Yd6~40 A Father's Quest To Claim His Sons From Ex-

 

This chapter of “Vitrine of Consciousness,” describes an author's journey to South Africa to reunite with his sons. It is written in a captivating and immersive style, rich in detail and sensory language. The author's internal monologue reveals his anxieties and hopes as he navigates complex family dynamics. The well-paced narrative, evocative language, and well-developed characters make this chapter a compelling introduction to the author's quest.

As the cabin hovers in the sky, the porthole framed yellow star-rays peeking over the horizon. A progressive glow awakens the slumbering night, slipping from the earth’s crust. My flesh, squeezed to the bones, aches from an overnight in a cramped seat. While the sun ascent lags to frustration, the cabin stirs distraction, a restless awakening rhythm. The galley spills a glow, shadowing bustling air hostesses. Emerging fresh in SAA uniforms, they approach, leading a food trolley at a deliberate pace, bending to serve breakfast to rows of passengers. I’m accepting a tray, pushing on, coming around collecting discarded containers with crinkled wrappings to trays. As scattered passengers rise and toilets queued form, I sense the floating descent. Glancing at my wristwatch, the porthole my witness, the flaky, rustic sun-parched earth crust stretches below. The 10 o'clock arrival seems a giant leap ahead. We crossed an evanescent stretch of dirt road into the western horizon, as I’m considering border markers between countries, but none to pinpoint. When, heads turn from the wide cabin’s center, as we advance over a glazed puddle. My seatmate, a middle-aged woman, for whom I have few words, leans over, “It’s the Hardebeestpoortdam,” she says.

As the hills concealed the blind lobe, and having been there, across the dam wall. The shape clashed in my mind. “It doesn’t look like it,” I blurted out, unable to detect the gorge, or the rocky spillway. I concede, disoriented. The roads feigned in earth’s crust have lost their familiarity, as an apprentice I cycled, turned off there, from Pretoria West home to Kyalami, and later, in my adulthood, driving for outings to the dam. Looking down at the flattened expanse, I’m none the wiser. except for Johannesburg's upcoming rim, gilding by yellow mine dumps. A crisp, metallic voice breaks the reverie, announcing over the intercom, “... fasten your seat belt.” My impatience relents. Gliding, the swarm of a restless ant’s nest of nerves resurges. The sun wheels in the sky, as we touch down. ‘Hoof!’ I think, relieved. But the plane taxis on, surging the swarm of restlessness, past “Jan Smuts International Airport” streaking across the terminal, and coming to a soft halt. 

After bidding the aircrew farewell, I’m among the stream of passengers down the airstairs onto the apron. The terminal’s glass doors slide open, and the throng of footsteps funnels past  the residents’ passports. I have a brief impulse to join with my permanent residence permit for the trickle of passengers. But then, I’m more at ease without attracting scrutiny to my extended absence. I join the newcomers to South Africa, herding before the international barrier of glass cubicles. I present my passport to the officer, who waves me through to a spacious, gleaming floor. In the wake of silhouetting figures scattering, I find the luggage symbol, which brings me among the crowd circling the empty carousel belt. Luggage appears, and passengers step out of the circle, whisking their bags away. I tug my bloated suitcase free, swing it onto a waiting trolley, and throw my bomber-jacket over, camouflage. 

Unlike last year when I brought in my old IBM desktop CPU and monitor, for Lionel, Peter's video camera, and Gavin's radio, now I carry only Lionel's printer. I step through the green “nothing to declare” hallway. Feeling the customs officers’ eyesight passing through me, I’m stepping out of that aura, by chance focusing on the distant foursome of smoked plate-glass doors. In my approach, they're parting into the wings, opening an audience of greeters whose eyesight vanishes behind me. 

A crowd milled around the chrome railing, left me transparent, step exposed. ‘What if no one knows I’ve arrived?’ My thoughts turn to my lack of local currency for a pay-phone, preventing me from calling my eldest sister, Ilona or my youngest brother, Ivo. I rummage through my Dopp Kit for local coins amidst a selection of international small change. I fished a twenty-cent piece, when a blond boy with a striking grin emerged from the crowd.

Then, a giant emerges from the crowd, grinning, eyes drilling me out of my reverie, ‘Surprise, surprise. . .’ he’s saying, mischievous behind a full trimmed beard. When I least expected, Ivo, as a child, registered in my mind. He sent Sheldon ahead of him, for a surprise.

