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Dave has never met anyone less like his mother than Kamau. He orders in for dinner half the nights, doesn’t even own a television, and he doesn’t believe in marriage. He speaks softly, and he doesn’t yell. He doesn’t call, either.
It’s nice, Dave thinks, being independent. Kamau is another DJ at the club, so he keeps odd hours too, and he understands Dave’s. He’s asleep when Dave is in his medical classes, but he works as a bartender too, so he’s out most nights. Hustle and side hustle, baby.
Dave changes some things though. He gets a television and brings it home. “I need it while I’m studying,” he tells Kamau by way of explanation.
Kamau gives him an easy shrug. “Whatever, baby. I’m not watching that thing, you do you if it makes you happy.”
“It makes me productive,” Dave corrects him.
He starts cooking too. Kamau isn’t his mother, but Dave has never been more like her. Maybe, he thinks, if he cooks enough good food for Kamau, the man won’t leave him. Maybe they’ll be forever.
Kamau is out so often Dave has to press leftovers on his friends whenever they come over. Joe gives him an inscrutable look sometimes, and he doesn’t know how to begin to respond. He doesn’t think about it, it’s easier to throw some beats on in his headphones and to pretend that there’s nothing to notice.
His mother convinces him to see a therapist. She’s begun to see one herself, something he never expected to hear, especially not after the court-mandated sessions, so long ago. A part of him still has visions of her setting his father aflame, although he knows it was only a small kitchen fire and nothing like the thing his mind has since built it up to be.
From the way she still calls all the time and sounds the same, he’s not sure therapy is doing much for his mother, but talking about his life this often without escape forces Dave to confront some truths he is beginning to dislike.
He tries to lock the realizations up in those sessions, to throw the TV on as much as possible, even when Kamau is home, so that he doesn’t have to think about all of it. It’s heartbreakingly easy to do, especially since Kamau is so absent even when he’s there. Kamau isn’t Dave’s mother, because he’s his father.
Dave starts taking ballet classes, a last-ditch attempt to hold onto something, even if it’s just the ballet bar. There are boys there that are in love with each other, desperately and sweetly and, above all, presently. One of the more heartbreakingly loving pairs need a roommate to make rent, and apparently that’s the only push Dave needs to pack and move out. When he steps out the front door for the last time, Kamau tells him that he wanted to love him better, but Dave didn’t accept it.
The words scar on him like truth, but he doesn’t know whether they are. All he knows is that he needs time. He finds it in another kitchen, in front of another television, in all-nighters studying medical texts and Torah in turn, shoveling cheesecake into his mouth either way. There is no finish line in sight, but Omar and Eli assure him he doesn’t have to be there yet. He has the time he needs.