With no client jobs listed on the schedule board, Rashid’s day would be filled with routine maintenance around the base. He fished his phone out of the pocket of his coveralls, dialed Ali’s number. “Salaam aleikum,” he said perfunctorily. “Ali, did I see you at my house yesterday?” He looked around to be sure he was alone. “How do you know where I live?” He fiddled nervously with the spare rubber o-rings in his pocket as he listened. “My brother?... Look I don’t understand what you’re doing, but I don’t want you anywhere near my wife and children.” He listened for a long time and restlessly kicked his steel-toed boots against the floor. Finally he spoke again. “Whatever I decide to do, you don’t ever mention my family again…Yes, it is still my decision.”
Kathryn returned to her desk, skimmed through the latest updates from Jane’s Defense Weekly, the Economist Intelligence Unit. These might have included a mention of a drone attack, but foreign names would be included only if they controlled ministries, wielded power with opposition forces or invested significantly in industry or technology. She discretely felt her breasts. Four hours had passed since she nursed Andrew. She would have to pump. She stood up and closed her door, turned off her computer screen, so she could ignore the news of distant conflicts. A quick swivel of her chair allowed her a view of the small courtyard where colleagues sometimes went to smoke amidst the giant planters of well-tended shrubs and flowers.
She lifted her sweater and began the familiar process. Tiny jets of milk filled the baby bottle in her hand. She gazed out the window. No one had ever explained to her the slavish commitment required to feed a baby. Without fail, she had produced milk at regular intervals—never more than six hours apart—to a being who could not even form a single word to ask for it.
The phone on her desk rang, and she paused for a minute, irritated at the disturbance. She hit the little orange button. “Hello, this is Kathryn Siddique,” she said mustering up her most professional demeanor.
“Kathryn, it’s me. Rashid,” his words sounded clipped, rushed.
“Rashid,” she said relieved, “Where are you?”
“Where are you?”
“What do you mean? You called me at my office.” She screwed the top on the bottle of milk—still warm from her body—and pulled her sweater down. “What’s happening?
“Are you pumping?”
“Yeah, why?”
“In your office?”
“Rashid,” her tone rose, “I always pump in my office.”
“Why is your fucking shade open?” he sounded almost panicked.
Kathryn looked at the blinds she never closed. Beyond the window a young man picked at leaves from the shrub next to him, seemed to look directly at her. She pulled the little metal chain to draw the blinds across the window. “Why are you asking me this Rashid?”
“Goddammit, Kathryn, you don’t have to do everything out in the open.”
“Don’t start,” she lowered her voice to an angry whisper, “don’t lecture me, I’m at the office, doing my job, and being a mother, and trying to handle what’s going on with you. What more do you want from me?”
He exhaled, thinking angrily of the text Ali had just sent him. How dare he mention his son’s mother’s milk? “Just keep your blinds closed. Be careful Kathryn.”
“Of what?” She pulled back the blinds, on the now empty courtyard.
“Kathryn, I love you.”
“I love you too,” she said, puzzled. “That’s not the point here.”
“I’ll see you at home.”
With a jagged sense of incompleteness she zipped up the thermal lunch bag with the bottles of her milk inside.
Rashid pressed the buzzer on the intercom outside Michael’s school, grateful for the locked door protecting his son. He looked into the security camera, heard the buzz as the door unlocked. He practically bolted inside the school.
He looked anxiously around Michael’s classroom until he recognized his dark-haired son. “Michael,” he called out, oblivious about whether or not he was interrupting. Michael hesitated, surprised to see his father before the end of the school day. “Why are you here?” he asked.
“To…pick you up,” Rashid sounded unconvinced of his own reason. He gestured with his hands to coax Michael toward him. “We’re letting your Mummy finish her work. Chelo beta, come, hurry. Let’s get your things and go and pick up your baby brother.”
“And Mummy will come home?”
“Of course.” Michael ran into his father’s arms and wouldn’t let go. Rashid held Michael tightly, relieved.
“I like it best when we’re all together,” Michael said, pulling on his father’s earlobe, smelling his familiar musky perfume.
“Hmm,” Rashid affirmed. “Family’s the most important thing. We all feel better when we’re with our parents, isn’t it?”
“Hi,” Kathryn said cheerfully into her phone. “What’s up?”
“Um…the client has called in a big offshore job,” Rashid said. “It could be five or six days that I’m away.”
“Again?” she groaned. “You’ll miss the parent-teacher conferences on Tuesday.”
“Can you go by yourself?”
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“This is a big job, the bonus should be good,” he didn’t sound convinced.
She sighed with resignation. “I’ll miss you.”
“Wish me luck,” he said distractedly. And with a businesslike tone, “I have to come home for extra coveralls. I can stop at the store first, do you need anything? Milk, eggs, anything?”
She rattled off a handful of items. “Thanks for taking care of that, for taking care of us,” she said.
“Oh God,” he sighed, “I’m trying.”