“Hi, Sheldon,” I greeted the elevenish. Without hesitation, Sheldon grabbed my oversized trolley, driving ahead. “Dag — Hi,” I said, falling back into the familiar cadence of our childhood Flemish. He laughed, a deep, “Ah, Ah, Ah,” enjoying my surprise, as we’re meandering out a forest of people. 

“Hoe wist ghe dat ik kwam vandoagh ── How did you know I arrived today?” I asked as we walked the gleaming concourse toward the glowing slit of sunlight. The glass doors whisk into the wings, and back. We cross the zebra line through the cast shade from the driveway overhead. Beyond bracing concrete columns, a car park lay bathed in the blinding plaza, when the sun peaks in the sky, needle pricking my exposed skin. 

“How did you know, to come, this morning?” I repeated.

“De-M’ma ── Mother phoned last night, saying you might be on the flight today,” Ivo utters as we step down the pebbled-slab of the open-air plaza in front of the terminal.

‘De-M’ma, De-M’ma tough—Mother, dear mother,’ I’m saying, thinking. ‘She has those premonitions, and how right she is.’ In London, I could have been on any of the three flights that day. After my call from New York, in passing, I’d said. “Ik can gean . . . ── I can’t get my flight changed. But I’ll try again in London.” 

“Ik heb ghebeldt deize morghe . . . ── I phoned this morning, the South African Airways,” Ivo continues, “and thought, if you weren’t on the first plane, you’d be on today’s next one. I was told two were to land and picked the first as most sensible. If you weren’t on this one, I would have come back for the next.”

‘That was thoughtful,’ I thought as Ivo and Sheldon debated over the car’s parking spot amidst the glittery glass and sleek, undulating shines. My sneakers tread the softened, melted asphalt as we approach the trunk of his metallic gray Mercedes. Ivo’s giant force whisks my calf-suitcase into the trunk, followed by my Dopp kit into a side space. With a flat hand, Sheldon slams the trunk lid closed.

Ivo reverses the car into the lane, and drives toward the exit barrier, to a pause. As the boom lifts. I’m scanning a senseless trickle of cars through an asphalt field of lanes, effacing old roadways. In my daze, on a flight extension. But Ivo’s mind was fresh, as was his mischievous grin. While silent, in a trickle of traffic to an intricacy of morphing lanes from my past between the Holiday Inn and airport terminals. Emerging from the shadows toward deep sprawling skies, leaning an arm onto the surrounding grounds. Expensive of Ivo’s amusement. “Ik sal langst hier raiyen . . . ── I’ll drive this way. It’s shorter, I think.” Ivo says.

I can’t think straight sitting here as if it matters which road he wishes to borrow. but stealthy the railway tracks in savanna. dawning by the electrification wires and gantry etch across our way against the skies. Pulling away from the stop sign, merging into a deserted four lane thoroughfare. 

Ivo drives across the highway's traffic with intricate weaving access roads, a short stretch before entering the suburb lined young jacaranda, punctuated by sun reflective facades to modest Afrikaner saddle pitch and hip tiled roofs. Ivo ended a horseshoe course, turning away from a cul-de-sac with the blurry airport terminals. The car rocks through the gutter, to the brick paved apron, pulling to a halt before a green garage door. 

“But! This is not your house?” I blurt out, wondering if we’re making a detour for a courtesy call.

“Het is. . .  ── It is,” Ivo replies. “We have moved to a bigger house. Sold the other one.” Sheldon hops out the backseat,  Ivo and me, join him at the trunk. 

“Ghe hadt neimandt gevontden. . . — You wouldn’t have found any of us.” Ivo reminds me. “Almael is veruist. De hele family. . . ── All the family members have moved. Ilona to Hazyview, Igor to a smaller house in Randburg. It’s good I came to the airport. On your own, you wouldn’t have found anyone.”

I’m in a daze, as Ivo and Sheldon lift my luggage from the car trunk. “Lot het na. . . — Leave it for now,” I say, unsure where I’ll be lodging. Sheldon heads for the gate, to a warning caricature of a vicious Alsatian’s jaw, blood dripping from the gums. He presses the backyard gate. After Ivo, I close the gate, trailing down the precast concrete wall of the alleyway along the outbuilding. Sheldon, at the next gate, let loose a long-haired dog greets us with exited jumps, to dart between my legs. 

