Could it be…?
My mom pretended to prepare lunch in the kitchen. ‘What do you see in your future? Say five years from now?’ Laura, then my girlfriend, asked. ‘I haven’t planned that far ahead,’ I responded.
‘What about marriage?’
‘What about it?’
‘Don’t you want to get married and have kids?’
‘I don’t want to have any kids.’
‘What! Why would you get married then?’
‘I don’t want to get married.’
‘What! Why this? Why am I here?’ she asked looking into the kitchen.
‘Because my mom invited you,’ I answered.
Then in a softer tone she asked: ‘So. You don’t want to marry me?’ That’s how blunt Laura is.
‘There’s so much I want to do before I settle down.’
‘What things? What can’t you do after being married?’
‘Like Travel.’
‘Don’t you think that can be done with a companion?’
‘I want to have a personal experience.’ She makes a confident shrug and matches to the kitchen, where I heard a jolly chit chat contrary to the conversation we had just had.
Months of not seeing her again must have worked some crazy magic in my system because the next time I met her in a matatu, I asked her to marry me.
So, true to her attitude, I can hardly take my eyes of my son and, yes, HER—something I work hard to keep her from knowing lest her horns grow through the roof. One of the results to her compliance is a conversation that is better than any I ever dreamt of, ‘Here ish your Chlishmash gifth. Ope you like ith,’ Kevin said to me after dinner.
‘Of course, I like it, man. Is this from you?’
‘Yesh,’ he said.
‘A shirt? Wow! It’s a fine one,’ I said casting side glances at Laura who peeled the potatoes with the dexterity of a long serving school-cook; working like she isn’t hearing anything.
‘Mama shaid dat’s yoursh Dad.’ I looked at him unbelievably. Did he just call me Dad? For some crazy reason, Kevin always called me Kip—no matter the amount of reprimanding. I suppose he doesn’t understand why he is not encouraged to call me Kip, when Laura does that all the time.
And ‘Dad’! Oh I could listen to this boy all day long. As for the snobbish woman on the other end—the major contributing factor to my current joy… let’s talk about her another day. Back to Kevin; it is one thing knowing that you are a dad—but it is something else when someone calls you by that name. So after the hustle and bustle of the festive season, I made time to catch up with Kevin one evening.
‘Dad.’ Oh that word.
‘Yes Sonny.’
‘Can I go up e rloof wit u to make the aerlial tomorlow?’
‘Hey, no Kevin.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s proper that I fix it alone.’
‘Don’t want me to eshcorth you?’ ‘NO! Son NO. That is something I have to do by myself.’
He shrugs confidently and matches to the kitchen to happily tinker with his mother’s utensils as if he had not been denied anything. But hey! Wait a minute. This conversation is very familiar. Could it be….dejavu? The last time I had such a discussion, the other party won… This time, if my other little party wins, it would be dangerous—to say the least. So I ran to the kitchen to ask Laura to help me reinforce my ‘No.’
END:BL29/26