8. Reunions

...

Dahlia Ahmad watched as her Taiwanese student Jason pushed one of his classmates.

The little girl stumbled on her feet. Jason burst into giggles. The girl almost hit the ground face-first. Dahlia moved purely out of reflex. She reached, clutched the girl by her shirt before she could fall, and pulled her into a standing position.

After ensuring her student was okay, Dahlia whipped her head and narrowed her eyes.

"Jason," she hissed through gritted teeth. The utterance of the name was sounding like more of a plea for help than a call for discipline day by day.

"All of you take a step forward. Jason, you come and stand besides me," Dahlia instructed.

"Teacher, teacher please I'll behave," he started crying.

"Oh, and tomorrow you're getting timeout as well!" she added in a jesting tone.

He started pleading harder. Jason's classmates began to laugh at the situation.

Dahlia paid no heed to his attempt at throwing a tantrum and left the kid with no choice but to move besides her. Dahlia placed her arms around his shoulders. From a distance it looked like she was hugging him, but only she knew the difficulty she was facing to keep her hands in place.

Jason kept bouncing on his toes and flailing his arms in the air.

"Behave," she said in a firm voice.

If anything, it fueled the kid's desire to struggle against her harder. Now, they were catching attention. From a distance anyone could mistake that she was hurting him, so Dahlia had to let go of him.

But she wrapped her around his arm. In the process, his hand knocked off the dupatta off her right shoulder. Dahlia internally let out another groan and looked to her right to put it back in place.

"Della, Della look who is here." Azar Fayyad's voice chimed like bells. "Kaveh is here."

Dahlia straightened and looked up. In the background, she could hear her colleague Alana, and Azar's class teacher, chiding the kid for addressing another teacher like that. From the front, Kaveh Fayyad smiled at her.

"Hello."

It was starting to seem like he had taken her joke to greet each other a little too seriously.

Nonetheless, Dahlia smiled back, midst her struggle with Jason, and returned his greeting. Kaveh's eyes trailed down and landed to the little boy.

The kid suddenly halted. His face turned bright red and he went completely still.

Kaveh smiled at him and greeted him, which Jason returned politely.

Dahlia could not believe it. The little rascal had started behaving because Kaveh was a stranger and he was feeling shy. Regardless, she was mildly impressed.

Dahlia whipped her head up and peered at the man through her lashes again.

Kaveh was wearing a navy blue suit and dress pants. She wondered if he had come here straight from work. He had to. It was the middle of the afternoon of a working day, he must have left his office to be here; but then again, he always dressed like this. Dahlia saw that the color of his clothes brought out the blue hues in his eyes, something she hadn't noticed before. His eyes resembled a sky before storm, rather than the one during like it always did -  blue and clear but still hinting of the havoc it was capable of causing.

He was staring straight ahead, eyes strictly glued to his sister. Dahlia noticed he was doing this a lot these days – making an effort to not look at her direction. He had maintained his distance from her the few times they ran into each other this year, and Dahlia was beginning to wonder if his sudden absence from her life was intentional as well.

She was beyond grateful, no doubt, to not have those piercing eyes following her every movement – but it also made her the tiniest bit curious. She had an inkling why he was acting this way – he had pretty much confessed his true feelings for her in the letter he had written last year; and Dahlia had blatantly ignored it.

Despite that, he had since respected her decision and showed no ill-feelings towards her, like a true gentleman. Dahlia would have never expected this from a man like Kaveh – then again, she was beginning to wonder if she knew him at all.

Jason was now hiding his face out of shyness. Dahlia's heart would have melted if she didn't know what a little rascal he was. Azar came running to Kaveh a couple minutes later. He picked her up and looked at her again.

"Goodbye, Dahlia," he said.

Dahlia waved them farewell as Azar's tiny voice kept crying, "Bye, Della."

"What is this?"

Asiya cried with astonishment as she, and her twin brother Mohammed, hovered over the new baby Aisha.

Dahlia's elder sister Zinnia Ahmad had returned home a couple hours ago, along with her twins. Malika had brought over the newborn to introduce her to her cousins for the first time.

"It's a baby," Dahlia responded finally, looking at her niece.

Asiya looked up, face pulling the expression that had led her family to label her a little know-it-all. "I'm a baby and I don't look like this," she said, turning her hands.

Mohammed scrutinized the newborn with suspicion. "I think it looks like an alien."

"Mohammed!" Dahlia chastised.

Zinnia widened her eyes with mortification and raised her eyes to meet Malika's, apology flashing across them. But Malika let out a gracious laugh, easing the tension in the air.

"Look at her tiny hands," Malika said, looking down at the kids once more, tapping on Aisha's little hand poking out through her pink fuzzy blanket. "Don't you find them cute?"

"I don't know..." Asiya replied with apprehension.

Dahlia's eyes flitted from the kids to Malika. She was wearing a simple white salwar kameez and her hair was in a bun, cradling her kid in her arms. She had heard people talk about the pregnancy glow, but Malika seemed to have a new mother's glow – whatever that was. Sitting in their living room sofa, even with minimal effort on her appearance, she looked absolutely radiant.

Dahlia had been with her at the hospital while she gave birth. She was there throughout the labor and delivery, and afterwards spent the night on the spare sofa in the cabin in case there was an emergency.

By the Grace of Allah the entire process ran smoothly, and when Dahlia saw Malika the next morning, fully conscious and in better health, she couldn't help but admire how pretty and healthy Malika still looked – despite bearing the exhaustion of birth. But of course, she was never going to say that.

"Why on Earth do you look like this?" Dahlia cried with vexation. "You just went through hours of labor!"

Malika smiled sweetly, but her playful eyes were narrowed at her sister-in-law, "if evil eye had a face..."

Dahlia shot her a vexed look. "I was just hoping you would look like a hurricane survivor – or at least bad enough so I could use these pictures for your birthday every year."

"Lily Aunty!"

Her niece and nephew's cried pulled Dahlia out of her thoughts. At the gate was truly her sister – months after at home. Lily Ahmad, the third of the Ahmad sisters, seemed to have lost weight and had gotten a couple shades darker. A couple feet away from her was Ibrahim – who had gone to pick her up from the airport – rolling in her suitcase behind him.

The kids ran to her and wrapped their arms around her. After that, Lily stepped forward to exchange a brief embrace with Zinnia. She halted in front of Aisha, her eyes widened with joy. Ibrahim stepped in besides her, a grin spreading across his lips. "See the nose?" he asked.

"My God, I was praying the entire way I wouldn't," Lily quipped.

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

Almost immediately, their sister Rose climbed down the stairs, her little boy Uthman in toe. As she took the last step, Uthman jumped down and ran forward to hug his cousins – squealing at the top of his lungs.

"Lils, when did you get here?" Rose exclaimed, reaching out to embrace their sister.

"Wait, when did you get here?" Dahlia asked in returned, eyes circled in surprise. "I thought you just left?"

Rose cast her a look. "I've been here all morning, Dels!"

Dahlia sat, watching the mini family reunion taking place. Her siblings had gathered once more – even if momentarily. She knew their extended family would start pooling in soon as well. Her parents had been making calls all week, informing their relatives that the new baby had arrived. Part of Dahlia was ecstatic, but a horrible realization was dawning on her as well.

"Wait!" she cried, sweeping her eyes across the room. "But I just got my room back!"