Outside Maame

Part 4

Laadan covers my mouth with his hand. I know I talk too much but he does not have to do this. Hardly any teenagers get along with their stepmothers. Especially when their own mothers live in the same houses. I never liked her. Because of her we are in a worse place that we would have been. Moreover, she moves around like she does not do anything wrong. Laadan pulls out a chair beside me and sits. No one can avoid pizza. We hardly have pizza at home nowadays.

"You need any help?" Saar asks Ha.

"No, I don't need any help," Ha replies.

"You didn't tell me you'd go out last night."

"I didn't even tell my parents."

"Whatever you do isn't good for you."

"What? Consoling a person on his deathbed?"

"Consolation isn't a bad thing, necrophilia is."

"I think you should move out of this house."

"Your father keeps me. Not you."

"He keeps you because he thinks you're my friend."

"I'm still your friend. And no, that's not the reason he keeps me."

I cannot help but wonder where he is right now and where he spent the last two nights. I talk about my older brother. Though I hate to admit we are related by blood. I hate to admit that I even know his existence. I think I hate my older brother even more than I hate my father who keeps two wives in the same house and sleeps with both of them. My older brother stole my first kiss when I was just eleven. He was older. He knew better.

My father glances at the empty spot. My father kicked my older brother out of the house when he finally came to know what he did to me years ago. I lost all my respects for this man but I think I respect him a little in this moment. At least he has some ethics left. He always ignores me and gives all his attention to his second wife and eldest son. Seeing where they went wrong gives me a sense of importance. My father goes back to inhale his pizza.

My father's second wife sits at this table with my father two nights in a row. I do not think she is this helpless. She knows that my father still has sex with my mother. I wonder how she can totally ignore that thing. She should leave my father or make my father leave the house. She can ask for a huge alimony and maybe get a second husband. For once it crosses my mind that maybe she loves my father. Maybe her son is stopping her.