EPISODE 3
1466 Words
THE WOUND THAT NEVER HEALED
Zayneb's husband never truly returned to her.
Throughout the years of her illness, he remained in Port Harcourt with his other wife.
He came only once to see his wife and the son she had given birth to.
After that, he stayed away.
The Zadeens eventually stopped expecting anything from him.
They had already accepted Zayneb and Ammar as their own responsibility.
In fact, their love for Ammar became stronger with every passing year.
But for Zayneb, life continued to become more difficult.
Her health deteriorated.
Her body grew weaker.
She slowly lost hope in the possibility of living a normal life.
Still, she endured.
She endured because she did not want her brothers to suffer more because of her.
She endured because of her son.
She endured because she knew that if she gave up completely, Ammar would be left without a mother.
She was already living with the knowledge that her time might be limited.
Yet she continued fighting.
The family continued searching for a donor.
Every possible lead was investigated.
Every potential donor was examined.
But nothing worked.
Their wealth kept growing, yet their happiness kept shrinking.
Boukhar, Mahmoud, and even Ammar became pitiful figures despite the enormous wealth surrounding them.
The family possessed everything money could buy.
But they could not buy peace.
Their grandmother never went a day without crying when she looked at what Zayneb had become.
The woman she had raised was wasting away before her eyes.
Mimi, meanwhile, devoted herself to Ammar.
The boy had begun showing signs that something inside him was breaking.
He was traumatized by the environment in which he was growing up.
At school, he struggled to understand his lessons.
He could not concentrate properly.
Even though Mahir constantly tried to help him, the problem continued.
Eventually, his teachers noticed the change.
They discussed the matter and recommended that Ammar see a doctor.
The family was already carrying the weight of Zayneb's illness.
Then another burden arrived.
Mimi became pregnant.
Her pregnancy was difficult.
She was dealing with her own health problems while caring for Ammar.
At the same time, Zayneb's condition continued to worsen.
The entire family was living under intense emotional pressure.
For the first time, the enormous wealth of the Zadeens seemed completely useless.
They had more money than they knew how to spend.
They had never truly understood what poverty felt like.
They had never known the meaning of lacking basic necessities.
Yet they were not happy.
They were drowning in worry and pain.
Then Mimi's pregnancy reached full term.
She gave birth to a baby boy.
His name was Saleem.
His arrival brought something the family had not experienced in a long time.
Happiness.
The birth of Saleem brought smiles back into their homes.
For a short while, the family had something new to celebrate.
Mahir and Ammar grew up almost together.
There was not much age difference between them.
Their bond became exceptionally strong.
Their relationship was so close that the love between them was, in many ways, stronger than the bond between Mahir and Saleem.
They were almost inseparable.
But while the boys were growing, Zayneb continued to deteriorate.
Five years after Saleem's birth, the family finally faced the day they had spent years trying to prevent.
Zayneb died.
By the end of her illness, she had become extremely thin and weak.
She looked almost like a little child.
Her body had been exhausted by years of suffering.
She had undergone a heart transplant after the family eventually found a donor.
But the transplant did not last.
Her body developed chronic rejection.
The transplanted heart failed.
And this time, there was no way to save her.
Zayneb was gone.
Her death shook the entire Zadeens family.
The woman who had been the beloved sister of Boukhar and Mahmoud was no longer there.
The daughter their stepmother had raised with love was gone.
The mother of Ammar had disappeared from his life forever.
For the family, the loss was devastating.
But for Ammar, it was something deeper.
It reopened every wound he had carried since childhood.
He had spent years watching his mother suffer.
He had seen her weaken.
He had seen her become thinner.
He had watched her struggle to remain alive.
Now she was gone.
The trauma that followed was severe.
Doctors recommended that the family leave the country and change Ammar's environment.
They believed that a new environment might help him recover from the psychological damage caused by years of watching his mother suffer.
The family followed their advice.
Daddy Mahmoud returned to Nigeria permanently.
Dad Zed, meanwhile, moved to the United Kingdom with his family and their grandmother.
They tried to begin a new life.
Ammar continued receiving medical care.
His condition slowly improved.
Little by little, he began recovering.
Eventually, he returned to his studies alongside the other members of the family.
The family's hearts became calmer.
Life slowly began to resemble what it had been before Zayneb's illness consumed them.
Their wealth continued growing.
Their businesses expanded.
Their properties increased.
Their fortunes became even greater.
Yet there was one pain Dad Zed could never remove from his heart.
Zayneb.
No matter how much time passed, he could never completely stop feeling the pain of losing his sister.
He had lost her after years of watching her suffer.
He had watched the family spend enormous wealth trying to save her.
He had watched them search for donors.
He had watched them place their hopes in a transplant.
And in the end, the transplanted heart had failed.
Ammar carried a different version of the same wound.
He could not remove the pain of losing his mother from his heart.
He learned to hide it.
He grew older.
He studied.
He became more stable.
He eventually began living like an ordinary human being.
But the memory of his mother remained inside him.
The three boys—Mahir, Ammar, and Saleem Zadeen—eventually grew into young men surrounded by extraordinary privilege.
They were raised with comfort.
They knew no serious hardship.
They had never been forced to struggle for the things ordinary people considered necessities.
Their family wealth protected them.
Their parents protected them.
Their environment protected them.
They grew up in a world where most things they wanted could be obtained.
They lived lives of luxury, comfort, and freedom.
They did not understand the importance of many ordinary things because those things had always been available to them.
They knew little about deprivation.
They knew little about rejection.
They knew little about what it meant to be denied something they desperately wanted.
The Zadeens had built a world around themselves where money could solve almost every problem.
Almost.
There was, however, one lesson they had learned through Zayneb's death.
Money could not guarantee life.
Power could not guarantee life.
Connections could not guarantee life.
And even a heart transplant could fail.
Years later, that lesson would return to them.
But this time, the person whose life depended on a heart was not Zayneb.
It was Jannah.
Jannah, the girl who had become the new light of the Zadeens family.
Jannah, whose illness had once again turned the family into desperate hunters searching for a donor.
Jannah, whose heart had become the center of their world.
And now, they had finally found a possible match.
A pregnant woman.
A woman whose identity meant almost nothing to them.
A woman from a place they barely knew.
A woman who had no idea that powerful people were already watching her.
A woman who was carrying a heart the Zadeens believed would one day belong to Jannah.
Back in the present, Dad Zadeen had already accepted Mahir's plan.
They would wait.
They would monitor the woman.
They would investigate her quietly.
They would follow her pregnancy.
And when the right time came, they would take what they needed.
Ammar had accepted the decision too, even though every part of him wanted to act immediately.
He knew Jannah needed a heart.
He knew the family had finally found one.
And he was prepared to wait only because his father had ordered him to.
The Zadeens had no idea what kind of life the donor lived.
They did not know her family.
They did not know her struggles.
They did not know her dreams.
They did not know what kind of woman she was.
Most importantly, they did not know what would happen when their world collided with hers.
Because sometimes, the heart you desperately search for does not come alone.
It comes with a story.
It comes with people.
It comes with consequences.
And the heart the Zadeens had spent years searching for was about to bring an entirely different story into their lives.
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