Every saturday I accompanied mama to work. She worked half day. I did not understand why I had to wake up early and it was not a school day. My siblings would still be asleep when we left the house. I was the last born in a family of three. She worked in an wooden office block as a secretary and I was bored to death waiting for noon when she would get off.
We would take a bus into town and straight into Blue Room where an ice cream treat awaited me every single Saturday. I would lick my stick clean before we reached a restaurant where a plate of chips always welcomed me. I felt special. While I struggled to finish my lunch, mama would be busy with a friend who I did not take much notice of. He was always waiting on us in different restaurants on different Saturdays. He had a full beared and always kind to me.
They had intense discussions with mama but I had no idea what they were discussing. I do not remember much but he was always there before we arrived. I was so focussed on the meal and feeling so privileged unlike my two siblings. I was so busy concocting the details of the ice cream flavours and chips taste that I would need to share with my brother and sister to notice that mama was holding hands and stealing kisses with the bearded man.
An hour later and a full stomach, I would be struggling to finish my orange soda and ocassionally would nap on the seat. Mama would tuck and cover me with her sweater or throw. Without any sense of time, I would be woken up when it was time to go home.
I do not remember ever sharing details of mama's friends to my siblings or dad but I had a lot to say about the ice cream, the chips and soda. I do not ever recall mama warning me to keep quiet about him, either. But I never mentioned him to any one.
Years later in my adulthood, I have been reconstructing those moments, trying to see any signs I may have missed. Trying to recall anything mama may have said to me about him. He was never introduced to me. I have no idea what his name was todate.
My parents are divorced and I have often wondered if the bearded man had anything to do with it? Was mama in a relationship with this man? Was he her first love? Was my dad aware of something. Did mama use me as an alibi? Was there mistrust in my parent's relationship and hence the need to be mama's chaperone on Saturdays?
Now at 26 years of age, I keep wondering if I aided and abetted a crime againist their marriage institution? Was I an accomplish? Guilt fills my heart everytime I visit my dad and I want to ask him for forgiveness. I avoid visiting him in his rural home alone. It feels like he can see my soul and the skeletons I hide in there. Hard as I try, I cannot get the right words to initiate a verbal engagement that could lead us to a place where I can pour my heart's content for him to see that I was not party to mama's escapades.
My dad was a very vibrant, outgoing and gregarious during my childhood. Today he is all introverted, a man of few words though his eyes seem to dance to a different rhythm. His energy seems drained. His limbs are slowed by arthritis that has invisibly sculptured his finger joints, elbows, knees and toes to mock the crooked claws of a drunk bird.
His eyes rapidly dart back and forth, right to left and back. Dancingly youthful. They seem to be the only organs and body parts from the dad I knew in my childhood. They have a life that age, marriage failure, loneliness have not managed to reach and crush.
Mama on the other hand has lately become very hostile to me. I cannot recall what..
My therapist says
Mama had a secret account
Depression is real.
