Page 14 of Written By a Woman

“Sorry I’m late,” I spoke up just as my mother grabbed my face to pull it closer to hers. She planted kisses on both of my cheeks, making me feel more like a child than a thirty-four-year-old man.

“Don’t apologize for working as hard as you do. But before I forget,” my mother gave me wide, encouraging eyes as she clasped my hands and pulled me further into the kitchen where everyone else was standing, “I just saw another listing, just a couple streets over. You should look it up.” She grinned and turned around before I could crush her hopes yet again. I only lived about fifteen minutes away from my family home, closer to the office, and yet my mother still complained that it was too far away.

“The home is only about three times the size you need for yourself, and probably three times the cost of your condo,” my father chimed in, giving my mother a look that I had seen him give her many times throughout my life. The “he’s a grown man” look, the “he’s allowed to make these kinds of decisions for himself” look. My mother gave my father an innocent smile before getting back to dishing up plates.

“As long as I can keep your old room, I don’t care where you live,” my little sister, Raina, chimed in. She was washing her hands in the sink, eyeballing the plate of bread that sat in front of my father. Raina was about ten years younger than me, finishing up her art degree, and had turned my old room into a mini art studio as soon as I made the sudden decision to move out two years ago.

Like me, Raina was a mix of my mother and father. She had my mother’s sharp facial structure, and my father’s caramel-colored hair and hazel eyes. Whereas I had my father’s more masculine facial structure, and my mother’s dark brown hair and eyes.

“I’ll check it out, Mama,” I always did, just to keep up with how the housing market was doing. But everyone knew that I was comfortable in my condo, living on my own. Far enough away to where my family couldn’t show up unexpectedly all the time. Where I could unwind in the peace and quiet after a long day.

My mother was still adjusting to the idea of her son moving out without having started a family of my own first. My mother lived with her parents until she married my father, and my eldest sister Salma didn’t move out until she married her husband, Ben, a few years ago. Me moving out without so much as having a partner surprised her, even though I was thirty-two at the time and I felt like I was ready to be on my own.

“I see you timed your arrival perfectly,” Salma raised a dark eyebrow at me as she scraped a cutting board of vegetables onto a plate, an expression that mirrored my mother’s. Whereas Raina and I were mixes between our parents, Salma was practically the spitting image of our mother. They both had the same beauty mark on the right side of their lips, the same sharp bone structure, with dark hair and eyes. She was even the same height as my mother, and they had often been mistaken as sisters out in public.

“How do you mean?” I avoided her gaze as I snagged the piece of bread Raina was about to take, grinning at the annoyed huff she gave me at having to pick a new slice.

“We’re just finishing up, we were considering keeping all the food in the oven to keep it warm until you finally managed to arrive,” Salma gave me a teasing smile, but her words made my stomach churn with a small tinge of guilt. It wasn’t like I enjoyed being late to dinner most of the time.

“Yeah, Zaid,” Raina added, taking a bite of her bread and walking over to swing an arm around Salma’s shoulders, “How do you feel about eating food that a pregnant woman slaved over all evening?” Raina used the bread in her hand to gesture to Salma’s rounded belly, who responded by rolling her eyes and pushing a giggling Raina off of her.

“For the record,” my father raised his glass and grinned before taking a sip of his wine, “I told Salma to sit down and relax an hour ago, and what was your response?”

Salma smirked and replied, “Pregnant women are perfectly capable of helping cook dinner if they want.”

“There it is,” I took a seat next to my father, smiling, as my mother set plates of food in front of us, “Thanks, Mama,” before she shooed Salma into her seat while she prepared the rest of the plates. I glanced at the other wine glass to the side of her, and asked, “Where is Ben?”

“He’s laying Zeki down,” Salma replied, scooting her husband’s wine glass closer to her plate to make room for Raina and my mother to sit around the kitchen island as well. Whereas my sisters and I took after our mother, who didn’t bother with alcohol, my father and brother-in-law often enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner. My father was Italian and owned his own restaurant on the other side of town, but my mother never made us feel like we weren’t allowed to drink with him.

Similar to how my mother chose not to wear a hijab or raise my sisters with the expectation to wear one.

I glanced behind us towards the stairs that led up to the bedrooms, remembering that Ben was still laying their three-year-old down, and feeling bummed that the little guy and I couldn’t watch a couple of episodes of his favorite superhero cartoons before bedtime.

“Where’s Tariq?” I asked as we all sat and waited for Ben to join us before digging in.

“He could only stay for a little bit tonight,” Raina replied, “He tried to wait as long as he could, but he’s pretty swamped with the summer term.” Raina met her boyfriend at her art school, and I was the only one in the family who hadn’t officially met him yet. She wasn’t in the habit of dating, let alone dating seriously, so when she told everyone that she had a steady, long-term boyfriend, we all were dying to meet the guy who convinced Raina to give him the time of day.

“Ah,” I nodded in understanding, “Hopefully I can catch him next time.” I felt my shoulders slump, a movement my father clocked by patting me on the back.

“You’re just in a busy season of life,” my father spoke, “It’ll pay off in the long run.”

I nodded, appreciating his words of encouragement.

“Sorry, sorry,” we all turned toward my brother-in-law’s voice, which sounded out of breath, echoing down the stairs along with his heavy footfalls, “Little stinker needed a lot of convincing.”

“But he’s asleep?” Salma asked her husband as he took the empty seat next to her.

“I believe so,” he smiled at everyone and took a quick sip of his wine, relaxing in his chair before leaning around my sister to meet my eye, “Glad you made it.” His blonde hair looked disheveled as if my nephew had tugged on it several times, and I noticed the dark circles of sleep-deprived parenthood lingering under his bright blue eyes.

“Thanks,” I nodded.

“Finally, we can eat,” Raina sighed, earning a tut from our mother in disapproval. Raina ignored our mother and scooped a large forkful of food into her mouth, letting out a satisfied groan as she chewed our mother’s homemade cooking.

My father laughed at the youngest Ansara child, and soon we were all digging in.

After a few minutes of mild chit-chat about our week, how delicious the food was, and thanking my mother again for cooking (because while she was married to a professional chef, my father still enjoyed my mother’s homemade Syrian meals more often than not), I saw my mother prepare herself for her upcoming question with a quick dab to her lips with her napkin.

As soon as her dark eyes landed on me, I prepared myself.

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