My Mother's Boyfriend

Taken

Maya

“See you later, Bug,” I say laughingly to him, and he nods his head, remaining seated by the breakfast table, on the left side of the kitchen. I kiss my brother’s cheek and wipe it off when he scrunches up his face in an exaggerated, ‘yuck’.

“Aajee,” I call out to my father’s mother as I grab my bag and head out the door-less entrance of the kitchen to head outside where my grandfather is already in the car, ready to drop me back at the university campus. I’m super-excited as it’s my first day back out after weeks of being away.

It takes me one hour to beat the traffic, and I’m not so lucky as Anthony to get a bus directly in front of my house.

I am surprised that I am allowed to go back, considering my upcoming marriage. Not to mention how my father has handled himself lately. He suggested to me that my student life was over. But I do not question anything and simply go with the flow of things to not cause an upset.

Terror plaguing my mind is how I go to sleep and how I have woken each morning for the past five days since learning of the fate my life has been dealt.

My grandmother smiles and waves at me warmly as if the past days never happened from where she is by the stove, taking out a bowl for my brother’s cereal. It’s like before- before Mum left, that is, and before she showed me how much she disliked me.

Grandmother would normally have prepared breakfast most times and Mum would allow her as she would be busy herself preparing for school where she was a literature teacher. Aajee, my grandmother would immediately after breakfast, she would start organising lunch for my dad and grandfather.

Yes, my paternal grandparents lived with us, or should I say we live with them. It’s tradition for the son to remain in his parents' residence after marriage as he would inherit it after their deaths. My father is a pharmacist.

I acted like an ostrich towards my brother regarding the wedding. I didn’t mention it to him, and I hoped it was all a bad dream. That perhaps my father would say he was just joking. That his parents were pulling a prank on me.

But my usually warm father turned frigid- even more than he had since he and Mum separated. He couldn’t meet my eyes but confirmed what I had overheard was true. He said Don Michael came up with the solution to save face.

“How could my marriage to him make things better?” I trembled. How could my father be so cold as to agree to this absurdity knowing fully well that we think he is the person who killed my mother? My mind couldn’t wrap itself around it.

“I’ll be made a laughingstock now that everyone knows about your mother’s affair. It’s out for the public to know about her sick wicked ways.”

There is nothing more shameful than the public knowing your shame.

And so, the solution was to erase the humiliation by pretending it was me all along and not my mother. Me, The sacrificial lamb.

Once more I curse at my mother. First, she destroyed my father and now me. My cheeks blend with anger and shame over my mother’s way of life. How do I explain this shameful tragedy to my friends? They all knew about my stained life.

An older woman- moreover, a married woman with children leaving her husband for a younger man was the ultimate worst. And not just any man but one of the heads of the underworld who had the blood of the innocent on his hands. The king of organised crime. He and his evil family... You name it and they did it or took heavy responsibility for it. He had shares everywhere. And people grovelled at his feet...and those who didn’t, learnt how to, by force.

And even if the police suspected him in my mother’s de@th, nothing would become of it. It makes me bitter that even though I despise what the media is doing to my mother’s reputation, they are the only ones I could depend on for the truth to come to light.

Or so I thought.

Now, it seems that to curb the public’s suspicion of Don Michael, I must marry him. The media and any investigating teams would be fooled under the guise that the reason behind him and my mother being spotted together was because of our engagement.

I would save my mother’s already tarnished reputation and, in doing so, my family’s as well. The price was me.

But fcuk him.

It’s my family’s betrayal that concerns me. Heat rises to my cheeks at the 'bad word' I used as it's not a natural thing for me to do so.

Even though I knew they might have gotten me married off to some well-off old p*****t man just to get rid of me, and they would have seen it as ‘we got her a good man to bear children and live a good life with’ as was the custom of my family. I think I would have preferred that over marrying into a mafia family.

One of my cousins had gotten married just five years ago to an old, wrinkled, stinker at just eighteen years old and on baby number three. I can see the unhappiness in her eyes when we video chat, but her words do not match it. She says to me that she is happy. Contented with what the Lord has blessed her with.

To secure the marriage, her parents had gotten her engaged to a man when she was just fifteen. I hated our traditions. I remember my cousin wanted to run away with her boyfriend at the time but was fearful that her parents would k!ll her themselves if she left home. Now, she is stuck in her misery and faking her happiness.

