13 years later.

"Make sure you keep all your cold meds inside the luggage," I remind my husband as he busies himself with the lock combination of our indigo coloured Samsonite travelling luggage. "I doubt they'd pass the immigration checkup."

"Sayang (love), don't worry. I've already had it sorted out. You're telling me like I've never travelled before," he says cynically.

"You're also a forgetful person," I chide. "You used to be an expert solo traveler. Now, you can't even remember where you put your underwear."

"If I forget to bring my underwear, I buy-lah new ones. What's the problem?" he responds in the local Malay slang he grew accustomed to.

"Then, you stock up all your underwears in the house, for what?" I complain.

"Sayang, sit and calm yourself down. You're stressing the baby," he gestures at my six-month old protruding belly. "And you're also stressing me out."

I sigh, concede, and sit by the edge of the bed, watching him stuffing his travelling essentials involving mostly gadgets into his Apple x Adidas smart backpack. I must admit, despite this as my third (plus one unsuccessful) pregnancy, I still felt sick as though it was my first. The hormones in my body provoke my anxiety, filling my head with unnecessary frets over the shocking incident that occurred recently.

I look at my husband's face and I can tell he's worried too. Beyond his ability to portray calm and composure, he is obviously overwhelming with frustration, exhaustion and apprehension. We both had our sleepless nights together, vexing over the safety of our firstborn. But he doesn't want to show this to me because he knows that it'll worsen the situation. I follow his advice, taking a few deep breaths and exhale slowly.

Moments later, Siri HomeKit prompts us on an incoming call coming from his iPhone. He taps the screen of his watch as he mentions his name, "Nick Pholadi", and answers the call.

Then, voice of our six-year old son, Siddique pops from the audio child monitor with his naïve question, "Mama, Papa, are you making a baby right now?"

"Aaa... We've done that already," I reply through the walkie-talkie. "What is it, Sayang?"

"Can I come to your room?" Siddique asks politely.

After much firm but gentle drilling about barging into other people's rooms without their consent, he finally learned how to respect others' privacy including his parents'.

"Yeah. Come over," I respond.

"Okay," he says, and the monitor went silent.

"Siri," Nick calls out to his virtual assistant before it beeps to respond. "I want to authorise my iCloud HomeKit account while I am away."

"Who will you be authorising to?" Siri asks from the speaker.

"Zahida Jafri," he answers.

Siri made another beeping sound before asking me to call out my name for voice recognition setting. I follow her instructions and mention my name three times.

"Authorisation complete," Siri affirmed. "Welcome, Duchess of Ampang. Would you like me to send the configuration to your iPhone?"

"No, thank you. I'm an Android user," I respond and turn to Nick, "What the hell? 'Duchess of Ampang'?"

"Yeah, just had the software upgraded and it can customise names like that," Nick winks at me while hoisting his backpack behind him.

As expected, Siddique comes in without knocking, assuming my first approval via the monitor supersede other layers of authorisation.

"Guys, have you found Kakak (older sister)?" he asks like an adult friend.

Siddique is a spitting image of Nick, but I think none of my kids pick up my facial features. He has a fair chubby face, gap teeth, mop hair and when he smiles, his monolid light brown eyes hidden into one line behind his cheeks. Despite the similarity of his facial resemblance to Nick, Siddique develops habits and traits that are similar to mine; inquisitive, bold, highly imaginative, bubbly, naughty, life of the party. In a nutshell, he's a male mini me.

Siddique hovers his curious eyes from us to Nick's luggage and frowns in confusion. "Papa nak pergi mana (where is Papa going)?"

"Balik kampung (going back to my hometown)," Nick answers swiftly, getting used to the local slang that his British accent fades away.

"But this is your kampung (hometown)," Siddique presses on, feeling worried watching Nick dragging his luggage out the door. "You said you have no other kampung. You lie? You cannot lie. That's haram (forbidden)."

"Papa," I echo, rolling my eyes at Nick who rushes himself to the corridor and towards the staircase that leads to the ground floor of the house.

Siddique follows his dad climbing down the flight stairs with Nick and his luggage while he menacingly moves around his dad. "Sid, stop playing around the staircase or you'll fall," Nick warns.

Siddique isn't listening, too occupied with shooting out urgent questions in the air; "Papa where are you going?" "Papa want to see who?" "When are you coming back?"

Unaware of the possible perils around him, Siddique took a few steps downwards, wasn't looking at where he was stepping and misses a step, causing him to topple backwards and tumbling a few steps before reaching the landing.

"Siddique!" Nick and I shout simultaneously and frantically rush for his aide while Siddique falls flat on his back, looks up at us and begins to wail.

Nick pushes his luggage to the side out of reflex and holds Siddique in his arms, rubbing his head before kissing it, coaxing his shock away. Siddique cries harder in his embrace, resting his head on his dad's shoulder while Nick carries him towards one of the sofas in the common room.

"Oh my God, Sid. You're so heavy!" Nick groans.

They slowly slump on the sofa with Siddique still clinging onto him. Nick continues to calm him down ignoring the weight of a preschool child against his chest. I follow and sit next to them, rubbing Siddique's back while peeking him behind his dad's neck.

"Sid, are you hurt?" Nick murmurs.

"No," Siddique sobs.

"Then why are you crying?" I ask.

"I don't know," he replies quietly. Nick rolls his eyes in annoyance, shooting his usual 'just like you' glance at me. Whenever Siddique created unnecessary scenes or dramas specially in public, Nick would shoot me that glance.

It is expected that the kids would turn to their dad for almost anything including playtime and counselling instead of me. Oftentimes Siddique and/or his older sister, Fatima would come home from school, asking for their dad and sulked into the corner whenever Nick hadn't returned from work.

It's not that I'm a terrible mom, it's just that kids would prefer Nick over me because he's better with children. Nevertheless, not everything they would resort to their dad. Despite being the better cook, Nick delegates the role of preparing food and meal for the kids to me. Other than that, I handled the serious stuff while Nick had all the fun with the kids. Regardless, being a schoolteacher, Nick took the responsibility of their schoolwork while we both handled the responsibility of nurturing our children together.