Favored By Her Father

It had been a full month since Anippe had become sick and she showed no signs of getting better. Her health was declining. There was a never-ending parade of doctors in my house. Papa had sent me the best physicians from the palace and brought in doctors from other countries. They argued over methods and medicine. Some chanted, some sought to purify her and others began tinkering with something they called 'science'.

Once I had gotten so frustrated with their arguments and debates that I had sent them away, telling them they could settle their opinions in the hall or courtyard, anywhere but the nursery where my daughter lay ill.

Currently an Egyptian doctor wanted to give Anippe a potion containing 'willow bark' while a foreign doctor argued against it, claiming he did not know the properties of such an ingredient. The two bickered back and forth until I could finally stand it no longer.

"Enough!" I cried, "Tell me, good doctor, has this potion had a high success rate?"

"Yes, my lady," he replied. "We use it to bring down fevers and it almost always works."

"Then give it to her," I said. I trusted the doctors to know what they were doing, for the most part. After all, what did I know of medicine?

Along with the unending line of doctors, priests from every temple in Egypt had been brought to pray and chant over Anippe, appealing to the gods to save my daughter.

I did not know if I could take anymore 'experts'.

Anippe wailed in discomfort and annoyance from the constant poking and prodding. I felt sorry for her and wished I could do something, but the attention was necessary.

Jabari was present as much as possible, trying to reassure me, but my heart felt too heavy to be soothed. I wanted her well, I wanted a cure. I wanted a miracle. But my prayers were unanswered.

Anippe's condition continued to decline. The doctors became desperate. They used leeches, fed her foul smelling potions, chanted and blessed her, but nothing worked. She screamed and cried almost non-stop. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hurt those who hurt her. I wandered, not for the first time, if all this did not do more harm than good.

Finally I could take no more. I chased all the 'experts' from the room and cuddle with Anippe in a chair. Jabari sat across from me. He caressed my face and whispered sweet words to me. When I was calm again he said, gently;

"Meritites, you cannot hide her away and hope it will all pass. You need to let the doctors do their job." I knew he was right. But her cries were like the worst kind of torture.

"I know," I said, "I just wanted them gone for a bit. I wanted her suffering to end for a moment."

"I know, my love, but night approaches and they will have to retire soon. Let them do what they can for now, she shall be yours at nightfall."

He kissed me tenderly.

"Very well," I croaked in a voice that was not my own.

So the parade of people returned and Anippe's misery continued. I wanted to curse the gods for torturing my poor defenseless daughter.

"Please," I whispered, "Please, end her pain. Make her well again."

The chants filled the room;

"Ra, heal this child with your light."

"Osiris, show this young one mercy."

"Bes, be benevolent and come forth."



A week later, Anippe took a turn for the worst. She became so weak and frail that the priests suggested that we prepare a coffin and burial chamber, just in case. Jabari took care of these arrangements while I stayed with Anippe.

At night, when everyone had gone, I would cradle her to my breast, singing to her, while she stared up at me with exhausted gray eyes and smiled. I would kiss her, all over her face, trying to memorize it and she would giggle when my kisses tickled.

It was these moments that I lived for. I was on borrowed time and I knew it, but my nights with her were what made it all worthwhile. I wished I could hold her forever, never lose her. But I knew, with an alarming certainty that only a mother seems to know, that I was going to lose my child. That did not mean I would not fight for every precious second. Nor did that mean that in realizing it, I had come to accept it. I did not want her to die.

Jabari had a bed put in the nursery so I would not have to sleep on the lounge and he could stay with us as well. I did not protest this. I may not have liked him, but Anippe was his child just as she was mine. I also found a certain amount of comfort in his presence.

I had woken one night, panicked when I found Anippe was not in my arms. The moonlight through the high windows showed Jabari sitting in the rocking chair, Anippe cuddled to his chest. I saw that he was crying and called his name softly. He looked up at me, and in the moment that our eyes met, I realized that he knew, just as I did.

She would not survive her fever.

Anippe would not live.

I felt such pain, then. All that work had been for nothing.

I had failed him.

I had borne him a child.

I had made him love her.

Then, I had taken her back.

My failure had caused us both such pain. My weakness had taken a life. I recalled my wish that the child in my belly would die. Words have power, my father had said. He was right. My wish came true, and now I paid a high price for it.

I had failed.

I watched as the doctor's methods became more desperate and seemingly more destructive. They bled Anippe, mixed animal feces in potions, fed her animal blood, on and on it went while the priests chanted over her.

But it was all to no avail. She became so weak she would no longer cry. The physicians and all but one priest withdrew.

