Chapter 33 Miz
33
MIZ
O h, please, God, let me still be asleep, let this be a bad dream , I plead with the man above when our car pulls up into the Elilly Hotel driveway. Whenever I am in Ethiopia, I am so used to handing over all decision-making to locals that it didn’t cross my mind to ask which hotel the ladies—Eske, and her sisters-in-law and cousins, my semi-bridesmaids—and me had been booked in to get ready for the wedding. Turns out, the hotel where the salon is, where we have a suite for primping and dressing…is Mom’s hotel.
As we file into the atrium-style hotel lobby that all the balconies look down onto, I keep my head down as if I am hiding from paparazzi. Thankfully, at this hour, it is deserted. Now all I have to do is make sure I don’t run into Mom. That’s all. Not while I am going from the salon to the suite or leaving the hotel later, glammed up by the city’s most sought-after stylist, with the whole procession and fanfare of the groom’s party, being serenaded by a live instrumentalist and vocalist, I’m sure. But no problem. Nothing like hiding in plain sight.
As the bride, I get priority for hair, so I finish at the salon before the other women. Weyneshet, the wedding manager, a fast-talking, big-haired, self-made businesswoman who favours purple in all the shades in existence and has managed every Legesse clan wedding, gives me clearance to go on up to the suite. I hurry across the lobby, eager to hide out, thankful that it is early enough that—
Saywhatnow?
I come to a screeching halt.
Dad is in the lobby. As in, this lobby.
He has just stepped out of the elevators and is jauntily crossing to the café. What the what ? I dash behind a potted palm and peer out. Did the hood dryer at the hair salon fry my brain along with my hair? Dad, who was supposed to have been in Adama overnight for work, looks rumpled as if he just woke up. He is in yesterday mode: yesterday’s hair (uncombed), pants (beltless), shirt (untucked), face (unshaven).
Well, well, well. Working late, huh? When I had imagined my parents running into each other, I did not picture it in the context of Dad having a rendezvous with some lady at the very same hotel where Mom is staying. Of all the hotels in the city, Dad, really? This is a freaking epic potential disaster in the making.
While Dad waits for service at the café, I feel I have to do something . What? Confront him? By saying what? Or warn Mom? Also, by saying what? Unsee what I’ve seen? Impossible. The elevator dings open all by itself, like a sign from God. Upstairs it is. Quiet as a mouse, I slip in.
Upstairs, I let myself into Mom’s room with my key card. “Were they open, maré ?” she calls out from the bathroom.
Honey ? Who does she have up in here?! “Nope!” I answer loudly. Oh, what I would give to see the look on Mom’s face in that moment. I walk further into the room, looking for giveaway details…and slap my hand over my mouth like a scandalized auntie when I see Dad ’s tie, watch, wallet, keys and fedora on the bedside table.
Oh no they didn’t. Oh, but they did. Because it’s all laid out like an evidence exhibit. The sheets are mussed and piled haphazardly like an unmissable art installation. Oh my god. My eyes! My eyes! I turn away, squeezing them shut. Growing up, whenever friends told stories about walking in on their parents “doing it,” I used to pretend to be grossed out too, while secretly wishing I had a similar story. Similar being the operative word. Not exact!
When did my parents go from ships passing in the transatlantic night to honey ?
So, Mr. Your-Mom-Knows-Where-to-Find-Me found his way to her. Once in the past week, I oh-so-delicately broached to Dad that maybe he could join Mom and me for a coffee or something. But he’d shut me down, saying he was still at the same address he’d always been at, and if my mother wanted to see him, she knew where to find him.
While I’m still reeling, Mom comes out from the bathroom wrapped in her bathrobe, sees me seeing the room for what it is but remains totally chill as if this is just another morning of me coming by for a day of visiting the long bereaved.
She picks up the nearest object, an ice bucket, and holds it out to me.
“Can you get me ice?”
“Huh?”
“I need ice.”
“But…it’s…not filtered.” She’s been nitpicky about everything, determined to avoid getting sick. Also, do I look like a six-year-old that she can distract that easily?
In addition to her undercover agent level of cool, I notice that Mom is also wearing a wedding ring. Her wedding ring. The one that’s been rolling around her bathroom drawer for ages.
Jigsaw pieces click into place with deafening clangs. No wonder Mom came to Ethiopia early and got “delayed” so long in Addis instead of continuing north. No wonder she never got around to making all those house calls. Many people to see , my butt. One person, more like. Slick! These old people’s game is myofascial-tissue deep .
Mom puts the ice bucket in my hands and ushers me out the door. As I stand in the hallway, helplessly holding the bucket and trying to figure out what’s going on, Dad comes around the corner with a bottle of mineral water in one hand and a bottle of Johnnie Walker in the other. His eyes widen a fraction when he sees me but then flick to Mom’s. Without missing a beat, he says, “Oh good, you’re going to get ice.”
What the huh ?! My phone rings. Eske. I decline the call and put the phone on silent. Sis-in-law will call right back. She believes that relentlessly calling makes a person magically available. Which maybe works in Addis business life, but not this Addis business right here.
“You look lovely,” Mom says suddenly.
