SHADOWS OF KAYLA

THE LAST STRAW

Festus.

To and fro, I saw the house workers going. Why they were suddenly so busy, I wasn't sure. I didn't want to care too much either. Walking back to my room with a cup of tea in my hand, to soothe my head after what happened earlier with James, I bumped into one of the workers. A little from my cup spilled on the both of us.

"Sorry," we said at the same time, then smiled. I dropped my cup and tried to help him with the things he had dropped. I picked some of the boxes up, noticing they were really familiar. I felt something from my heart drop…like an octave. Why would anyone have the audacity to touch mum's things? Even dad didn't try to share the right of being responsible for the things mum owned, with me.

"Who told you to touch them?" I yelled, that my throat hurt a little. I felt weak and angry inside, because it felt like the trauma I was trying to hide was being tampered with.

The young man stood quickly to his feet and gave a slight bow. My body had started to shiver. That heart-rending feeling of mum being taken away from me was back again. If you want to know the real way I had been managing her death, it was by treating her things as sacred and cherishing them with all my heart.

"Why did you take them?” I asked again, my loud voice quavery this time.

“Madam ordered us to throw out her things. Try to understand, I can't exactly disobey…I should have informed you earlier. I'm so sorry,” he pleaded.

Vanessa!

Who was she trying to be? What exactly was she trying to do, achieve or prove by doing that?

Hearing that Vanessa, whose presence I couldn't come to terms with yet, was responsible for such truculence…even knowing I would react badly to it, my head ached with anger. With clenched first, I stormed out of the main door.

Mum's things were there, stuffed into the dumpster outside. She was thrown out of her own house and worst of all, thrown into the dumpster! I couldn't take it. My heart ached so much. With tears starting to blur my vision, and with bile starting to rise in my stomach, I rushed to the dumpster and toppled it over.

While I bent to pick the bags and boxes, I could see Vanessa from the corner of my eyes. She stood by the door watching me, later going back into the house.

After I was done taking mum's things, I went straight for Vanessa.

“Why did you do it?” I asked with tightened jaws and flaring nostrils.

She stopped typing on her laptop and looked at me with a smile, one I knew carried no honesty. You know that facadal smile you'd see evil masterminds in Bollywood dramas wearing, that's the one!

“It's you, son.”

“I am not your son! And who do you think you are to treat my mother's things like garbage huh? Why don't you just mind your business and leave me out of your pretences?”

Vanessa stood from her table and walked towards me with that smile of hers not leaving her face. I wondered if it was her really pretty face that got to dad, or her young appearance.

I took a few steps back.

Seeing this, she dropped her raised hands to her side, then folded them across her chest.

“I didn't know I wasn't supposed to rid the house of unneeded things. It's been months since Camilla passed. The house already is sad as is. Do you think it's right for us to keep seeing a dead woman's things still lying around? I don't even think she'd be happy seeing you clinging to memories of her death if she were witnessing this right now.”

I heard dad walking in to the the room from behind, but I didn't turn. I knew it was him because of that musty smell of his. The shift of Vanessa's eyes to something behind me even proved that I was right.

Having heard her, I began doubt if mum actually died because of her cancer. Her illness only started a few months before, so how did she die so quickly? It wasn't even up to a week she died, dad brought home these people. It was obvious dad and Vanessa were seeing each other before mum's death…

Or had mum known about Vanessa and dad before she died?

No! No, Festus. You shouldn't be thinking such things, I told myself.

“A-ha! I get it now. You had always planned to come into this house long before mum left, right?” It was even good that dad was there too, because I wanted the both them to hear that I already figured it out.

“That's enough!” Dad shouted from behind, then I heard him walking towards me. Soon, he was in front of me, glaring. I couldn't help but give a distasteful smirk. Right. Of course he was going to try and shut me up now that I was finally understanding what had been brewing all along.

"What? Did I perhaps say the truth?”

“I said that's enough!” He yelled at me again.

I laughed and rubbed my chin, watching the two of them.

“You had been seeing this woman before mum died right? You were cheating on mum while she suffered silently. How could I not have figured it out all this while? Their sudden appearance, your home was suddenly complete again, like it had been on standby, waiting for the right time.”

Dad's large palms landed across my face.

He was about to hit me the second time, when Vanessa stopped him.

I rubbed myself throbbing cheek a little. I couldn't pretend like it didn't hurt, because it did. My recent realization even making a first time slap from my father hurt twice as much.

“It means I was right. I can't believe this," I chuckled, putting my hands on my waist. I could already taste the blood on the corner of my lips.

"When are you going to stop behaving like a kid? You're no longer one Festus, you're a man! I won't tolerate this rudeness from you either," he told me.

“There he goes again. Yes, I'm childish! Yes, the littlest things get to me. I am very emotional! And as the childish person I am, I won't stay with people who betrayed me."

I paused a few seconds to hold back my tears.

"I had put up with everything because of you, dad. I thought, 'he's still my dad, the only relation I have here.' But now, I have nothing left to keep staying here for. Thank you very much, I hope I forget my troubles in this house.” I clapped my hands and gave a dramatic bow.

With that, I headed for my room, ready to pack up my things and leave. James who had been standing outside grabbed my arm.

“You're not doing the right thing," he told me. I jerked my hand away from his grip and went to get my things.

Hello, new life.