Scars & Knives

Strength

Dinner was unusually quiet in Richard's home. The atmosphere was so tense for everyone, Nana whose mouth is never off duty wasn't an exception. Keren looked so perplexed, her head was down, she could clearly see what her nose looked like throughout the meal. To Nana, Keren might be counting the number of rice in her plate or doing some funny revisions on her head. However, Loretta understood the reasons behind Keren's strange and funny behaviour.

The heavy silence was broken with a bigger kind of emotion- anxiety. Richard drove into the compound feeling good about himself, after ditching off a major company building, it was a thing of celebration for him. Loretta, knowing fully well that another drama will ensue and might get bloody, she signalled to her daughter to go upstairs and finish her meal. Keren wore the mask of pretense, she was stuck to her seat, despite her mother's endless signs.

"Sweetie, please go and finish your meal in your room, I need private time with your father," Loretta appealed in a very gentle manner. However, Keren was determined to stay till the end.

"Mom, there is nothing private in this home, even our neighbours know more than I do. I want to stay and listen to every word, I'm going nowhere" Keren lost her voice partially before she could complete the sentence. A sign of panic being the first time she ever defied her mother.

Richard walked in like a man who just planned an heist, as large as robbing the bank of Spain which Professor spearheaded in the movie Money heist. In his wildest imagination, he was expecting a "welcome home dad" kind of hug which he gets everyday from his daughter. To his surprise, Keren didn't move an inch when he entered the living room, she kept on staring at her food like a sick chicken whose mouth had just been injected.

"Loretta, now you are raising this girl to disrespect me? Anyways, meet me in the room, let's finalise what you started in lawyer Mary's office" he smirked as he moved towards the bedroom.

"Dad, today you will be having a conversation with me, not my mother. I want you to start by explaining the content of the note you left on the dinning. Are you really planning to make mom go broke while you throw us to the streets? I am so gullible for ever thinking  you will snap out of your senses and love mom and I like other real fathers do,..." She paused for a second to gather the last strength in her for a second half.. " who the heck are you, a father or a thief" Keren yelled.

Richard rushed towards her, grabbed the ceramic on the dinning, the one that was gifted to Loretta by Susanna on the day she gave birth to Keren, one of Keren's favourite ware in the house. His face was burning fire like the ancestral god from the Yoruba tribe of the Africa continent "sango".  He threw the vase and hit their wedding portrait on the wall, a sarcastic way of putting an end to their so-called marriage.

Keren thought of how Nana would have made a meaning out of what just happened. Since Nana waits for signs before she does anything, if she is about to eat and the soup spills, to her it's the wrong timing. Sometimes when it rains, she cancels her plan of going out because it's a sign that something bad might happen during her journey. She says the Holy Spirit tells her things through those signs, Keren usually makes fun of the situation, while Loretta concludes that she is simply acting old and uneducated.

"I'm sure Nana would have concluded that mom and dad are not meant to be together since dad broke the wedding portrait, her Holy Spirit must have whispered to her" she muttered.

"You are lucky that vase didn't hit you, I would have made an example out of you to the entire world and your mates would have learnt that a father is a god that should be respected" he yelled while pointing his middle finger at her.

" Ah-ah, only the right ones deserve to be respected like a god," Keren said in a low tone but giggled aloud.

Before Richard could think of coming for her, she rushed towards Nana and hid behind the poor woman. All of Richard's efforts to get hold of her proved futile as the sitting room became the venue for hide and seek between Nana, Richard and Keren.