Ivo’s deep voice booms across the backyard lawns, commanding Alsatians to obey. The eight-weeks-old puppy, clumsy tumbles and charges around in welcome. As Ivo strokes the puppy, he turns his head in quest of my response, saying. “His name is Igor.” I’m thinking. ‘Ivo’s gone berserk, naming a dog after our brother?’ Struck mute, by the perverse humor, my mind reeling, ‘It’s a family. . . — (a branch of the family.)’ as he adds, “Heiger, Ilona’s Alsatian is the father. . .”

I trail in their steps to the leading flagstone path, Ivo  shouting “Outside,” at the excited dogs, by the stable-door. He swings the lower panel, as we pass to the kitchen, where I greet Caroline at the stove. Kinsey and Charleen peek from their mother’s skirt, one with fingers in her mouth. Ivo latches the bottom panel - bang - the mother-Alsatian paws the horse’s chew-edge, gazing inside. ‘Why can’t I greet the visitor?’ restless and excited, she leaves skirting the raw kitchen extended into the backyard, seeking doors and windows for entry, pacing back and forth to the stable door. 

Caroline’s warm voice echoes across the kitchen as she greets. “Hi! Ivan.” Around the table with a lot of huddled backrests. I’m coming around, arching and embracing, exchanging a few words. Kneeling up to her little girls, “Hello Kinsey.” in an exchange of hugs. Turning to Charlene. Offering a tentative squeeze, to rise, and scan the skimmed raw plastered walls, and the troweled floor screed. 

“I’ve brought you something back from New York.” telling the children, “but you’ll have to wait. I’m not opening my suitcase right now.” 

“Where am I going to sleep tonight?” I asked Caroline. 

She hesitates. ‘You can sleep in Sheldon’s room.’  A pang of guilt hits me as I catch Sheldon’s eye. I’m taking over his space.

“I’ll show you where,” Caroline says. Stepping off into the corridor. The children squeeze past, for position by their mother’s skirt, illuminated by the light of the doorway.

“Come on, children, out of the room,” Caroline urges. Entering the room as little eyes protest. But obedient, little feet patter on the parquet floor. Sheldon’s staunch regard, on my suitcase his father places on the floor, and with his mother and I gather in the middle of the floor. Caroline gestures toward the bed covered in a brown and white checkered duvet with an oversized black pillow. From the doorway, the girls peek back inside. 

“Priority,” I say, glancing at Caroline and Ivo. “Can I use the phone to call Lionel and Gavin?”

“It’s in our bedroom, Ivan. Go in. There, you’ll be at ease to talk with your boys,” Caroline offered kindly. Sheldon and his sisters hovered in the doorway, eager for treasures. The way blocked. “Where is your room?” I inquired. 

Breaking up the gathering. Caroline, in a no-nonsense tone. “Come on, you children. Let Ivan through.” Ushers me to the corridor, points to the juxtaposed doorway, painting a luminescent double bed’s corner with a room’s soft colors. “In there,” she says. With an intrusive sense of their privacy, I’m eager to get over with the call. 

A red phone flashes bright. I dial my sons’ home number, the tip of my fingers dancing on the keypad. With a distant ringing, I’m melting to the comfort of the cane chair, to a rhythmic creak of rocking in the cane, but the ringing doesn’t cease. Righting a possible error, to a disappointing punch in the chest. ‘What next?’ I wonder. I hang up, to a silent corridor, the family gone.

Following the wooden blocks' Z-pattern, cutoff at the threshold, and the next, doorways to the kitchen. Eerie, cold, and empty. Beyond the stretch of wall to the dining room, drawn to the end wing. I pause, beyond my intrigue shadowing a crude African bar counter, wide archways in contrast with the little family around the broadcasting TV. 

Cool flagstones, bathes in fluorescent light, cast autumn hues. The siblings sit cross-legged on the floor, captivated by the children’s diffusing program. Neither parent looked up. Ivo’s large arm hugged his wife, their eyes glued to the screen. As my boys nag, my thoughts. ‘I’ll try calling again later,’ I tell myself, feeling the pang of loneliness.

The children head off to bed, but a deep-seated instinct keeps me from calling my boys. It’s 10 o’clock on the dial of my wristwatch. I’m sitting with Caroline and Ivo on the sofa. As if on cue, Caroline asks, for the umpteenth time, “Aren’t you tired?” My spirit is sluggish, caught in the contrails of the jet’s long flight, as I’m left with a beast of fatigue, not molding body and mind. “Yes,” I mutter, my voice sounding hollow and unfamiliar, “but if I go to bed now, I won’t fall asleep.”

