Gemini

Chapter 2

           
The two days flew by. Fadila and Halima were on their way to pick their family up from the airport.

To make their trip to the airport more stress-free quicker, the kids were left at home with the boys' nanny.

Fadila and Halima waited for almost half an hour at the arrival gate, when finally they spotted her brother's older daughter, Khadija. She ran up to Halima and hugged her, and then she spotted Fadila and gave her a tiny bear hug that Fadila very much enjoyed.

Fadila then spotted her mother; she rushed over to her, hugged her and greeted her. She then hugged her brother and his wife too.

Fadila took a sleepy Aisha from Safiya. Safiya didn't object because her hands had already started to hurt.

Aisha was wearing a pink dress and her full head of curly and soft black hair pulled up in a puffy ponytail.

Fadila was wearing something similar; except hers was a long silk dress and her hair was covered.

Shortly after they brought all the suitcases out of the airport Zaid arrived.

He parked opposite Fadila's car, and then out came Zaina and Zuhra; Zaid's nieces, his sister's daughters. Zaina was five years old and Zuhra six.

They both had their mothers' light brown wavy hair, and Zaina looked so much like Zaid.

Zaina was in a short dress and Zuhra in a plain black shirt and jeans. The two girls ran up to their auntie Fadila and gave her a big hug at the same time.

Fadila carefully fastened Aisha into Muhammad's car seat and hugged them back. She then walked over to Zaid and hugged him.

"Where is Zaida?" she inquires in Arabic.

"She had a last minute call from the house she's been working on all week" he replied in English as they walked over to their family.

Abubakar and Zaid greet each other, and then Zaid greets Fadila's mother and sister in-law.

Fadila and Safiya put as many bags in her car as possible and then Zaid and Abubakar haul the rest to Zaid's car, with the obstacle of two very excited little girls trying to help; Zaina and Zuhra.

When they finally finished loading the bags into the cars they got in and drove to Abubakar's house, with Abubakar, Safiya and Khadija in Zaid's car and mama, Aisha, the girls and Halima in Fadila's car.

It took less time than expected to reach his house. They repeated the same routine as they did in the airport when they reached home as they took the bags out of the cars and into the house.

Little Aisha was still asleep and Khadija seemed to get over her 'tired' phase very fast.

"The house is clean. I thought it would be more dusty and cobweb-y" Safiya comments sliding her finger on the counter looking for dust and looking at ceiling for signs of cobwebs.

"I had a spare key, so I had that cleaning company, you know the one you hired to clean up after Aisha's first birthday" Fadila paused to make sure Safiya got it.

"Yeah, I remember" Safiya nodded.

"Well I had them clean it up yesterday so you'd come home to a clean house" Fadila concluded.

"Masha Allah! The house looks wonderful. Thank you" Safiya said, sounding genuinely happy and thankful.

"You are welcome. It was no trouble" Fadila answered as she reached the foot of the stairs.

"I better go help mama unpack, because if I know mama I know she has already started to unload her things" Fadila said then rushed up the stairs.

On her way up she met Zaid coming down, she asked him to get the kids and the nanny. He agreed to it, gave her a small bye-bye peck on the cheek and went off.