MOM AND DAD

MOM AND DAD

Your palms are sweaty. Your heart is racing; you can feel the thumping in your chest and the blood cruising through your veins in an endless rush. You feel your bowels tightening, the shits are gradually forming; your classic anxiety symptoms.

It’s Friday, the beginning of weekend, your parent’s day off from their respective duty posts. You chose today specifically because none of your siblings or other relative is visiting but you. It’s just your parents and the thirteen-year-old that helps them to run errands and do the house chores.

You told them the night before that you wanted to talk to them while your father was watching the 9 o’clock news and your mother was sitting on the settee next to him, watching the news with him and running an unsolicited commentary.

This morning, they are both seated in the living room when you walk in. Your father is scrolling through his phone; you guess he is going through news headlines on CNN Online or Vanguard Newspaper. The only thing he does with his smartphone is read the news, have phone conversations, and play gospel music. He said Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are for women – not just women, but those who break up homes and marriages. Your mother is sitting with her legs crossed, sipping green tea from a teacup.

You sit on a cushion on one end of the room. They acknowledge your presence and set aside what they are doing, their eyes fixed on you, waiting to hear the important news you have for them.

You do not know how to start. Words fail you. You open your mouth severally to speak but it closes involuntary as though a force is working against the news you want to unburden from your soul.

“Nna, what is it?” your mother enquires, a groove of concern etched on her brow.

You nod. You do not trust yourself to speak.

“Are you sure?” your father interjects. “This one you look like this… Have you impregnated a woman and now want us to have a rushed marriage process?” He chuckles.

Your eyes are shut for a brief moment. You have inhaled, taken in a deep fortifying breath, and upon releasing it, you release the truth you most want the world to know.

“Dad, mum, I am gay.”

And then you wait. You wait to hear your mother scream and call down fire from heaven. You wait to hear her whisper, “Nna i di sure?” as though you are a stupid child uncertain of his sexuality. You wait to hear some ground-out outburst of outrage from your father.

But you hear none of these. Instead you heard a small chuckle and some whispered words. Startled by the reaction, you open your eyes to meet your parents’ expressionless faces and undisturbed demeanours. It is as though you haven’t just told them that you are gay. As though you haven’t just tipped their world on an axis. As though you haven’t changed everything.

Noticing your bewilderment, your mother speaks up in that solemn voice of hers she uses whenever she is in her storytelling mood.

“Odili, your sexuality is not news at all. Your dad and I always suspected that one of our children might inherit the trait, though we weren’t sure it is an inheritable trait.”

You are gobsmacked as the implication of what your mother has said sinks in. It is as though you are watching a 3D documentary of the world wars. You mouth doesn’t move, but your face relays all your thoughts.

Then when you think it can’t get worse, your father speaks up, calm, reassuring, “My son, your mom and I are more best friends than husband and wife. I am gay. And the union between your mom and I is a lavender marriage.”

Written by Hilanzok

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23 Comments

  1. Milez
    September 19, 09:09 Reply

    Nicely written…. But come on, can someone really inherit a trait as that?….. I’ll feel sad for my mum!

    • trystham
      September 19, 17:37 Reply

      ‘born this way’ has got to come from somewhere, not so?

  2. riddleMe
    September 19, 09:37 Reply

    Please is this fiction?

    Because I have a feeling my dad was gay

      • Ojukwu Jeff
        September 19, 11:01 Reply

        Hahaha… cause if he’s alive, he’s still gay

          • riddleMe
            September 19, 20:09 Reply

            lol… I’m ready to have my story published on Kitodiaries yetl….

            • Pink Panther
              September 20, 02:10 Reply

              You’re ready or you’re NOT ready?
              Please be ready though. This your story sounds like it’s going to be a good one. ?

  3. Yazz Soltana
    September 19, 12:40 Reply

    Please shift let me faint. …??.
    The ending tho…..

  4. Chloé
    September 19, 15:05 Reply

    Hope there is a continuation of this story? It’s looking like something the writer and I have in common.

  5. Canis VY Majoris
    September 19, 18:19 Reply

    Lmao. Your dad just rained on your parade ??.

    Serious showboating. Gays can outshine sha.

    But alas this is fictional.

    • Pink Panther
      September 20, 02:08 Reply

      Lol @ gays can outshine.
      ??? Talk about stealing his thunder.

  6. cedar
    September 19, 22:42 Reply

    Bia u can’t just cut this story like that now!
    Come back and tell us how u and ur siblings entered d show, adoption, no?

    • Pink Panther
      September 20, 02:11 Reply

      Lol. When you put it like that, a part 2 sounds appropriate

  7. quinn
    September 19, 23:53 Reply

    Aaaaahhhh! Daddy! Love this story. and yet I wonder why I’ve never heard my parents talk about anything LGBT, the time my sister tried explaining it to my mum, she didn’t even flinch.

  8. khennie
    September 20, 00:15 Reply

    Can it really be hereditary?….cos I woke up like this

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