HER

8. Family and Feelings

German chocolate cake turned out to be one of the best things Ramat had ever tasted. Not that she didn't know that. She'd tasted it before, she just had to remind herself that's he loved it. Just as she loved everything that had chocolate in it.

Well almost everything.

She sighed when Richard pulled up in front of her house for the fifth time that week.
Her house wasn't exceptionally large like his own. Quite the opposite really, it was very small. It was a bungalow, with only three bedrooms and four bathrooms. A sitting room/living area, a dining room(that wasn't really a room more like a section of the living room that a couple of chairs and a table was kept) and a kitchen.
His mother had helped her dad buy the house, she remembered. It didn't bother her that her house was probably a wood shack compare to his. That kind of thinking was for people who were greedy and uncontent. She was proud of her parents. They were good people, maybe they didn't have as much as the next guy, but they were happy and content. At least that's how she felt.

Grabbing her bag from the floor beside her feet she slung it over her shoulder.

"Thank you" she said like she always did everytime he dropped her off.

"Do you think you dad will be angry?" he asked her. The time was a quarter past nine pm. The latest he'd dropped her off since he'd started.

"Yes. He probably would be" she began

"Maybe I should come and apologize..." He said moving to undonhis seatbelt.

She chuckled, "I'll talk to him. Plus if he's actually mad, you don't want to see that. He might take it out on you"

It wasn't his fault. Traffic had caused it. Her classes on Fridays usually ended at five o'clock. Sometimes the lecturer spoke till it was five thirty.
They'd ended up at cold stone like he said. And spent almost an hour there, partly her fault, partly German chocolate cake's fault. They'd left cold stone at some minutes past seven driving straight into the closing time traffic. They'd stopped to buy boli on the road, because she was a foodie like that and Richard had no choice but to indulge her, but she wasn't going to add that part when telling her father.

"I'll see you tomorrow" she said as she unlocked the door.

"should I pick you up from here?" he asked

"I'll take a cab. Or an uber." she said "How do you think I survived before you came along?" she asked slightly amused.
"Good night" she muttered and he waved in reply
"Night" he said.

She pushed the door open and stepped out. She walked to the gate glancing back at him once or twice. He was still there watching her, like he always did. Waiting for her to walk inside her compound before he drove off. She chuckled at the thought, the gate was only ten steps form the car.

She pushed the gate open and stepped inside, letting it close behind her. She soon heard the sound of his car driving off into the night.
She didn't lock the gate behind her. Shehu, the gateman that took the night shift, was around. She thought. She could see his shoes, she just couldn't find him. Sighing she made her way towards the main door of the house. He'd lock the gate when he came back from wherever he was off to.

"Ta dawo, she's here" Rahmat heard her mother say as she closed the parlour door behind her.

"Kyakkyawan yamma, mahaifa" Rahmat said to her mother who was sitting at the dining table.
"Kyakkyawan yamma, baba" she said.

Her father ignored her greeting getting up from were he was seated opposite the TV.
"ina kake, Rahmat?" he asked

"I was out. With Richard" she replied slowly and quietly.