As summer began to rear its head my Arabic began to improve. It was a weird feeling. I’d never done well in school, was never good at learning, but I guess having a hot teacher helped.

When I could speak ‘as well as a four-year-old’ Ayamin dragged me to the hospital and stood me in front of Grandma Teete. 

‘Teete,’ I said, ‘Yo’borneh jamelik.’

The old woman gave a delighted snort of laughter, then coughed, then clapped her hands and said three words in Arabic over and over. 

Ayamin’s face went red.

‘I don’t know that one,’ I said to Ayamin, ‘What does it mean?’

She shook her head, ‘It was a joke.’ Teete laughed even harder. 

‘Can you translate it?’

But she wouldn’t. Instead, she picked up her novel, and held it close to her face so it covered her cheeks, ‘We’re almost through Two Hearts in the French Night, I thought maybe we could do an extra reading session today.’ When I looked at Teete, the old woman winked.

Ayamin read, and as she did the brightness on her cheeks calmed down.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy,’ Rudy told her.

‘I know… there’s something special about this town.’ 

Rudy shook his head, his thumb moved to Samantha’s cheek, ‘There’s something special about you.’

After she’d read two chapters, Ayamin closed the book and looked from Teete to me. 

‘Do you want to come over for some tea?’ she asked without looking at me. 

I looked around to see if the hospital staff were watching. I still had two hours left in the day, but as far as I could tell there were no messages that needed delivering. 

‘Let’s do it.’

She gave her grandma a kiss on the cheek and flicked her head, ‘Come on Danny-boy.’

I said goodbye to Teete in Arabic and watched her laugh, she had the sort of laugh that doesn’t hold back, loud and proud, only once again her laugh turned into a cough, she pulled tissues from the box beside her and coughed into them. Little drops of red began to soak through. She tried to throw the used tissues into a plastic white bin beside her bed, but they bounced out. The bin already had a small mountain of tissues inside of it. Each of the crumpled white sheets of paper had the same bright red stain on them.