I have to double-check who she’s talking to. Moi. Right, I forgot about my hairdo.
“So early in the morning too,” Dad says.
“Thanks? I, ah, I decided to come right when the salon opened so I don’t have to wait for the flat-iron guy.” For some reason, the flat-iron guy in every Addis hair salon is some cocksure dude who struts around like he’s a brain surgeon. “I have a…thing later today,” I explain, very much unasked. “I just thought I would say hi before going.”
“Enjoy your day,” Dad says, nabbing the out I just presented them on a silver platter. He bypasses me politely, as if we were strangers, goes into the room, and shuts the door. A moment later, the Do Not Disturb sign is shoved through the bottom of the door and bounces against my shoe.
Oh hell no they didn’t. In a daze, I pick up the sign, hang it on the doorknob, fetch ice, leave it by the door and buzz off so my parents can…
Nope, not finishing that sentence.
In my suite, I sink into a bucket armchair. Weyneshet has transformed the room into a princess’s chambers, all white silk, chiffon and glittering rose arrangements. My wedding gown, tiara, veil, shoes, bouquet and perfume are all laid out on the king-sized bed. I twist my (temporary) wedding ring round and round on my finger, as if it is the crank that will get my brain going so that I can process what just happened. Hey, they didn’t even notice my ring!
A knock at the door, then someone lets themselves in. It is the famous Kokeb, in the flesh. Sometimes names really are destiny. This star is so overbooked that none of the brides in all the weddings I’ve been in could get her to do their makeup. And now…oh, the irony!
We say hello, and as she starts to set up, I excuse myself to the hallway to make a call. It is past midnight in Toronto, but then again, it is still Friday night there.
Aimé picks up, sounding groggy. “Am I not the one who’s supposed to be calling you? There’s no more notifications from your portal. I’m checking the email twice a day like my life depends on it.” One of her other jobs while we’re away is monitoring our inbox, just in case of an internet blackout here.
“I caught Mom with Dad!”
She is instantly awake. “What? No!”
“Yes!”
“Where? How? When?”
“Hotel room. Her hotel room. Let’s just say he didn’t get here this morning. Follow?”
“Oh snap!”
“After all this time, and that’s what they get down to?” Silence. “Hello?”
“Okay, don’t read too much into it. Start from the beginning.” I tell her the happenings. “There you go,” Aimé says. “They’re not ready for questions. Eventually, they’ll bring you into the loop.”
“When? On my deathbed? Haven’t I waited long enough?”
“Don’t you have anything better to do over there? Wait—isn’t Kal’s party tomorrow?”
“It’s already today here.” If I tell her that I’m about to have another wedding with Kal in a matter of hours, very publicly at a resort, alongside his parents’ marriage celebration, there’s a real chance her head will pop off from happiness, which will not help with keeping her focused on the current, more urgent situation.
I hear her fumbling around, followed by the sound of peeing. “So just have fun.”
“I intend to. But…but what about my parents? I just leave them here?”
Aimé laughs so hard there are breaks in the sound of her peeing. “That is exactly what they want. You’re too old for any of this to be your business, anyway. Leave them alone. You don’t own them and their story any more than they own you and your story. What’s theirs is theirs, what’s yours is yours.”
“Except what’s theirs has pretty much determined the course of my entire life. I am owed an explanation.”
“You need it right now?”
“Yes!”
“Why?”
Kokeb pops out of the room and signals to me we should get started. I know that if I sit in that vanity chair, it’s game over. I will be stuck for the rest of the day. The other women will come back while I am getting my face put on, then the in-room breakfast, then getting dressed, etc. This is my only window of opportunity.
On any other day, I would have died to have Kokeb work on me, but I give her the just a minute finger, and she goes back into the bedroom, shrugging like it’s your money . I beeline down the hall to the elevator, press it and wait, all while making listening sounds as Aimé chatters on about her race training. As soon as one comes, I hop in, not even telling Aimé sayonara, and press the button for Mom’s (my parents’?) floor. She’ll assume it’s a bad connection.
The Do Not Disturb sign is still hanging on their doorknob, proving that all that earlier really did happen. Too bad. I knock, almost saying Housekeeping! in English, forgetting that staff would say something else here. But in a way I am there for housekeeping. Of musty family mysteries that need airing out!
It’s a minute before the door is opened. Both my parents are in bathrobes—oh god—but Mom is sitting in one of the loveseats on either side of a small table. Are they really sitting there sipping alcohol as if it’s tea? I have to blink to adjust to this sight of them in the same space. Music comes at a low volume from one of their phones, one of those familiar ’70s soul melodies.
I march in and sit on the edge of the bed, the very edge, and cross my arms. They look at each other with amusement, but neither takes the lead. Okay then. “What’s going on here?”
Crickets. Mom busies herself by wiping imaginary dust off the tabletop. Dad takes the other loveseat opposite her.
“What’s going on?” I repeat, my voice climbing higher. “All those years…” Thirty-four, to be exact. “And then this? What happened?”
“Nothing,” Mom says, waving her hands in a gesture I hate because it only comes out when I edge up on the big questions. I feel a rush of hot rage toward her—her nerve trying to pull that cagey shit on me, even now! And Dad being his usual passive self, placid smile on his face, like a man who’s just spent all night… Nope, still, not ever, finishing that sentence!
