on his fists and stretching his little muscles. At last, after two silent hours, Nadir felt Erika roll over behind him.

"What time is it?" he heard her ask, her arm draping over her his middle.

"Hmm?" he feigned sleepiness. "Oh, late afternoon."

Nadir braced himself, unsure what his punishment would be for what he'd done. Whatever it was, he felt deserving of it.

Erika stretched her back and sat up. Nadir observed her from over his shoulder. She blinked slowly and glanced from wall to wall, as if confused. She turned to him and grinned.

"What time did you return?" she asked.

It took effort to not express his concerns about the matter. "Oh...two hours ago. I decided to share a snooze with you and the little one." He pretended to yawn. "He, uhm, he didn't give you any trouble, did he?"

Erika pinched her brow, as if to bring something to memory. "No...not very much. I just wish you hadn't lied to me about taking him with you."

Nadir sat up as well. He contemplated Erika for a moment, trying to decide if this was another faced of hers. Was this some warped version of forgiveness? Or...could she truly not remember?

"I know, love," he said quietly. He wanted to apologize for everything, to spill his soul and beg her to acknowledge his cruelty. "I apologize."

Erika turned and smirked at him. "You aren't going to chide me for how childish I was acting?"

"I could," he forced a chuckle out, "but what would be the point of that?"

Erika patted his shoulder. "Good man."

When she stepped out of bed, Nadir noticed how she checked the cradle...as if unsure where she had last laid the baby. "Looks like you do still remember how to sleep," she remarked to the child. Then, after a pause: "When did he last eat?"

"I...I gave him a bottle from the wet-nurse earlier," Nadir lied. He silently thanked Allah that his son had slept through that verbal bloodbath.

"She sold you entire bottles?" Erika quirked her eyebrow, subconsciously touching a breast over her robe. "God bless that woman. Nadir, be sure you pay her for that effort. But, I must ask, why not employ her here?"

Nadir hesitated to answer, afraid it would reveal if Erika's amnesia was fact or fiction. "I could not find it in myself to force a mother to abandon her own child to care for mine."

Erika replied with a soft grin. "You're a good man, Nadir."

He ground his teeth together, but hid it with a returned smile. When Erika turned her back to retrieve her day clothes from the dresser, Nadir finally broke his resolve to stay silent on the matter.

"Erika?" he called.

She turned to him with a reflexive: "Yes?"

"You know I could never hate you. You know that, don't you?"

Erika looked more perplexed than before. Nadir searched her eyes for something that wasn't there: hatred of him.

"If you hated me, you old buffoon, then why would you profess your love so often?" Erika ended the sentence with a sarcastic flip of her tangled hair.

"You're exactly right." Nadir's lips smiled, but his eyes did not. "Why would I?"

A/N: If you're reading this, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for sticking with this story despite the year-long gap between the last couple chapters. I have nothing else to say, my only excuse is depression above all else.

In other news, this story is going to have more than one part - since it's slice-of-life, it can be hard defining a "plot" to it. So, instead, I'm dividing up the life Erika and Nadir share into "archs". This arch will conclude, and the next will be it's own separate story in the series.

Anyway, thank you for reading. It means the word to a niche author like myself!