Coming Home (English Version)

35. Late

3 months later

Hamdan

"Hello?" Layla calls in the middle of the foyer and then spins around with a smile on her face. "I love the echo and the smell of fresh paint!"

Our new house is almost ready for decorators to start bringing the furniture we have already picked. For the architecture we opted for modern and simple lines mixed with a few more traditional features; warmer tones and a lot of natural light. And I have to admit it; she was absolutely right about the idea of building a new house for us, even at its empty state this already feels a lot more like a family home than the other one.

"Is the kitchen done?" She asks and without waiting for an answer, she hurries up to check for herself.

I follow her and find her staring out the window where the kitchen nook will be. Today was her last day at Dubai Media and I know it was a bittersweet decision for her, so I wanted to come see the house to cheer her up before we leave for the UK tomorrow. She will continue to oversee her beloved program, but she had to hire someone else to take her place since her assistant decided to leave with her to become more of a personal aid, instead of taking Layla's place.

"It has such a beautiful view of the garden," she says with her back still turned to me. "I cannot wait to have breakfast here."

The black dress she's wearing and styled waves of her hair make her look like a vintage beauty from the 50's. When she turns around, with her eyes inspecting every inch of the room, the click of her heels is the only sound I hear. We chose a piece of land big enough that allowed us to build the house right in the middle and get the most privacy and quiet. Not to mention that we still own the land around it, just to make sure nothing will be built there.

Her eyes finally land on mine and she stands right in front of me, close enough that I get to take her hand.

"This is everything I wanted and more," she tells me.

I kiss her forehead. "I'm happy that you're happy. And we will be very happy here."

We continue our tour of the house and take a few notes on things we want to be taken care of while we're away.

"When we come back, everything should be ready for us to move in," I say to her while we head downstairs one more time.

In the garage, Saeed is waiting for us and I decide to drive to the office, so he takes the back seat and Layla sits at the front with me. I keep glancing at her because the day is almost over and it seems like there won't be any news today. This will make her late by a week and a half. I feel extremely guilty about keeping track of her period because right before the wedding, when she stopped taking contraceptives, she made me promise that we were not going to keep track of her period, that we were not gonna be disappointed every time her period came and that we were going to simply carry on as if we were not even trying. But I'm cheating. I have been taking mental notes of everything and I know now that she is very regular and it is obvious when her period arrives because she gets really bad cramps, she cannot hide it. And she is ten days late and that is not normal.

"What?" Layla suddenly asks me.

I shrug my shoulders. "What?" I reply.

"You keep looking at me as if I had something on my face."

"No, I'm not!" I lie.

Layla turns slightly to Saeed. "Saeed, what's wrong with the Sheikh? Why does he keep looking at me weird?"

"Maybe he can't stop looking at you because he's so in love."

I chuckle softly.

"You always take his side," she tells Saeed with a bit of a whine in her words.