‘Why?’ Caroline asks, genuine concern in her voice.

I found some bearing. “I’m not physically tired,” I explain, “and besides, Lionel and Gavin should be home now.” But I’m justifying my inaction. “I’ll try to call them again!” The TV broadcast switches to the late-night news. ‘If they weren’t there by now, probably they’re out with their mother. . . on a date?’ The thought stings.

The screen fades to static as the broadcast ends. We rise from the coach, in a silent agreement passing between us. In front, light switches on, behind my step to extinction. At the end of the corridor, we part at the juxtaposed doorways. I close my bedroom door, undress in a single sweep, slip between back sheets, sprawling to the edges. The single bed, too small, the shadow too large. As I glance, a thought for the morning, 'The night will bring forth an explanation for Lionel and Gavin’s absence?’ nothing more soothing, than my head on the soft pillow.

My head nestles in the soft pillow, wishful, to lose myself in sleep again. My eyesight creeps into the folds of the net-curtain as sunlight lies on blurry rooftops beyond the front yard. Wandering back to the room, I relate to the Gemini moon in Sheldon, shelves lined with miniature cars, airplanes, and motorcycles.

But my mind awakens, filled, hoping to see my boys. I lay back, waiting for the alarm, when little footsteps amplify, creeping underneath my door to silence. Return located from their parents’ room, patter by and scatter and among giant footsteps, and fade away, leaving the corridor quiet again. 

I rise, stretching over an antique chest, cord handles. a museum piece, holding an old typewriter, and a stack of blank paper. ‘Why would a ten-year-old boy need a typewriter?’ A distant memory, at that age, De-P’pa’s mechanical typewriter, the neat letters it formed, in a stark contrast to my pen and ink tiny scribbles. Which my teacher called a “Patte de mouche. . . -- spidery scrawl handwriting.”

Dressed, I make up my bed, step into shoes and out to the corridor, to the kitchen doorway. Meeting the family preparing for breakfast around the stretch table. In the distance, alongside a packed dishwasher, the maid plunges last night’s pots and pan to the sink, by the window, picturing the distant neighboring rooftops. 

By nine, my patience wears thin, and I dial my boys’ home number. “Hello.” 

“Gavin!” I say. Gavin’s little voice chirps through the phone. “Where are you, dad?” 

“In New York,” I replied. 

Gavin stumbles over a pause for reflection. 

“But, Dad, you’re so clear.” He sounds confused, his voice resonates with doubts. I melt kidding. Checking out if Lionel could be fooled. 

“But, Dad? You’re so near.” sadden me. 

“No, Gavy!” I laugh off, “I’m here in South Africa. Here by Ivo.”

“Are you? Daddy.” he exclaims with a vibrant voice, while unsure what to believe.

I feel his heart flutter across the miles, bringing me to the verge of tears. “Gavy. How is your tummy?” I ask.

“It’s all right. Daddy.” His voice gone small and distant from the truth. ‘I’ll address Gavin’s health later.’ I decided. “Call Lionel. . . will you?” 

“Lionel. Lionel,” Gavin calls out, his voice absorbed by the carpet beyond the lounge extended into distant playrooms. In the quiet, I catch Lionel’s aura, shadow emerging from the translucency where Gavin’s voice vanished. Lionel becomes more pronounced, across the Italian ceramics of the entrance hall. Then, Lionel breaks through the phone I hold with a fist of fingers at my cheek, “Hi, Dad. Where are you?”

“We were at Granny (Whitehorn), unpacking carton boxes,” Lionel explains when I ask about their absence yesterday. I give him some leeway, my mind gauging his willingness to talk before sending him back to his mother. 

“Lionel,” I say, “Go ask your mother if you can come with me on a trip to Hazyview, visit Bom’Ma — grandmother Broes, and Bom’Pa — grandfather?”

The line falls silent. My ear-trumpet after the faint felt foot sighs through the lounge, evanescing in the playroom's absorption carpet. When the peripheral widows, to air the translucency, at figuring Lionel’s shadow standing up to Jean seated on the sofa, perpetuating bygone days. 

The silence stretches on, then Lionel’s voice returns, small and defeated. “We can only come on Sundays.”

Lingering in my mind, Jean’s firm, resounding, ‘NO.’ “Lionel,” I say, determined, to push past the spell his mother holds over him. “Go back to your mother. Tell her I didn’t come all the way from New York to see you only on Sundays from ten to five.”

