This is more or less the state it was in when last I saw it: a mountain of cement and steel, rough not only around the edges but in the centers too, although slowly coming together with the touches that convert industrial messes into welcoming homes. The coating of sand and grit on the floors was replaced with ceramic and porcelain tiles; rough gaping window and door ways found themselves framed and awaiting glass panes.
It is on a quiet street, dirt paved, in Abu Sulaiman, an area with which we both found fault -- my husband because it is too far from the heart of the city; myself because the city's edges encroach too near. But then there is this ...
They -- my in-laws -- tell me it is finished, though I've not seen yet myself.
I assume the outer stucco work is done, though I do not ask. In part because I try to avoid the subject of the house altogether most days, and in part because I do not know the Arabic for "stucco" to be able to ask at all.
Instead they tell me about the tomatoes they are growing there, about the roses and screening trees, because they are really telling me it is right for me, right for my children, that we should come and come soon, we all can live there and make things easy to one another. Because they know I like growing things and so they grow things for me.
But it is not something easy, even to go back at all. Not yet.
