Chapter 18-Confused
It might be because kupakwashe is already agitated by what has just happened, or she is really seeing the angriest her mother has ever been. This is not so surprising but she can’t think of what her mother has concluded from the scene that would have made her so furious.
Tanya is standing there with her eyes red and a deep fold on her forehead. Her lips look slightly squeezed and underneath she tightens her jaw. Kupakwashe knows better than to let her mother ask again but she can’t seem to find the right words even so she can’t think of the wrong words to say, all of a sudden her throat is dry and all she wants to do is cry. Cry from the anger she feels because of what Tinashe said, cry from the embarrassment she feels, cry from how her mother looks so angry.
“Kupakwashe, I leave you for a minute and you go and drown yourself in a pool of boys? Urikuda kuyedza kudii netuvakomana itoto zera rako iri? All these girls you couldn’t find any one of them to be friends with?”
Tanya keeps her voice on top. Dragging Kupakwashe to the car as she tightly holds her arm, she is determined to let the little girl know how disappointed in her she is. As they get to the car she pushes a very scared Kupakwashe inside, slamming the door after. Kupa keeps wiping off her tears she doesn’t even dare try to explain.
‘Tanya what’s all this noise about?” Dylan says from the other side of the car as he lets himself in.
He is clearly shocked by Tanya behaviour and had obviously left whatever he was doing to attend to the issue by the way he kept looking around as if to make sure no one else hears a thing.
“Ask her! Ask her what she was up to. Trying to embarrass us. Vanhu vanoti chii?” Tanya says, waving her hands all over the place as she is clearly still mad.
Dylan is looking at her with shock in his eyes, its apparent that the shock is not for what has been said but at the person saying it.
Instead of responding to Tanya, Dylan turns his head and looks at a sobbing Kupakwashe then smiles and says, “Look who is making friends now! I’m glad you’re finally popping your bubble kid!”
He blets out a grin and pats his daughter’s leg where he could reach and then straps his seatbelt to start driving. Both Kupakwashe and Tanya sit there confused at what had just happened.
Dylan ignores both of them concentrating on the road. Kupakwashe wants to smile at what her dad just said but is too scared. Tanya sits there as everything starts coming back to hit her. Instead of being happy that Kupakwashe had finally made friends, she had snapped, snapped simply because it had been boys and not girls her daughter was talking to.
And what really hits her is the realisation that she is scared because she keeps thinking of her past. Scared because she doesn’t want what happened to her happen to her daughter.
If Tanya was not so disappointed with her reaction she would be proud that she had become so fond of her daughter but mothers don’t lash out on their daughters because of their own sins. All the way home she keeps rebuking herself, she starts worrying about if she is capable of being a good mother to her children.
She can feel her heart ache as she misses how Dylan would encourage her right in this moment. But that’s not going to happen because Dylan is not speaking to her. She decides to make a phone call.
The next morning Tanya wakes up undecided on how she was going to approach Kupa after the drama from yesterday. She knows she needs to apologise but she doesn’t know how to start. She has spent the whole of last night thinking about how scared Kupakwashe must be of her now, and that breaks her heart. As she leaves the bathroom, she notices Dylan sitting on the bed holding his phone, lost in his thoughts. When she moves closer he raises his head to her, “Morning,” Tanya says in a soft voice wondering if she is going to get a reply this time.
“Your mom called,” Dylan responds as he looks closely at Tanya.
“She said you called them both, you wanted to talk so she was asking if I knew what it was about” he continues.
Tanya hesitates for a while but decides to speak up, “Yes, I was going to tell you. I want to apologise to both of them and try to find a way forward.”
She pauses again as if to think carefully of what to say next, “,and I was hoping you would come with me.”
“No, Dylan simply states.
“No? Dylan…” Tanya tries to reason with him but is cut short.
“I said no Tanya, I’m not stopping you from talking to them but I just won’t be there, do what you have to do alone. Don’t drag me into this, I’m tired of it!”
“Dylan I don’t get you, you were angry at me for not doing anything and running. Now I want to act up and you can’t even offer your support? What is going on?” Tanya is really surprised.
“Tanya that’s the point, you want to do everything at your own time and expect everyone to wait up on you, look I don’t want to have this conversation, I’m leaving for work.”
Before Tanya can say anything else he leaves. Tanya throws herself on the bed, really confused at Dylan’s actions. He was the one who wanted her to stop running away and now that she is deciding to do so he still seems angry at her.
Why is Dylan treating her like he doesn’t care anymore, what is making him so angry? Especially at her? She closes her eyes so tightly, shaking all the thoughts that Dylan might be acting on all his other angry emotions toward her.
