ALL IN THE FAMILY

Kamilla and I had been friends since our first year at college. We had met during orientation and had instantly clicked, bonding over our shared love of anime as the dean gave a speech. We had become inseparable. Nothing could ever come between us. We were closer than Siamese twins. If we could have shared a body, we would have. Without a second thought.

So it came as no surprise when she invited me to her home during the semester break of our third college year. I was ecstatic! We came from different towns divided by miles and miles of dry, arid desert. As I had yet to get my driver’s license, Kamilla drove us in her fancy car.

I stared at the bone white sand that rolled on and on, broken every now and then by sparse cacti and the bones of some unfortunate creature that had perished in this harsh wasteland. The hot sun bared down on us in full force, heating up the tarmac until waves of heat bounced of it, forming a mirage in this desolate land.

I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand and turned to Kamilla. “Can you lower the temperature any further?” I groaned, grabbing my once cold bottle of water. I chugged the tepid liquid hoping to feel some kind of relief but it never came.

“Sorry, Matt. That’s the lowest it can go.” She told me; her cheeks were flushed from the heat. Her usually neat blonde hair was plastered to her face with sweat. Even cold air at sixteen degrees Celsius couldn’t keep us cool. How nice.

I leaned back as far as I could in the passenger seat and let out a defeated breath. I preferred the cold. At least then you could add layers until you were comfortable. But with heat? You couldn’t remove layers without being charged with public indecency. Since we were not in public, I pulled off my wet vest and chucked it in the back. It landed with a sloppy wet thwack and I winced at the displeasing sound.

I brought my seat back up and stared out the window once more, watching as more sun-bleached plains winked past us. The sun fought to stay in the sky longer than it had any right to out of pure sadism. Did the sun enjoy watching the creatures of the Earth suffer in infernal agony? Maybe that’s the price we were paying for damaging the ozone layer.

I felt a sweaty hand slip into mine; it was Kamilla’s and she gave me a sideways glance. “We’ll be there soon.”

“We better,” I teased, giving her a dry laugh as I squeezed her hand gently. “Or we’ll die in this barren wasteland.”

A few hours later, my eyes snapped open. The sun had set and the moon had made her way up into the sky, the stars dancing around her in perfect celestial harmony. I observed that the car had stopped moving and I peered out the window, hoping for a view of something other than sand.

In front of me was a large Victorian home with three stories set on an immaculately manicured lawn. With grass that green, their water bills had to be astronomical. Their yard had the classic, white picket fence and cute family mailbox with ‘Al Ahdal’ written in a neat script. Kamilla was not in the driver’s seat but my worry was put to rest when I watched her wheel our suitcases in the side mirror.

I stepped out and breathed the cool night air, revelling in the fact that the day’s heat was finally behind us. I reached into the glove compartment where I had a spare shirt conveniently tucked away; I shrugged it on and closed the car door. I looked up at the moon that tried to hide behind the house, casting a long shadow across the driveway. A tiny movement caught my eye in what I assumed was one of the bedrooms. I shot a glance at Kamilla who was now checking the mailbox; I guess she didn’t see anything. Maybe I didn’t see anything either. A trick of the light, perhaps.

I dragged my suitcase up the porch just as the door swung open, revealing a blonde lady and a dark-haired man who both seemed to be in their mid-50s. Her parents welcomed us with hugs and kisses and they soon lapsed into Arabic. It was endearing to watch the family converse in their tongue but my limited understanding of Arabic effectively cut me out of the conversation. It reminded me why I hated code-switching. However, it didn’t take a genius to realise the conversation had turned sour.

Mr. and Mrs. Al Ahdal spoke in clipped and harsh tones to their daughter while trying to look calm and neutral. It was almost comical to watch people with smiling faces say things in an obviously vexed manner. Kamilla didn’t try to keep with the farce and let her emotions show; she was frustrated and angry, not seeming to understand why her parents were panicking. I shifted on my feet and tried not to feel awkward about the family feud happening before me.

Finally, they stopped arguing after what felt like a million years. Mrs. Al Ahdal smiled at me and spoke. “Mathew, so good to finally meet you! Our Kamilla’s told us so much about you. Come, let me show you to your room.”

Mr. Al Ahdal watched me with suspicion as his wife led me up the stairs and looked at his daughter, shaking his head with disapproval. He said something to her in Arabic and she scowled openly at him before walking away to some unseen place.

The room I was to be in was quaint and spartan, something I was familiar with coming from a military background. Mrs. Al Ahdal left me to freshen up and told me to be down for supper in twenty.

