CHAPTER 7: Tanya’s dilema
When Kupa gets in , still on a high from the party, she dumps her backpack on the kitchen floor and opens the fridge. She is not really hungrybecause there was plenty of food at the party, she’s just trying to eliminate any cause for suspicion from her mother , who is sitting in the next room. She finds a half cut red mango.
‘Hi Kupa, how was the study? You came back a bit earlier than I expected?’ Tanya has one eyebrow raised, she thought Kupa and her friends would forget about the time.
‘Erh it was fine, we covered a lot of ground in a short space so I just decided to come back. Maswera sei mhamha,’ she says, pleased with her teenage self.
‘It’s hot today! Been trying to get some work done but my brains are mush,’ Tanya retorts.
‘Yea it is, I am melting. I’m going to take a shower.’ Tanya doesn’t think anything of the desperate urgency in Kupa taking a leave, she leaves the mango untouched.
Kupa turns the water on and sighs as the cold liquid hits her back. She was starting to feel uncomfortable talking to her mother, the way she looked at her. She feels better, washing off the sweat from the party from her body, hopefully the guilt goes down the drain as well.
Tanya decides to go check on Tadi, who has been sleeping for hours, the doctor did say the meds would knock him out. It is almost 6 pm and Dylan has not yet arrived. He had mentioned something about a last minute meeting when they last spoke. She is not too worried, her little boy seems to be doing well now.
Satisfied with his normal body temperature, she goes into the kitchen to start on dinner. She is on her phone, checking on emails when she stumbles on Kupa’s bag, loosing her balance and almost falling to the ground. The bag slides to the wall, spewing its contents all over the kitchen floor. A small statchet of seemingly green herbs lying at the mouth of the bag catches her eye. She slowly bends over to pick it, hoping it is not what she knows it is, marijuana.
There is no mistaking it though, the aroma and the camouflage colors. She turns the little package in her fingers multiple times. She knows, from her youth, the signs when someone is abusing the drug, Kupa shows none. There are people however, who have mastered the art of using marijuana discreetly. Another thought suggests that Kupa is still too young and excitable to be able to use the drug without selling herself out.
With a lot of thoughts crossing her mind, she picks up the phone to call her husband. Just as Dylan answers, she changes her mind about telling him.
‘Babe, what’s up. I’m about an hour away now,’ is his greeting.
‘Hi, Dee. No it’s fine. Tadi is getting better. Just wanted to check on you.’
‘Thanks babe, see you soon?’ Dylan says, .
‘I love you.’
‘I love you.’
She stares at the phone after she ends the call. She is thinking about how she was always grateful when her mother covered up for her when she messed up. She wouldn’t tell her father,thats because half the time, her own mother was too afraid to say anything to their violent father, who believed the sins of the daughter where also the sins of the mother. She chooses to concentrate only on how this saving act made her feel closer to her mother, made her feel safer. She hopes Kupa will feel this way.
