Come Back To Me Read Online Free

chest as she shrieked, flailing her arms, trying to beat away the news she couldn’t bear to accept.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “He’s gone.”
     
    Iraq
     
    The man lay before Suha on the cleanest blankets they could find, his head just inches from the dune wall. Without running water, cleaning wounds well was nearly impossible, and she worried infection was inevitable. The trek to the river and back would take nearly a day, and it was dangerous. But what could she do? She and Samira could not go back. They would not go back, not even to save the life of the American man who lay before her. She glanced behind her at the two sleeping children: Edham, who, at seven had begun sucking his thumb again. His flawless face looked so peaceful that it brought a prayer of safety to Suha’s lips. His younger sister, Athra, lay curled against his back, her own little thumb tucked deep into her mouth. The sight of sweet Athra renewed Suha’s strength. She knew the terror that lay behind them, and she couldn’t fathom the thought of Athra being exposed to those dangers.
    When she looked at Samira, she found it difficult to look away, she was so beautiful—and yet so full of anguish. Her eyes held horrors beyond her twenty-two years. Suha listened to Samira’s hushed argument with her nine-year-old son. Zeid, the mirror image of his wretched father, Safaa, argued daily with his mother. He wanted to go back to their home, back to the fighting, and stand up for his country. He was as fierce as he was intelligent and belligerent.  Suha shook her head. That boy would be the death of them all, as uncontrollable and angry as he was. Suha knew what she had to do, and she was petrified; not of telling the child what to do, but of what the child might choose to do once outside the confines of their tent. Zeid held all of their lives in his hands, and if he chose to go off on his own, they’d surely be killed—or worse.
    Suha spoke in a harsh tone to Zeid, hoping his respect for his elders would take over his misguided youth. “Stop arguing with your mother, the woman who bore you, fed you, changed your rancid diapers.” She told him that he was despicable, the way he talked back to his mother.  A mother, she said, was the soul of the Earth, to be respected and praised. Suha unloaded her misdirected anger at their situation on the boy, and couldn’t help but set his loyalties straight. “Iraqi men are mistaken in their abhorrent treatment of women! If not for women, the men would not exist!” she spat.
    Zeid’s jaw dropped open. He’d never heard a woman speak in such a way about men. If his father were there, he advised Suha, he’d put her in her place.
    Suha approached the slender boy, his eyes as large as hard-boiled eggs, his short dark hair rising in unwieldy sprouts from weeks without a proper cut. She loomed her ample body above him, knowing it would cause him discomfort, and she told him, in an even, stern voice, “Your father was not a man at all. He was a pathetic coward of a man who abused women to make his small manhood appear larger.”
    “Suha!” Samira was quick to her feet, placing her body between Suha and Zeid. “Do not say such dreadful things about his father.” Though her words were strong, her voice betrayed her, trailing off at the end, sounding weak and unsure.
    “You speak those words out of habit,” Suha implored. “That man beat you. He used you like a dirty rag and left you to bleed to death.”
    Samira took Zeid by the arm and dragged him to the far corner of their shelter, away from the ugly words Suha spoke.
    “You will not go back—ever. You have seen the abuse by your papa. Think of your sister. It is your job to protect her,” Samira ordered.
    Zeid stared at her with hardened eyes. His father had spoken of his role as the protector, but he’d also seen the treacherous treatment of his mother and other women at the hand of his father. It had plucked at the recesses of his mind when