‘Kupa! Kupa wait!’
Kupa cringes as she knows whose voice it is. She contemplates ignoring and just walking but knowing him, he will run until he catches up. She stops on the footpath, checking to see if her shoes have not collected dust yet. Although she likes walking to school, she wishes the footpath was paved.
Walking gives her time alone to think, take in the world and the fresh air. The idea of being driven everywhere was exciting when she was still new at the Tembo-Moyo’s. At the orphanage, car rides were a story worth telling a good group of the other kids who would all look wonder eyed at the revered car rider.
Sean catches up, he reaches for a hug to which Kupa responds with an extended hand for a handshake. Sean smiles but takes the hand gracefully.
‘What’s up?’ He asks as they start to walk again.
‘Nothing, how are you?’ Kupa now just hopes they get to school in the shortest time possible so she can rid herself of Sean.
‘I am great, what’s happening with you? I haven’t seen you around much?’
‘Oh, I’ve been laying low a bit, exams are near.’ By now, Kupa is power walking to cover the distance between them and school. Sean, who is taller than her, does not seem to struggle with keeping up and unlike her, is breathing easy.
He looks at her with a raised eyebrow and she wonders if he knows that she is avoiding drama by keeping to herself, this decision having been influenced by the incident where a group of girls hid marijuana in her bag. She also wonders why they never pursued their demand for the packet back, for a moment she wants to ask Sean if he knows about anything but decides against it.
‘So are you telling me you don’t even have a boyfriend!?’ Sean thinks himself sleek for throwing that in seamlessly. Kupa on the other hand, rolls her eyes at the question and shakes her head from side to side in response. She is however thinking of Tapiwa . Cool and smooth Tapiwa. She had lessened her contact with him since Tanya had been in hospital and through the chaos at home. Now that things have settled , she thinks of him often. Pouring and going over the details of the brief phone calls and even briefer rendezvous after youth meetings . She quickly discards memories of his aggression and the times when he’s ordered her around, pulled her in for a hug too tight or too long. She decides to wear a nice dress to the youth meeting that week.
~~~
‘Hello, Makadii?’ Dylan shouts into his phone, he knows Pastor Ben has problems hearing over the phone. He stands at his office window, he is in the 4th floor.
‘We are all well, the twins are growing up so fast!’ He laughs at something the Pastor says before speaking again.
‘Yes , yes. I heard you were not going to come back for another month, the whole church misses you.’
He is quiet for a while, listening.
‘I’m afraid we won’t be able to make it this year Pastor , the hospital bills have just been so overwhelming, we haven’t finished paying them off.’
After expressing his regret and asking the good Pastor to greet his family and new daughter in law and grandson in over there in New Zealand, he hangs up.
He still stands at the window , looking out. He knows he won’t do it, or attempt to again, yet he wonders what suicide would feel like in the last minutes before oblivion. He is drowning in debt, the unexpected arrival of the twins, and their stay in hospital has been so costly he has no idea how they will survive the next months.
Tanya has asked casually about their finances, not having bothered to look at their bills and accounts herself as she was ill. He has been lying, never told her they used up all their savings and borrowed some on top. His salary alone is not enough to make recoveries. She is on unpaid leave and now is flirting with the idea of not going back to work. He feels defeated.
He passes Pastor Ben’s greetings to Tanya when he gets home. ‘He seems to be enjoying his time there, being around his son and his new family is good, he hasn’t seen him in years. The fight over him going was worth it.’
Tanya agrees, ‘Yea, I miss him but the church can survive another month without him. He deserves the break. Ministry work can burn you out, all those years referring people’s marriage and church gossip!’
They both laugh, each thinking of the period when they literally stayed in Pastor Ben’s office with problems concerning their marriage.
‘I am meeting Tapiwa for lunch tomorrow, hear what he has to say. The roora is this weekend , I actually don’t like that he’s been avoiding me until now. What if we have to call this thing off?’
‘No babe,’ Tanya croons. ‘Don’t think negative, there has to be a way around this. They will get married.’
Dylan smiles and says nothing.