Memories of last year’s visit flood my mind, the absurdity of filing at the Bramley police station. A futile junior officer, such as Oedipus, seeking to solve a family riddle, and she just threatens the boys. 

“Tell her, she can let you go for all the accumulated Sundays I missed during the past year.” I urge Lionel. “She ought to let me have you for twenty-four hours stretches.”

Lionel disappears, then returns. “Mom says she wants to be paid for the medical, and then she’ll let us go.”

 I say, my anger giving way to despair. I remind myself that I don’t owe Jean anything. Suppressing my spurts of anger. Jean’s extortion tactics haven’t changed; she’s still using the boys. “Lionel!” Cracking raw ingrained memories, to say. “I don’t want you caught in the middle of this.”

Ranting to myself. ‘I wrote to your mother, made payments, into your and Gavin’s Bob account -- Do I owe your mother? No.’

“I didn’t know,” Lionel murmurs before the line goes dead.

Fearing losing Lionel. ‘Find an alternative!’ I tell myself. Her lawyers have long since disappeared.

Lionel leaves me holding the handset. Although the line is dead, I’m thinking of him in the process of speaking with his mother. 

Gavin breaks the prolonged silence. “Daddy! Mom doesn’t want to let us go with you.”

“Where is Lionel?” I ask.

“He’s inside.” Gavin says. “He doesn’t want to talk anymore.”

“Gavy!” I pleaded, “Go and call him. Tell him I promise to keep him out of it, but. I need to explain something.”

After a long silence, Lionel's voices come back online, curt and guarded, “Yaa.”

“Lionel,” I say, “You shouldn’t be involved in this.” My mind turns to Peter, my brother-in-law. “I’ll go to Peter and Rita. They’ll talk to your mother.”

“Peter’s gone to Sun-City,” Lionel replied, “For seven days.”

“Lionel, don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I’ll sort this out, and we’ll spend the holidays together.” His aura emerges a glimmer of hope. I add, “Call Gavin.” I repeat assuring Gavin, and hang up the phone, turning to myself, and plunge myself at seeing my boys.

At task to free Lionel and Gavin from the Libra’s freaking control, my fingers walk the White Pages, trail directory entries, until Sun City Hotel. I grab the phone, and dial. A native woman’s voice answers. “Can I speak to Mr. Few? Apparently, his family is staying at the hotel?” 

“Hold on,” the receptionist uttered. She fades, searching the guest registry. “I’ll put you through to the bungalows.” Holding on a line in anticipation, then forgotten, I hang up. Dialing again, reaching the same receptionist. After another pause, she returns, her tone apologetic. “There is nobody,” She says. 

I hang on, and the receptionist returns, saying. “The bungalow concierge found out the Few, left their bungalow.” My mind races, ‘Had they left?’ I glance at my wristwatch. ‘It’s nearly dinner time.’ I tell myself. ‘That’s where the family ought to be,’ The family tapestry that wove over the years, Ronnie, and Rita marrying and having children of their own. “Well! Can’t you page them?” I blurt out. 

Kindling a flame to mind, “Let me see if I can find them,” the woman says, her Tswana accent thick, her English pure, painting to mind beautiful. Resonating the hotel’s paging system. I feel ashamed, echoing to mind, ‘Mister Few, you have a phone call. . .’

During my waiting out, mind hovering, doodling off-road from the familiar asphalt roadway, bushveld’s native mud huts, to villages dirt paths to flare Bophuthatswana Sun City luxurious resort nestled amid rolling hills — “Peter Few,” the voice snaps me back. At picturing Peter’s pudgy, round face and short beard.

“Hi Peter!”

“Hi Ivan,” Peter replied, holding his breath. 

“And how are you?” I ask. “You weren’t expecting me, were you?” I joke, skipping the small talk.

“No,” Peter admits. Chuckling, leaving my imagination to run away with the thought, he’d rushed to the phone. ‘Unfortunate,’ I thought. ‘He could have reacted to a customer, fulfilling his representative for Kalamazoo.' -- “Peter! How long will you be there?” I ask. Cutting to the chase. “I’ve just arrived and Jean is up to her usual tricks. She won’t let me see Lionel and Gavin.”

“We’re coming back tomorrow afternoon,” Peter says. His words are like a splash of cold water, dampening my urgency to access to my boys. “Wait until tomorrow,” Peter’s words echoed into eternity. 

