Page 55 of Quasim III: King Inferno

Putting my purse down, I stood on my toes and kissed Simmy’s face, then removed the blanket from his feet and started to rub them, kissing the top of his foot.

This had been our routine for the past week. We would have breakfast, and then we would all head out to be driven here to visit with Sim. Gams had Cherry this morning, which is why it was just me and Elijah today. Some nights, I stayed in the bedroom connected to his, but for the most part, I tried to stay with Elijah and make things as normal as possible. My prioritywas to prevent him from having a nervous breakdown again. It was the reason I avoided crying in front of him because I knew it would trigger him.

“Mom, do you think we can have chicken for dinner?” Elijah asked while pulling his iPad out of his bag.

My heart swooned whenever he called memom. It was like he had always called me this, and it was meant for him to call me his mom. I’ve been called everything from Blair, B, and now Queen, but the namemomwas something I never thought I would ever be called. That moment had been robbed from me, and I just knew it would never happen.

I laughed. “Are you hungry already, Elijah?”

“Not yet… I reallyreallywant wings.”

I turned with my hand on my hip and looked at him. “You know what… I think the baby wants wings too, baby.”

He smiled. “Hot wings?”

“Um, no… you acted like Jean poisoned you when she gave you some pepper pot.”

Elijah smiled sheepishly. “I wasn’t prepared.”

“Boy bye,” I snickered, and went back to massaging Sim’s feet, and paused when his toes wiggled. I shook it off and chalked it up to my lack of sleep and no coffee this morning.

I grabbed the lotion from the side table and rubbed it into my hands to warm it before massaging it into his skin. That’s when I noticed his toes wiggle again and paused. “I’m not tripping… his feet are moving.” I whispered to myself as my eyes slowly looked up, and he was staring right at me.

“His eyes are open, Mom!” Elijah screamed before I could form a sentence and say anything.

Elijah tossed that iPad like a bad habit and rushed over toward the bed. I dropped the lotion and ran to his side of the bed while tears fell down my face. His tubes and IVs were stillin him, but I didn’t give a damn about that. I kissed his cheek, nearly climbing into the bed with him.

“Simmy… you’re awake. God, thank you… you were listening to me,” I sobbed as I caressed the side of his face.

Elijah stood on the lever on the bed that was red and said not to touch to get closer to him. “Dad, you came back for me…. you never break a promise, right?” He was trying to climb in Sim’s skin with how close he was trying to get to him.

My chest ached, hearing what Simmy always told us. He always promised that he would never break a promise to us, and he didn’t break one promise to us both.

“Careful, Elijah… we have to be careful,” my voice cracked.

He moved his hand, and then I watched as he put it on my stomach as a tear fell down the sides of his face. Sim rubbed my stomach with the back of his hand as he stared into my eyes.

“You kept your promise, Simmy.”

I watched as he moved his hand and touched Elijah’s wet face. We were both in tears, and didn’t know what to do or say. “I’m going to get the doctor!” Elijah jumped down from the bed and took off running out the room.

His hand roped around my waist, and he pulled me closer to him. It wasn’t a strong grip like usual, but it was enough to move me closer to the bed.

Dr. Ramos came running into the room with Elijah behind him, as if he had given up hope and thought we would have to make the decision to remove him from the ventilators. He slowed down once he made it into the room and stared at Quasim.

“I don’t know why I ever doubted that you would come out of this.” He said and came closer to him.

We remained quiet as Ramos did a series of mini exams like shining his small light into his eyes, which pissed him off. The look of death he gave Ramos made me and Elijah laugh. “Can we remove the tube from his mouth so we can hear him talk?”

I wanted that tube removed so I could hear his voice. I needed to hear his voice for all of this to be real for me. Me and Elijah both held onto the bed, waiting for the doctor to give us news.

News we both desperately needed to hear. “We will slowly wean him off and see how he does with independent breathing. If he’s breathing well on his own, we will remove it.”

Quasim looked from the doctor to me and squeezed my hand. The tears still fell down his eyes, as I stared at him.

“Okay,” I whispered, squeezing his hand back.

“We’ll also run some more tests on him… we want to make sure he hasn’t suffered any brain damage or anything of the sort from being unconscious.” Ramos continued to explain, as I kept my eyes on my husband.

---