Ashley ✓

Thirty-Four | Grandchild

SOTC: In My Blood by Shawn Mendes

"Mustafa, green light," I said when no response of the car was made even after five seconds the light switched.

"What? Oh." Mustafa's voice was a breath as he finally rolled the car forward along with the heavy traffic surrounding us.

Just hours later, Mustafa picked me up in his small, beige Volkswagen at the beach minutes after texting him that I was there to go to the house.

Now about two minutes from the house according to Siri, I felt the urge to tell him to breathe or that everything will be okay or something pointlessly stupid like that. Even if I thought people who constantly did that especially in movies were airheads because typically those people have no idea of any situation at hand, I certainly knew that I didn't because I knew nothing about these parents of his besides disowning him.

"What's Xavier doing?" His voice came out in a breath as he slid the steering wheel left.

I craned my neck to view the backseats. Xavier was strapped to his car seat that was situated in one of them playing with his hands; he would raise them up and hit them about a centimeter from his knees.

"Oh, he's fine," I said and then pretended to give Xavier a bombastic side-eye. It wasn't even that funny, but apparently Xavier found it so when he giggled.

My eyes went to his father just a second afterward to find his reaction to it: a soft smile for the first time this entire thirty-five minute car ride.

After about another minute or so, Mustafa drove us into a neighborhood. When I say it was a suburban dream, I mean that the grass donned a fluorescent green and trees of pink leaves was a widespread disease in the center of a million roundabouts. The houses were tall and varied between different shades of cobblestone, and they all possessed succulents near their front door. Every single one of them. Oh, and they had the type of roofs that American Realtors worshipped.

It was after a few turns in this neighborhood that I saw the nicest house of them all: a pastel green one that had sections of it made of pristine bricks that made it looks like a black and white island color scheme. Hedges whose shade matched the grass to a godly identical level lined up all around them, and bundles of vibrant red flowers sprouted out of the mulch surrounding the walkway to the dark wood front door with a high-security doorbell.

That was where Mustafa stopped.

"Oh my," I just said.

"You're not the only one that came from money," he muttered.

"If I may ask, what exactly do your parents do for a living?" And why the hell you've gone to West for all four years of high school, too, while you're at it.

He sighed out a, "My dad is the top heart surgeon at Grace Hospital and my mom is a university professor."

"Oh."

Oh my for real.

Mustafa unlocked his car door and I began to do the same until he said, "Stop."

It's then he exited his car and walked around the front of it. Eventually, Mustafa opened my car door, and due to some stark confusion in my end, we stared at each other for a good two seconds.

"Oh, thank you," I finally said when I registered his action, stepping out of the car.

I pulled down my minidress containing a bit of flowiness to it as Mustafa then opened the backseat door and pulled Xavier out of his car seat. Xavier hooked around his left rib cage in response.

"You ready?" he muttered.

I nodded, and so we walked across the street and up the driveway. I stepped back when we reached the front door so Mustafa could knock on the door.

Seconds later, the door parted by the work of Haneen.

"Ooo, I like his onesie!" she said, her eyes glowing as she gestured to Xavier's attire before looking at me. "I'm glad you came with him, Ashley."

"Thanks," I said. "I like your sundress."

Haneen blushed, soothing the orange fabric extending to just above her knees. "Oh, thank you!"

"Is everyone here?" Mustafa asked her after a pause, his eyes downcast.

"Everyone's in the kitchen with mom and dad except Amm Arkan." Haneen then turned to me and added, "Amm is uncle in our family's language. We try to speak more English to get the hang of it, but you'll definitely be hearing some Arabic today."

I nodded, and Mustafa muttered a thank you as we walked inside.

Every inch of the interior had put every house in Martha Stewart's advertisements to shame. The red, patterned carpet on the dark oak floors led to a staircase with a wood banister bolted to each side of different walls coated with maroon paint. Pictures of a large family decorated them and so did the ones set on the dresser below the mirror to the left of me.

Before I could analyze the pictures, Haneen led us down an open hallway into what appeared to be a vibrant, pristine kitchen. I said appeared because a sea of people of various ages crowded every inch of it, each of the lively sounds of echoing gibberish filling the atmosphere.

I happened to catch one person turn to us, then another, and then another.

And then it went silent.

I counted all thirty people as they whipped from wherever they sat to stare at us. But it wasn't just a stare; when everyone had registered my face, with such a disdain that their irises turned a layer of my skin to ash. Suddenly, I felt like it was my first day at West because every organ working in my stomach inverted itself inside my ribs and I suddenly ached to dissolve into the tiles of the home.

And then I looked at Mustafa.

Mustafa's wide eyes ceased every movement except to gloss under the lights at an agonizing rate, his upper and lower lip sucking off each other to tremble under the wake of the sight facing him.

I turned to his line of direction to find a middle-aged man and woman locking arms. They both shared the common skin tone of everyone in the kitchen, but they had a look of superiority. The man's longer crew cut, sharp features brought out by a shaven face, and khakis paired with a Ralph Lauren polo dripped of a regal, serious aura. And I felt— knew— that who he specifically looked at the longest was the woman next to the middle-aged man. She wore a white dress hugging her curves and bringing out her long, luxurious midnight waves. Her red lipstick brought out her high cheekbones and large, familiar dark eyes.

I turned back to Mustafa as he said, "لدي حفيدك يا أمي."

I have your grandchild, Mom.