“He’s such a good man, Maya, I wish you the same happiness one day,” she had said to me, and I pitied her. For she has accepted her fate. The fate that is forced on us as ‘tradition’ by our elders. Taught to us- instilled as right, yet despite it, my parents thought differently and so did I. At least until they separated.

But I didn’t have the heart to tell my cousin that I never wanted her type of ‘happiness’ and that I wanted a different life. Sure, I wanted to eventually get married, but I figured in my thirties was a good age to start. I wanted a career first. Something I can be proud of.

But the elders have spoken, and as per our custom, my husband was chosen. But to an actual m#rderer? Okay, he might be innocent, but I doubt it. A white boy? The mafia? My mother’s boyfriend, being the most crucial detail. Okay, so Don Michael wasn’t Caucasian, but as long as you weren't part of our society’s race, then it was unaccepted.

Suddenly the tradition of waiting a year after a family member’s de@th to get married does not apply to me.

We were five minutes from the university when someone pulls over in front of us so quickly that we have come to an abrupt halt, and I almost flew through the front glass.

And before I have time to register that I am fine, and I did not die, my door is ripped open and the beast in human form is in my line of vision.

Don Michael.

The sight of the man has a high-pitched alarm sounding off in my brain and everything seems to go in slow-motion from there.

“Aaja?” I whisper but my grandfather seems to be in a state of shock himself.

The same tall man who had been in our house with the don, grips my forearm, dragging me out of the vehicle, pulling me away from the safety of our car towards the black Range Rover, in front.

Dread overcomes me.

Stumbling because his legs are long, and he’s moving fast, plus my brain has not processed the shock, making my legs wobbly, I see another man, dressed in a black suit, dragging my grandfather out of his car. My grandfather, though old, is a sturdy man and seems to have now recovered from his shock and is pushing the man who has him pressed onto the outer of his vehicle while other vehicles just drive on by.

It’s broad daylight and nobody cares when I scream.

“Okay? What is going on?” Michael sternly asks me, nodding at the man who still grips my arm, and I am released as he walks away calmly. Michael shoves me back against his van, firmly.

Eyes wide, I do not know what to say. What does he even mean?

His black eyes glare at me and I see his jawline working before he mutters, “Fine, we’ll do it the hard way.” He pulls me from against the van and opens the back door, shoving me inside the back-seat.

One white-panel van stopped, and my freight train racing heart felt a bit of relief. A man exists, rushing out to my aid, but when he saw who the antagonist was, he spared me a pitiful look and then sped off. I am too scared to scream. Seconds later, I am pushed further inside the luxurious back-seat of the rover by the huge man next to me.

Nobody says anything again, and I am in no frame of mind to ask anything. To explain the fright of being kidn*pped by the man who might have ended my mother’s life- this has no words.

Relief surges throughout me when I see we are on my street and even more so when we stop in front of my house.

Again, grabbing my hand, he drags me out, exiting from his side, and without even knocking on the front door that my father had replaced the busted lock on, that he broke, he barges in. “Patel, get out here- now!”

Within seconds my grandmother, who was in the kitchen, came out with the same expression I had earlier, but Don Michael ignored her, waiting for my father.

His grip on my hand tightens when my grandmother’s eyes go to me with an accusing look. I bend my head, guilty of whatever it is she is accusing me of.

Hearing my father’s heavy footsteps, I raise my head a bit. The greying-haired, slightly overweight man comes rushing downstairs, one cheek unshaven and covered with the shaving cream still on the other side. A towel is on his right shoulder over his blue open unbelted robe, his boxer briefs are the only other thing he is wearing.

He’s barely in front of us when Don Michael grates out, “What foolishness is this?” His vice-like grip is still on me, he holds me a foot ahead in front of him.

“Insolent girl,” my grandmother mutters hatefully, and though I take the blame for her accusation, I still do not know my crime, so my head hangs lower, unable to meet my father’s eyes.

“Maya, what is this?” It’s my father’s turn to insult me now and tears sting my eyes.

“You’re blaming her for your foiled plan? How foolish do you think I am?” Don Michael defends me, and my heart gives a hard thump when the implication behind his following words sinks in. “Hiding her from me only makes things worse for you.”

My head rises as a furrow forms slowly on my forehead as I process his words.

Don Michael thinks I am running away? Why hadn’t I thought of that?