DILEMMA II

 

“Didn’t you say your parents were supposed to be away for two months? What changed? Why are they coming back just a month into their vacation?” I asked.

“Oh, dad claims mom got bored.”

“Your mom got bored! From a vacation abroad? Wow!”

“Yeah, crazy huh. Must be menopause.” He said lightheartedly.

“Must be.” I said, keeping my other sentiments to myself. I mean some of these things you can’t talk about too much lest you come out sounding envious or something. My mom doesn’t even have a passport and someone’s mom is bored spending time abroad. The world is so fair you’ve got to love it.

I know what you guys must be thinking right now; just another good old sob story right? You couldn’t be more wrong. My dad is dead, don’t worry it was long ago. Long enough not to get weird when I mention it now. I only bring his death up now when I want to elicit some form of human response, other than sexual of course, from Bill. Believe me; if he thinks he’s getting some, he grows a bleeding heart.

After my dad died, his widow; that will be my mom, didn’t remarry. I suppose no man she met wanted a ‘born one’ for a wife. She did however earn herself a reputation, what with all the men she dated and all. And the ‘proper women’ of our neighbourhood never missed a chance at telling me who my mother was or how bad she sucked at motherhood. They never let me forget. This is why I am so proud of my diploma in education. To me, it is equivalent to a Harvard certificate. I was supposed to have dropped out of junior high school according to popular belief. My mom rocks; simple. Exactly why I am so proud of her.

So, no, I don’t envy Adom. Not anymore. I have simply exhausted the capacity of my ambitions and my ability to dream to envy anyone over anything, much less the most important person on earth to me, apart from my mother.

Adom’s cell phone rang, jolting me out of my reverie.

“Yeah, hello. You could have called a lot earlier ahead of time, you know. I left the house about five minutes ago, plus I have an errand to run. Besides, I’m with a friend too. Listen, you know that waakye joint up the main street coming to our place? Yeah, Waakye Butik. Get down there and we’ll pick you up soon, eh. Okay, see you soon.”

From the one sided conversation I heard, I could guess the caller was female, because he mostly spoke pidgin English when he’s speaking with his male friends.

“You do know it’s an offence to be on the phone whiles driving, right?” I chided.

“Sue me!” he retorted.

“Who was that?”

“Freda. Some girl bi that I met at that programme organized by Nestle’ Ghana some three months ago.”

“How come I’ve never heard of her?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, just kept on driving.

 Come back and find out who this mystery Freda is. To be continued.