Looking For His North Star

Chapter twenty one

Seher had been making stuffed eggplants when she felt the strange spasm take hold of her body.

The last two weeks had been agonizing. She would spend the days taking care of the children and decorating their new home, but at nights, the silence in the empty room screamed. She hadn't heard Yaman's voice in a long time and she was going mad with worry. Only Nedim's occasional phone call would assure her that Yaman was fine, but to be fully convinced she had to see him with her own eyes.

"Seher, are you alright?" Neslihan asked.

She wasn't even aware that she'd dropped the pot she'd been holding. Adalet put her hand around her waist and supported her to a nearby chair.

"I don't know what happened," she mumbled, rubbing at her chest where her heart was racing. "I suddenly felt cold and faint..."

Adalet's eyes looked worried.

"Someone must have walked on your grave..."

Seher blinked. "Excuse me?"

"It's something my grandmother used to say," she elaborated. "If you feel a sudden shiver running through your body, it means that someone is walking on the spot you're supposed to be buried, after you die. Morbid and superstitious, I know. But she also said that it warns of an oncoming disaster..."

"Auntie!" Neslihan said in an exasperated voice. "Don't mind her, Seher. You're just worried about Mr Yaman. I've heard that it's like this between soulmates..."

It was Adalet's turn to reprimand her.

Seher spent the rest of the day, obsessively making everyone's favourite meals. When the night fell, she sat on the porch staring at the garden, while everyone had gone to sleep. She couldn't bear to be in that empty room.

Night owls hooted in the far woods. Seher squinted as she noticed a shadow moving down the garden, coming towards the house. She stood up.

She would recognize him anywhere.

Heart thudding in her chest, Seher threw away the blanket covering her shoulders and started running down the path. Moonlight highlighted the sharp planes in Yaman's face and without a delay, she jumped into his arms, throwing her own arms around his neck.

"Oh, thank God!" She gasped. "Thank God. I missed you so much...."

For a moment they stayed like that, wrapped in each other's arms. Seher felt his breath fluttering the hair at her temples, as he spoke.

"What are you doing up, this late?"

"Waiting for you," she said. "I always wait for you. That empty room was suffocating me..."

Yaman's arms tensed around her.

She pulled back to look at him.

He looked drawn and spent, and there was a feverish look in his eyes that she didn't like. Then she realized that his hands were shaking.

"Yaman," she said, concerned. "Are you alright?"

He closed his eyes, briefly. "Let's go inside."

"Did you eat?" She asked as they moved through the silent corridor, hand- in- hand. "I can make something for you..."

"I'm not hungry," he said immediately. "The kids are asleep?"

Seher nodded.

Yaman sat on their bed and pulled off his rumpled hoodie. He was wearing a black t-shirt underneath it. Seher studied his disheveled hair, the shadows under his eyes and sat down next to him, slowly.