Mommy ✓

twenty

C H A P T E R  T W E N T Y
 
☆☆☆

The first ten minutes of lunch passed in the kind of slowness that makes one feel atoms vibrating in the atmosphere around them and take note of how long a second truly was.

It wasn't that I didn't want to speak but rather I wanted to suss the situation out.

I wanted to memorise everything that was happening around me – from the smell of lemon essence wafting through the room from the automatic odour control dispensers we had inserted in the kitchen that often wafted into the dining room, to the taste of the salty food on my tongue.

I wanted to remember the image of my parents – yes, parents in the plural, my dad  and  mother – sitting next to each other.

I wanted to remember the little dimples that appeared on my mother's face only when she chewed so that when I later went to sleep, I would have proof that this was not all a dream.

"Your father tells me you're very keen about hockey," my mother said and it brought me out of my reverie.

I had an answer sitting right on the tip of my tongue but I was overwhelmed by the sound of her voice, soft, husky and tentative. It was like she wanted to make sure she was saying the correct thing at all times.

Maybe she thought my silence meant that I hated her but in all honesty, I was so overloaded with emotion that it was hard for me to act normal. It was the coaxing look my father gave me that finally gave me the push to nod my head and the words flowed after.

"Yes," my voice sounded brittle, "I want to play professionally one day."

"I think that's lovely," my mother said and smiled softly.

"Paiten has been voted the Dux Sportswoman of The Year for two consecutive years at her school," Dad said and one couldn't miss the pride in his voice.

My mother's smile widened.

"I've always wondered what it's like to have something you're passionate about from a young age. I wasn't really good at anything back then," my mom said with a small deprecating chuckle.

I swallowed the sand that had gathered in my mouth and made me feel like I was choking, "what do you do for a living?"

"I've worked many jobs over the years but I've been a hotel manager for the past three years and it looks to be something that I'm going to stay with for a long while."

"Do you like it?"

"It's a decent job," my mother said with a nod.

"Which hotel do you work for?" I asked.

"The Protea Hotel in Durban."

"Nice and close to the beach," I said and my mother nodded.

"I don't like swimming much but I do like the serenity that's always there by the ocean after a long day."

"Me too."

"I have a lot of employee benefits I never use so if you ever want to swing down during a weekend that could totally be arranged."

I thought back to the holiday spent in Margate and all that had happened there with Manda and I frowned.

"That's obviously if you want to, there's no pressure or anything," my mother said, misinterpreting my silence as displeasure.

"Thank you, I'd really appreciate is sometime."

Lunch came to an end half an hour later and my mother and I continued to keep this delicate dance between us – the both of us timid and careful with Dad being the mediator.