All was well for the next week and I had even forgotten about that movement I saw in the windows. It could’ve been anything, really. The Al Ahdal family was a dream. They were so nice, so polite, so perfect that I could hardly fathom what that argument had been about. Mr. and Mrs. Al Ahdal were the perfect couple who’d birthed the perfect, straight A daughter. Oh, the envy that riddled my bones!

That evening, everything changed. I entered my room and found a wizened old man sitting on my bed. He was dressed plain white thawb and clutched a wooden cane in his hands. It took all my self-control to stop myself screaming out in fright. It’s not like the man was scary, but he was certainly… odd. He gave off a strange vibe that was neither malevolent nor benevolent. Rather, his aura was neutral. It was like coming into contact with a null field, a whole area filled with nothingness.

“Can I help you?” I asked, standing in the doorway. Years of watching horror movies told me if I walked into that room, the door would slam shut and lock itself. I wasn’t taking any risks.

The man wheezed and coughed for an eternity before he addressed me. “Why are you here?”

I shifted my weight onto my other foot. “I’m here for the semester break. My friend, Kamilla, invited me.”

He gave a short chuckle before the coughing fits overtook him. It sounded like his lungs where being hacked in an angry bass drum. When his cough subsided, he spoke. “Ah, my granddaughter. A lovely girl, isn’t she?” Then he went off-course. “Do you know the world is in trouble? It is coming to an end soon and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. All the signs of the times have happened. All we can do is wait for the end. It is coming, I tell you! We’re all going to die.”

The man laughed a bit too loud, throwing his head back as he continued to guffaw at the thought of our world’s doom. He turned and stared me dead in the eye, almost as if his solid, milky white eyes could see me. Not with sight, for he was surely blind, but he saw me. I took a step back and nearly crashed into Mr. Al Ahdal who had just stormed up the stairs.

Mr. Al Ahdal pushed me aside and I landed on my butt, a jolt of pain making me shiver. I heard him scream something in Arabic before he stepped out of the room, carrying the laughing, wizened man in his arms. He ignored me as he went up a flight of stairs. I heard a door slam shut and the sound of a lock turning. Mr. Al Ahdal came back down the stairs just as his wife and Kamilla came up from the ground floor.

Kamilla spotted me on the ground and rushed over to help me up while her mother and father argued in their native tongue for the second time since my arrival. Kamilla grabbed my hand and led me down the stairs and out into the garden. We sat on the stone bench and just sat there in silence for a while, the sound of her parents arguing echoing down to us. She sighed and put her face in her palms. Gone was the illusion of the perfect family they had tried to present to me.

“Was that really your grandfather?” I asked her, shuffling my feet on the soft, green grass.

“Yeah.” She mumbled. “Mum and Dad, they like they act as though he doesn’t exist. They keep him locked up so that he won’t embarrass them.”

“Because he’s sick? Or because he’s a bit… well,” I made a random gesture in the air, hoping to get the point across.

“Because he’s crazy? Yeah. I’ve been trying to get them to find doctors for him. We can afford it but they won’t do it. They don’t want their friends to know they have a crazy person in their family. They’d rather die before they let that happen.” She flung her arms in the air in frustration and let out a groan. “God forbid any knows there’s a mentally ill person in the Al Ahdal family!”

I mulled over it for a moment, the sound of her grandfather’s laugh still ringing in my ears. It all made sense now. “That’s why they seemed upset when you brought me over.”

She scoffed and ran her fingers through her long, blonde hair. “Upset? They were livid. They said I was compromising our reputation.” She sighed once more and stared up into the starry sky. “I’d hoped bringing you here would somehow push them to get my grandfather the help he needs instead of just keeping him locked up.”

“How was that going to work?”

Kamilla shrugged. “I don’t know.” She shook her head in frustration. “Maybe you and I can convince them?”

I pursed my lips and dug at the grass with my toes. I usually avoided getting involved in other people’s family disputes but with the big doe eyes Kamilla was giving me, I knew I was in whether I wanted to be or not. Besides, I’d already seen him, right? His family knew that I knew about him so maybe they’d be more receptive to my suggestions. I knew I was grasping at straws here. At the end of it all, maybe Kamilla’s parents would hate me and remember me as that nosey visitor. But, gosh, to keep away a family member like they were some dirty secret? That didn’t sit right with me.

“Sure,” I finally said, taking her hand in mine. “Let’s do what we can to help your grandfather. No one deserves to be treated like that.”

A single tear fell from her eye as she regarded me in a new light. I could see I’d given her hope for her grandfather. I was nervous, but Kamilla needed me. I would help her as best as I could, everything else be damned.

“Thank you, Matt.” She whispered to me, placing her head on my shoulder.

I sighed and slowly shook my head. Oh, the things we do for love.