“Peter! What time will you be home?” my impatience pressing.

There’s a pause as Peter calibrates his drive. “We’re leaving around four. We should be home by six-thirty.”

“That can’t be,” I argue, before I dismiss the thought. As an initial drive, always seems different, from the mind relapsing gaps with déjà vu landmark leaps.   

Peter thought, and say. “We’ll be at the house at six-thirty.”

Not convinced. “Is it Ok, if I see you, then?” I ask, a pang of guilt hitting me as I realize I’m imposing on him after a long trip. I ask,  “You’ll probably be tired,” I add, trying to sound considerate.

The following evening, I borrowed Ivo’s Bakkie, and set off on Modderfontein Road. With a teenager’s memories along the cross-country dirt road, until in need to traverse the Old Pretoria Road delineated by the historic eucalyptus-line Voortrekkers roads. At the Halfway-House, where riders exchanged for fresh horses to continue on their journey. I diverged from the outpost, into a trickling traffic, rambling the morphing streets of a sprawling town, to the mall, until five to six, when I climbed into the 1400 Datsun Bakkie and backtrack.  

Driving across the Pretoria-Johannesburg highway overpass, the metamorphosed dirt roar to on and off asphalt access ramps along the sprawling suburb. I scan the country road’s dirt shoulder for the asphalt apron bleeding into the side road. I veered right, into the midst of houses, to veer back around the block, the fully built development young yard bushes peeking over security walls, creeping on the right grassy sidewalk to a halt, along the clinker-blue precast wall. 

Feeling my giant legs as I kick my feet by the door out to the grass. Approach the wall, tiptoeing for a glance, discovering the driveway empty. I wish Theia to arise behind the draped drawn close, flickering the fear of the lifeless windows. I step onto the latch gates, to resign sitting in the pickup. 

Sitting wedged behind the steering wheel, knees-up against the dashboard, as I slipped down the seat, eyeing a street stretch slumbering to dusk. My head rested against the back of the cabin, cramped up. By the virtue of patience for my boys. Past seven o’clock, the night is shrouding the house. 

Every so often I glanced, to total darkness, not a single light bulb glows and frightful death. Expecting a maid to rise out of the darkness. Beginning her evening chores, and guardian of the house. While the owners are absent, as I expect the suburban routing to perpetuate.

Bright lights startled me, flooding my cabin. To my luck, the car pulled into a nearby driveway. Flickers a man getting out, breaking the headlight beams, opening each gate leaf. Illuminating cone-shaped shrubs, the car drives in, and dying a presence in the yard. 

The dials on the dashboard had jumps to fifteen minutes, then a half-hour. A figure surges from the darkness. The black man walked past, peering into the Bakkie at me. Then, a flood of lights washes through the cabin, a Cressida coasting to the apron in front of the locked gates to Peter and Rita’s gates. Peter unwound his window. “Hi, Peter,” I greeted him. Across the rooftop, Rita steps out of the car, and heads towards the gates.

“Should I close the gate?” I call to the shadow. After the front door spills an excited light that ousts the night from the driveway. Like playful pets, circling the car, greetings illuminated the opening doors, and the figures moving roundabout.

“Yes, you can close the gate,” Peter replied, lugging from the trunk bags and disappearing inside. I near the car, on stepping to the interior, a glimpse of Rita carrying one and walk the other girl through the rear doorway to lay them to sleep. As I cross paths with Peter, who emerges from the open-plan kitchen. “Take a seat,” Peter gestures toward a half-dozen backrest huddled at the round teak table.  

I pulled a chair offering a wide view of Peter’s fetch bags outside to pose next to the far sleeping quarters doorway on the kitchen floor. Retrieves himself to the wing through upholstered seats. The TV flickers, silent and indifferent, in the far corner. Rita returns to the kitchen, joining Peter behind the stark dividing counter. As he pulls various foods from the fridge, while afar, the kettle whistles a cheerful tune. Rita pours three cups. “Ivan, you don’t take milk or sugar, right?” she asks.

“That’s right.” I confirm, as an outsider. 

Then, Rita from their domain opens the discussion I’ve been awaiting. “And how are Lionel and Gavin?” 

“I haven’t seen them yet.” I reply, patient for Peter to engage. 

