Other Side

21 | All in the Family

"Well, Talia, my only condition is that you take less than one-and-a-half years to return," Fouad teased, shading the gap between this trip and the last she'd taken to Massachusetts. "Speaking of you leaving, another relative wants to see you. Your uncle called this morning."

"Which one? The one with the child bride or the one with four vermin-children?"

"Talia," Teta chided. "Where is your respect?"

"At least she's honest," Fouad mumbled. He shoved in half a slice of bread before he could insult either of their two younger sons and shatter his wife's heart even more. Speaking with his mouth full, he added, "For what it's worth, it was Amo Thomas, not Marcus. Only two of the vermin-children will accompany him for dinner in Newport tonight if you're willing to handle the hour-and-a-half drive down with us."

"Enough with this talk, you two," Teta said, whacking her husband with the back of her hand. "All of my grandchildren are my loves—even the annoying ones."

"It's okay to admit that Talia and Calvin are the best the Awwad family has to offer," Fouad mumbled, finally swallowing that sizable bite. "But I will keep the act up for you, ya hayati."

"What possessed me to marry you?"

Teta Salma grumbled to herself in Arabic, letting her indignation take her to the other side of the kitchen. Talia simply sat back and smiled as the two bickered, reconfirming exactly why she'd spent her winter break with this side of her family.

***

Newport always made Talia think of Logan.

Perhaps it was the yacht-owning local elites that roamed the city in the summer, donning those boat shoes and questionably colored shorts and button downs, or the scattered villa-style mansions that reminded Talia of his parents' estate back in Napa. Whatever it was, it wasn't very visible on a winter evening, where this city looked like every other part of this small, overlooked state—absolutely dead.

The seafood restaurant where they were meeting Uncle Thomas' family was just off of historic Thames Street, its cobblestone roadway making her feel like she was partaking in the Revolutionary War. She tried to glimpse the last of the sunset as she clacked her way in her heeled boots across the uneven road, catching the faint golden streams over the still water.

Perhaps she was just trying to calm the last of her inapt nerves, appearing whenever a family reunion commenced. She had no reason to be this anxious over seeing her uncle's family again, save for the barrage of questions that was sure to follow her absence. No, her brain always conflated every family gathering with the annual reunions on her mother's side as a child, each more traumatizing than the last.

"Talia!"

Uncle Thomas was the first to greet her, crushing her into a hug. As the middle of her father's brothers, he bore little resemblance to him physically—a good four inches shorter, with the recessive blue eye gene she certainly hadn't inherited and permanent lines etched into his face, probably from trying to raise four kids all between the ages of twelve and eighteen. But personality wise, the two were the same, making Talia feel like she was hugging her father, whose affection she hadn't realized she had desperately missed until this moment.

"I swear you've gotten taller since I last saw you," he chuckled, letting her go. He gave her a quick look up and down, confirming that false fact for himself. "It would be nice if you could donate some of that height to my sons."

She turned to the two oldest and the only ones present at this dinner, Reagan and Carter, named through the unintended ode to the US presidency on this side of the family. It had started with Reagan, then Calvin (Coolidge), and Carter the year after. Her uncle had finished off the pattern by naming his last two sons Grant and Jackson.