"She is past the point of no return," I was told. "She will not last the night. If she recovers, it would be a miracle."

A miracle.

A miracle.

I wanted a miracle right now, and I would have given my very life to get it.

Jabari and I lay in the nursery with Anippe. We kissed her, told her how we loved her. She dozed off and on. Jabari and I did not sleep. She gazed at me with clear gray eyes, and smiled.

"Mama," she breathed. Her gaze turned to Jabari.

"Papa."

Then, as dawn came and Ra cast orange and pink and purple lights across the sky, chasing the night away, Anippe gave a small shuddering sigh…

…and stopped breathing.



The priests chanted as they sealed off the tomb. Anippe was buried in my tomb. Children who die young are always buried in their mother's tombs.

I cried, clinging to Jabari and then my Papa. I had never cried so much in my life.

Papa cradled my face in his big, rough hands and kissed my tears away.

"Take solace in this, daughter," he said, his eyes full of sorrow, "She will surely pass the trials. Children are without sin and Lord Anubis would not be so cruel."

"I do not want her with Lord Anubis," I wept, "I want her with me!" Papa hugged me tightly, and then handed me to Mama, who held me as if I were still a small child.

"I know, my love," she cooed, caressing my wet face.

"Mama, I do not know if I can go on," I said.

"Yes you can," she said. "I have felt your pain before, dearest, you can go on."

I hugged her tightly, sobbing as she gave me the comfort only a mother could.

The professional mourners pulled at their hair and beat the floor. Watching them took my mind off the words that the priest said.

"…will grow strong and vibrant in the afterlife, as she was unable to do here. When she is re-united with her parents, their joy will be great…"

Grow strong, he said. Like she would never do on this plain, because I was not strong. I remembered her last gift to me.

"Mama," she had said. She was just under a year old and had made sounds that sounded like 'Mama' and 'Papa'. Jabari and I had encouraged these sounds, but never had she said it as clear as the day she died.

"Mama," in her sweet little voice. I collapsed and many rushed forward, thinking I had fainted. I pushed them away, pressing my face against the cloth we stood on to protect our feet from the heat of the sand. The sound that came forth was not like anything I would ever think I could produce from my own throat. It sounded foreign and strange, as though some poor tortured creature made it.

But I was a poor tortured creature, was I not?

I tore at my hair as the mourners did, wanting to feel some physical pain to match the intense pain in my heart.

Jabari knelt next to me, pulling me into his arms. I clung to him, weeping.

"I am sorry," I said, "I am sorry. I am sorry." Jabari hushed me, picking me up. I looked over his shoulder at the tomb that sealed away my child.

My heart was broken and I did not know if it would ever heal.



Jabari carried me into the villa and up the stairs. When he passed his room to go to mine, I stopped him.

"No, not there," I said. "I…Can I stay in your room, for now?" He smiled down at me as he turned back towards his room.

"Of course, did you think I would actually say 'no'?" he asked. He took me to his room and laid me on the bed. Jabari moved back, looking as though he did not know what to do.

"Lay with me," I said in a voice so soft I was not sure he had heard it. But he removed his clothes and joined me on the bed.

"Hold me," I said. He wrapped his muscular arms around me, pulling me back against him.

"Tighter," I said. His grip tightened.

"Tighter." Again, his hold constricted.

"Tighter."

"Meri, I will hurt you," he said.

"No, you will hold me together." He sighed and turned me around so we were chest to chest, then held me as closely as he could without hurting me. It felt good for him to hold me, as though his arms prevented the world from tearing me apart. We were silent for a long time. When his hold loosened, I thought he had fallen asleep.

"Jabari?" I asked.

"Hmmm?"

"Will you tell me something?" I questioned.

"What would you like to know?" his voice was soft, as if he thought any loud noise would shatter this moment between us.

"Why did you want me so badly?"

He chuckled, kissing my temple.

"I was foolish to think I could escape that question," he said.

"Jabari," I urged.

"Yes, yes," he conceded. "If you must know, I had to have you. I have loved you for a very long time."

"How long?" I asked, twisting his long hair around my finger. He thought for a moment, and then answered;

"Six years."

"Six years?" I was surprised. That would mean I was nine and he was fifteen.

I ran through a list of faces in my mind, anyone I would have known, but I could not find Jabari in my memory.

"Have you ever been known by another name?" I asked.

"When I was young I was called 'Bari'," he offered. Again I tried to remember if I had ever known a boy I called 'Bari', but I came up with nothing.

"Can you tell me more?" I asked.

"Not yet," he said.

"Why?" I queried.

"Because I want you to remember on your own," he explained.

"Why did you tell me that?"

"Because, we became closer," he told me.