It had taken Father three weeks longer than he would have liked to return to his hometown, and he noticed it the moment he first glanced at his mother. To the people of the old town his mother was al jida al Fathi. She was spread out on the carpets that she slept on, hovered over by so many relatives who Father could barely recognise as his in-laws. Nephews who were supposed to be little boys looked ready to be selling dates at the market in their formilas. The sister-in-laws, aunties and cousin-sisters in their abayas went back and forth out of the house, not taking a single moment to greet Father. Father should have expected it. His mother was not just a grandmother for their family, but one of the oldest living matriarches in the old town of Ghadames. It would make sense that any person who lived in this cob web of houses would want to be there for her, after the decline of health which had resulted from her fall.
In Ghadames houses were built out of a vertical set of settlements, with each floor posing a different function. Father and his entire family had one dwelling inside of one of these white walled houses. Him and his brothers and his parents had grown up in that stuffy environment, but since moving to Tripoli, Father had gotten used to having space. He wanted to enter his own home, but with all the relatives already tending to his mother, he was finding it hard to make space for himself.
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