Free That Other Me by Maha Gargash

shuffle and shift in my head. And what about Dalal? Did he recognize her straightaway?
    I do not need the complication of Adel in my life. I’ll make a list of everything that has puzzled me today and ask him. Once I get the answers, I’ll never see him again.

7
MAJED
    With the plumber still working in the dining room, Aisha has set up lunch in the family room. I hear the racket before entering, and even though I know what it will be like in there, somehow it seems that the children have become noisier, more boisterous, since I saw them the week before. “ Wee-wah, wee-wah, wee-wah! ”
    A long time ago I decided it was important for the family to congregate for lunch every Friday in my house, so that I could get a sense of fullness, pride, and achievement over this other kind of wealth: eight sons and daughters, five of them married, who have bequeathed me with twenty-one grandchildren. Standing frozen at the door and watching the chaos in front of me, I’m filled with a longing to reverse that decision. But that would be very un-grandfather-like.
    No one notices me until I raise my voice. “These . . . these monkeys! Why doesn’t anyone control them?” And then my children and in-laws hurry to greet me with handshakes and kisses on the forehead.
    â€œThey’re just excited to see you, Baba,” says Nadia, the third eldest of my four daughters and the only one who is somewhat timid.Maybe I only think that because she does not make as much noise as the rest.
    â€œSo excited, they haven’t noticed me standing here for the last few minutes?”
    My second-eldest daughter, Amal, orders the kids to get up. “Say hello to your grandfather.”
    Only the older children rise. Their faces are long and their voices full of the moping boredom of their teen years, or perhaps they are sulking because they’d rather be somewhere else. The little ones keep running in circles around the three palm-frond mats Aisha laid on the floor. “ Wee-wah, wee-wah, wee-wah! ”
    â€œWhy can’t they sit still with a book in their hands, use all that energy to get educated?” I complain.
    The mothers laugh, and my eldest daughter, Mona, explains, “God bless them, they’re too small to be thinking for themselves.”
    â€œI don’t need you to tell me that,” I say to her. “You talk to me as if I haven’t had children of my own, as if I haven’t watched over you lot.” I like to say this even though we all know I left most of their upbringing to their mother, who was more than efficient in keeping them away from me. I pretend I don’t notice the shrewd smiles that Mona and Amal exchange as they drag the smallest children, kicking and hollering, toward me. No sooner do the children place their hurried kisses on my cheeks than they rush away, grabbing all the cushions on the couches for a rough thrash and tumble. Two of the little ones whack wooden swords just as Aisha, carrying a bowl of what smells like fish curry, hurries by, barely missing them. This time I ignore them.
    I turn to join the men, my sons and sons-in-law, at the far end of the room, but I catch sight of Aisha’s sister, Shamma, seated with them and arguing a point with my eldest son, Saif. He is red-faced with annoyance, hardly hearing her as she lectures him about something to do with the need for more housing for the less fortunate, as if she were Mother Teresa. Why can’t she go discuss recipes and children (even ifshe doesn’t have any) with the women? Saif’s debating skills are artless and unexceptional, and I can tell he’s losing ground. He would already have unleashed that flaming temper had it not been for the interjections of my second-eldest son, Ahmad, who puts to good use his canny skills at playing the role of appeaser.
    Shamma’s is a rare visit that clouds my mood. I spot her bare neck as she turns her head and adjusts her shayla, her