Accepting You

Chapter Eleven

"Asalamu alaykum! I'm home!" Asiya shouted into the hallway as she kicked the front door of her family home shut.

"Wa alaykum salam!"

Asiya's mother rushed toward her from the kitchen. She wrapped Asiya in her arms and swung her from side to side as she hugged her.

"My darling! Pele. How are you? How was the train up?" Asiya's mum asked as she released Asiya from her tight hold, satisfied with the amount of love she had squeezed out of her.

"It was okay. There were too many people and not enough seats, but I can't complain. At least this train wasn't cancelled," Asiya replied.

"I should've taken the day off from work so I could've driven down and picked you up," Asiya's dad said as he emerged from the living room.

"Dad?" Asiya gave him a quick hug while her eyebrows pulled together. "I didn't see your car in the driveway. You're home early."

Asiya was accustomed to early starts and late finishes when it came to her dad's work.

He worked as a doctor in the A&E department of the city's largest hospital. He never came home before 7:00 pm on a weekday, and it wasn't even 6:00 pm yet.

"Ah." Asiya's dad snuggled his hands into the back pockets of his trousers and shifted his body weight on the balls of his feet. "I parked my car in the visitors bay down the road, and I'm home early because I decided I wanted an early night."

Asiya lifted one of her brows and eyed him. Her father's reasoning seemed too insignificant to break the routine he had been chained to for over thirty years.

"What is this?" Asiya's mother snapped with a smile. "Did you come home to visit us or to interrogate us?"

"To visit," Asiya grinned.

"Good. Take your case upstairs and freshen up for dinner," Asiya's mum instructed. "Did you bring any extra clothes?"

"No. I didn't want to carry load," Asiya answered.

"Hmm." Her mum picked at the skin of her lip with her teeth. "I'm sure you still have something pretty you can wear in your wardrobe. It isn't the end of the world."

Subtlety was not her mother's strong suit. A tune of suspicion began to quietly ring in Asiya's head when she combined her mother's request with the fact that her father had suddenly abandoned the timetable he had lived by.

"Why do I need to wear something nice? What's going on? Is something happening tonight?" Asiya quizzed.

"You don't have to do anything," Asiya's dad interjected as his eyes slid to the side where her mother stood. "Just get yourself settled. We're glad you're home."

Asiya's father kissed her forehead before he placed his hand on her mother's back and lightly pushed her into the living room.

Ruffles of quiet Yoruba broke out from behind the door the minute Asiya's dad shut it.

"Kulthum!" Asiya called out as she lifted her suitcase up the stairs. "Your parents are being weird!"

Kulthum stepped out of her room. She had grown since Asiya had last seen her. Cheekbones had started to cut through her younger sister's baby fat, and she stood a few inches above Asiya.

As Asiya had predicted, Kulthum's cheeky personality was stretching with her height. "Oh, so now they're only my parents?" she drawled with a smile.

It didn't matter how big her younger sister grew or how mature Asiya was supposed to be; the sisters were not above squabbling.