Approaching the threshold, Peter says, “I thought about it. Rita and I discussed it along the way, and there is nothing I can do ── Jean won’t budge. She’s made that clear before… She even told Rita to leave her house. It was because of the letters.” 

Peter’s words hit me, but I’ve grown used to defeats. “The letters?” I question, dawning on me as I recall the postcards for Lionel and Gavin. I slipped for discretion into envelopes addressed to Peter and Rita’s post box. 

“The letters Rita once a week handed to the boys secretly while on a visit.” Peter clarifies. “Jean found out about your letters. . .” Rita, across the table, listens. The extent of Jean’s wrath, dormant across the ocean, rushes back to haunt me. 

“I told Rita not to go to the house after that incident,” Peter continued, “until Jean apologized to her. Eventually, she did.” While I’m thinking, ‘it must have taken courage for Jean to apologize.’ 

“Peter,” I exclaim, in creepy desperation. “What about Ronnie? Won’t he talk to his sister?”

“Ronnie has washed his hands off the whole affair,” Peter says. “He wants nothing to do with it anymore. He told Jean, ‘It’s your life, and you better sort it out,’ adding that she was wrong to use the children like that.”

“What about, Knokie, Jean’s mother?” I ask. Echoes De-M’ma’s words as she repeated, her father, my Bom’Pa Somers, through the divorce procedure, and in the aftermath maintained rhyming in my head. “Better a bad settlement, than a good lawyer.” But my giant ego rises before my dire financial means, making me add. “I still believe that if I take legal action. . .”  Jean staging the victim, by predatory lawyers, charming the judge.

With his preparation at hand, Peter comes around the dividing worktop. “The only one that can manipulate the woman — Jean’s mother.” Peter states. “If Lionel went to his grandmother with the unhappy problem. The old-lady would have a serious talk with Jean. I believe that. But! Don’t forget, she refused to spend money on lawyers before. If the old-man was alive, he would have seen Jean getting her way. The mother, you know how tight she is with her money. But! Lionel is her favorite, he could get things moving.”

Peter brings toasted sandwiches to the bare table, stings to think of Gavin, my little Leo cub, in the shadow, by his grandmother, and Jean, and further by Lionel’s hand-me-down clothes. Fostered rifts, as his little heart cries for his father. As we finished eating, returning to the somber reality, no closer to freeing my boys from their mother. Peter pushes a few crumbs around his plate. “In the eyes of his granny, Gavin is always in the wrong.” Peter says, aggravating my aching pain. “But Lionel? He can do no wrong.”

Rita suggested we move to the lounge. The TV flickering, Peter declared, “I can only see one option: get a lawyer and sue her. Give Jean a good hiding once and for all.” His words startled me. Peter hadn’t spoken for such drastic measures before. Perhaps now, finally, he grasped the true extent of Jean’s intransigence.

“That’s all well and good,” I said, “but hiring lawyers in New York would cost a fortune. Besides, it might give Jean the ammunition she needs to further deny me access. I’ve come to South Africa to be with my boys and make up for the lost time.”

“Then there is only one solution.” Peter said, “You have to speak to her.” 

The thought of talking to Jean, is frightening, but as it nurtures a bitter taste in my mouth. Gavin’s voice echoes in my memory. “Daddy, when will you be here?” And Lionel’s plea, relayed through his younger brother. “Dad, Gavin is sick.”  

The faces of my boys flashed before my eyes, reminding me of what was at stake. Defeated, I concede. “I think you’re right, Peter. Admitting. I leap the extended unpleasant morass — “It’s what she wants ── to talk with her.”

My mind was crystal clear, spending time with my boys, flicks leading lights. I followed Peter through the kitchen, down the corridor, ushering me into his study, to sit behind his desk. I dial the house number. Lionel’s voice answers. “Lionel,” I say. “Will you call your mother on the phone?” The line falls silent, and I stare at the blank screen of the IBM PC. 

Lionel comes back on the line, unsure. “She doesn’t want to talk to you,” he mumbles. Then, “Lionel!” brooking no argument. “Tell your mother that if she wants to resolve this, she’ll need to speak with me.” Then, in a switch flip, Jean’s voice cracked through the earpiece.

When Peter returns, he types a few keys, popping up the Lotus 123 logo. He demonstrates some data entry, but then falters. ‘How do I get out of this?’ he blurts, frowning. reflexive swift as his words, a finger locates the main power switch on the CPU, flicks it. The screen goes blank, short-circuited the demonstration, missing the logo signaling all files are updating.