Suddenly, I feel so overwhelmed, I burst into tears. Mom is by my side in a heartbeat, clutching my hands. “Oh, Mizu. Please! I can’t see you cry.” Her eyes start flowing too. “You know I cry when you cry.”
I snort wetly, taking away one of my hands to wipe my nose. She gestures for Dad to give her a napkin and tries to wipe my face like I’m a kid.
“No, tell me what happened!” I demand, wriggling away.
“Misunderstandings, miscommunications, disappointments, fights…” Dad rambles, looking like a man who’s never dealt with a toddler on the verge of an earth-shattering meltdown.
“What?!” I glare at him. “That doesn’t explain anything.”
“Over everyday matters,” Mom says, picking up his sentence, “that seemed so important at the time but that were so small and silly.”
I press my fingers really hard into my eyeballs, hoping that stops the tears and makes this all make sense. “I. Don’t. Understand.”
Mom pulls my hands away and forces me to look at her. “We got married too soon without knowing each other well, because we didn’t have anything like dating back then, so when we started to have normal couple problems, we fell apart.” She looks over at my dad. “Right, maré ?”
Dad nods, leaning back in his chair. “Did not know how to meet our first storms.” He is so out of his element, his confidence too shot for a full sentence, that I feel a little sorry for him.
“So why didn’t you just…” I pull my hands apart. The word feels icky, as if I hadn’t spent more than half my life wishing for it as much as for their reunion. Anything but the limbo. “Divorce?”
“At the time, that was very difficult. Not at all like these days,” Dad says.
“So when I had to leave for Canada with you for your surgery, and he couldn’t come…”
“At the time, it was rare for couples to both get exit visas,” Dad adds in his lawyerly voice.
“We…just let each other go,” Mom says, patting my cheek, which just unleashes a new wave of tears from me.
Dad takes the opportunity to step out to the balcony for a smoke. I fall the rest of the way onto the bed and curl up into a fetal position. Mom shuffles onto the bed and reclines so she can see me.
No big dramatic story. Just too-new love that didn’t stand a chance against real life.
We stay like that for a few minutes: Mom watching me, me watching Dad on the balcony, Dad watching us. The chorus of old school soul slowly fading out, falsetto voice repeating something about not giving up. What the hell was that song?
Eventually, Dad comes back in and pours himself mineral water. “Marriage is serious,” he says. “Knowing someone for a few years is nothing.”
He’d said something similar to me about my teenage boyfriend. But Kal…we’ve known each other for donkey’s years, but as friends. Been intimate for just months. Never properly dated. What does that mean for us?
Dad caps the water bottle and puts it down. “We are so proud of you for not getting married.”
That hits me like a gut punch. I sit up. “What?” My entire life, they don’t say one word to me about getting married, and now this ?
“You have grown up to be so independent, so much wiser than us and your friends, taking your time to decide about marriage.”
Dad takes a long swallow from his glass and sighs with satisfaction. “If at all.”
“If at all,” Mom echoes.
Is that what I was doing? Deciding? News to me.
Mom takes the rest of his glass, finishes it, and gives the glass back to him. “We are so proud of you for not following the crowd even when you celebrated wedding after wedding. Unafraid to be your own person. Only once, I worried for you,” she says. “You were only fourteen, a baby, but arguing with me about being in love! I did not want my mistake for you.”
“Mom, even if we wanted to get married in grade eight, that wouldn’t have been legally possible.”
“I did not want you falling into a serious situation that would be impossible to get out of.”
The question is on the tip of my tongue. Was I an accident? But the answer seems self-evident. “So you deported me,” I say instead. Mom huffs, annoyed. She hates it when I use that word to refer to what happened. I turn to Dad, expecting a commiserating smile, but he gives me a stern look. Wow, already defensive about wifey. “I mean, ‘decided the time had come for me to meet Dad,’?” I say sarcastically, switching to her official version of what happened.
“And it worked.”
She actually looks proud of herself, as if scaring me off from falling in love—a privilege she got to enjoy—was her intent. “Better than you realize,” I say sadly.
“I haven’t worried for you since,” she says, completely missing my point.
I feel woozy. I do not feel that I have been wise, deserve to be proud of myself or have made smarter choices than they. I’ve messed up big time. Wasted time. And now I’m trying to make up for it with some charade at a resort.
“We assume you have…friends, of course.” Dad struggles to find the right word, since I don’t think there’s a literal equivalent for date in Amharic. Other than go out , maybe.
“Of course,” Mom echoes. Kill me now. Where was this level-headedness when I was fourteen? “But if one has to marry, take it from us, wait. Wait as long as possible.”
“Like, thirty years?” I assume they’re not headed for divorce, even if it’s modern times now and they could easily get one.
Dad laughs. “Yes! Now is when we should have a wedding. When we know who we are. When we have earned a celebration, like your friend’s father and his wife, God rest her soul.”
“Oh yes! Up!” Mom says, knowing only half the story, like Dad. “Go enjoy the party.”
But I don’t move.