Daddy - by Laseeee

I have always known how to disappear in loud rooms full of people.Especially rooms that share my blood.But today I can’t.So I walk into the kitchen.It’s full, as expected.Oil sizzling.Laughter bubbling over pots.My mother’s voice floats out between steam and spices, shouting at Kenny, the little girl she took from the village to train, to pound the yam well. While Aunty Yetunde’s mouth clatters louder than the pot covers hitting the ground, gisting the Soyinka women about her sixteen year old pregnant neighbour.I clear my throat, and somehow the kitchen hears me before I speak.Plates pause mid air.Laughter stumbles.I ask them to come to the parlor,not loudly, but steady enough for them to know it’s serious,just enough for the house to know something is about to happen.I turn and walk ahead of them,heart in my hands,trusting my feet to remember where courage lives.The parlor is loud too, not just with voices, but with presence.Uncle Deji sits too comfortably on Daddy’s favorite chair,boiled groundnuts cracking between his fingers,shells collecting on the Guardian newspaper spread on the floor like evidence of joy.Someone argues about fuel prices.Someone laughs too loudly.Someone calls my name while trying to remember another.Daddy is there.He’s leaning back, listening more than talking,his laughter slow, familiar, earned, shakingthe same shoulders that once carried me when my legs gave up.The same man who stood quietly at the edge of my fears and never asked me to hurrynow stares at me expectantly as I stand in the middle of the parlor.This is the part where I usually disappear.Where I shrink into walls.Where I wait until the room forgets I exist.But I can’t.My heart is loud today.Louder than the TV.Louder than Uncle Deji’s laughter.Louder than the spoons dropping in the kitchen.Louder than the feet stomping toward the parlor.And now, louder than the silence in the room.The room waits.Eyes on me.Expectation thickens the air.I feel every second stretch,asking something of me I’m not sure I should give.I tell myself, not now.I tell myself, later.I tell myself, you’ve always been shy, Dara. This is not the day to be bold.My fingers tighten around the bowl in my hands.I shift my weight and breathe in.But the bowl tilts,a careless movement,a soft betrayal of gravity.The fruits I bought for Daddy spill across the floor.Oranges rolling.Apples bumping into chair legs.A pause.Then murmurs.I drop to my knees.At least, that’s what it looks like.Hands reaching forward,gathering what I spilled,face warm with attention I didn’t plan for.This is where I should stand up.Smile.Apologize.Return to the safety of silence.But Daddy is looking at me.And in his gaze I see every time he showed up before I knew how to ask.Every school run.Every quiet prayer he never said out loud.Every moment he chose patience when the world was rushing me.So,I stay on my knees.Not because of the fruits.Not because of the floor.But because this moment has waited long enough.Twenty one years too long.My voice shakes, but it’s clear enough for everyone to hear me utter the words.Daddy, would you marry me?

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