Koti & Kokonsa PIII

If only there was an algorithm for enjoying the benefits of privilege. It wasn’t that Diane was ungrateful for the wealth and comfort married life to Kodjo had brought her these last 20 years – it was that it didn’t satisfy her. The Adofo clan was blessed; there was no questioning that. They had never known a day of lack. Kodjo provided for the family well. And if she had to choose between the scratching-to-survive life that many of her (former) friends were enduring and this one, she’d pick this brick mansion over a modest townhome every time. Still…

If only there was an algorithm for enjoying the fruit of this privileged life.

It wasn’t as though she hadn’t tried. In fact, that may have been the problem. Perhaps she had been trying too hard. When Kodjo had moved the family to Marietta and into the first luxury home Diane had ever seen, let alone lived in, she was thrilled! Khadijah, their first born, was four years old, and she was 6 months pregnant with Kyle. She began to sour on upscale life when Khadijah came home in tears for the first two weeks of school because the kids in her primary school had teased her about how ‘African’ her name sounded. Diane had been very deliberate in choosing her daughter’s name; and yes, it did sound ‘African’. The experience was so devastating for little Khadijah, that Kodjo swore that none of his kids would ever suffer such abuse again.

“What are we going to do?” Diane asked hopefully. Kodjo looked so determined. She could tell he was going to do something gallant, like fire off a letter telling the parents of those kids to raise their children to me more tolerant and show some respect!

Kodjo’s eyes had a glint, a faraway look when he announced his answer. “We will give all the kids regular names from now on. They are Americans. They should have American names.”

Diane was mortified, but the matter was not up for discussion. And that is how Kyle, Kevin and the twins, Karina and Karen got their names. Kodjo had never understood her resentment. He could not comprehend what it was like to succumb to the White establishment’s power to force one to change something as personal and significant as your name as a Black person living in America. Every time there was a birth, Kodjo repeatedly instructed her to “calm down”.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he boomed while she was in recovery after Kyle’s birth.

“Yes it is, Kodjo!” she snapped back, mustering the strength to set herself up in the hospital bed. “And if you weren’t such a porch monkey and bootlicker, you’d see that!”

Those words had cut Kodjo deeply, and Diane regretted them immediately. After days of silence, she begged him for forgiveness and never brought up the matter again. He was a good man and a great father. She had no right to speak to him that way. All the same, she couldn’t help but feel as though she was losing control of her life and her choices, despite how good and ‘positive’ the results may have looked from outside.

So again, if only there was an algorithm for enjoying the fruit of this privilege…

Diane reflected on all these things as she rifled through Kodjo’s wardrobe drawers. The walk-in closet they shared was chock full of clothing – most of it hers. For many years she had tried to medicate her sorrow and the sense that she was set adrift by shopping. It didn’t work, and now she was stuck with a hoard of brand-named clothing. She could not bear the shame of returning any of the items to Lenox Square where she had breezed through the Burberry and BVLGARI, wantonly scooping up the most expensive items and marching up to the counter with a haughty toss of her head. But really, who was she impressing? These sales girls made $10 an hour, $12 if they were lucky. They didn’t care how much she spent in one trip. So that was the trick. She had to make them care, and the only way to do that was to return again and again.

Eventually, Kodjo put a stop to all that when he closed her line of credit and put a $2000 spending limit on her new card. She never showed her face in Lenox Square after that.

And so now she found herself with a new obsession: spying on her family. Well, it wasn’t so much ‘spying’ as it was taking a keen interest in their pursuits. Since Kodjo’s bout with high blood pressure and eventually impotency, no one seemed to talk to her anymore. The kids, Kodjo…they had all changed with his illness! Now she had to seek out information about them just to stay in touch.

Diane snorted when she saw Kodjo’s secret magazine stash.

“Silly old fool,” she muttered.

Kodjo was deathly afraid of the sea, but he had faithfully subscribed to DIVER Magazine’s quarterly run. As though he was ever going to set foot in the ocean. Silly old fool.

Diane froze when she heard the back door open. Heart pounding, she raced to the railway and peered down. It was Tuesday. All the kids should have been at school and Khadijah – or Dijah as she called herself these days – should have been at work.

“Who’s there? Magdalena? Is that you?”

A mop of curly salt-and-pepper hair appeared at the foot of the staircase.

“Si, Mrs. Adofo,” the housemaid said. “We are here to clean.”

“Ah, good,” Diane said with relief. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”

Magdalena and her sister Giselle had been cleaning the Adofo home every week for three years. It was odd that in all that time, they had never formed any sort of kinship. But what kind of bond were you expected to form with someone who scrubbed the feces from your toilet for a living? Diane felt it was better to keep her distance. She always tipped the ladies well, but spoke very little.

“I’ll be upstairs working if you need me,” Diane called down to their pair.

“Si, Mrs. Adofo.”

With that, she moved onto the boys’ room. Nothing had changed since the week before. Diane sifted through their garbage, looking for evidence of pubescent male activity. Kyle was 16 now. Surely he had a girlfriend or at least an interest in female company by now. It was such a shame that boys didn’t keep diaries. It would make her search so much easier. Her search into Kyle’s life turned up fruitless this week, but Kevin had proven much more interesting. He had doodled a picture of a marijuana leaf on one of his notebooks. Now that was something! Tonight, at dinner, they would talk about the dangers of drugs…particularly for a Black male in this country. Never mind that life in the suburbs would insulate him from the pestering of the police or that their white neighbor grew the stuff hydroponically in his greenhouse. Mr. Simmons would be labeled an ‘agriculturalist’ and her son would be shot dead for a ‘thug’ if he was caught with the stuff. She would save the discourse for desert.

Diane had gotten the twins dressed that morning and was already familiar with the contents of the girls’ room. Unlike her older siblings, she couldn’t get them to STOP talking. They babbled incessantly about ponies and candy until Diane had begged them to shut up for a minute. Karen looked pained and started to cry, but Karina opted for stony silence. How she looked like her father in those times.

Dijah’s room was next and last. Diane started with her closet. Everything was orderly: shoes arranged by heel height and color and clothes hung in order by season and texture. Dijah took great care when it came to her clothes. If only she was as meticulous about the rest of her life. After months of this exercise, Diane knew she would get nothing there. The real juice lay in Dijah’s laptop, which she never logged off and never bothered to set up a password for.

Diane sat down and began to surf through her social media pages. What was this? Why was she ‘liking’ so much lingerie of late? Diane leaned in closer and lost herself in her eldest daughter’s digital world.

“Mom?”

The singular, questioning word caused Diane to nearly jump out of her skin.

“Dijah! Hi…”

Khadijah leaned against the doorway and stared at her mother quizzically. “What are you doing in here?”

Diane stared back, trying to conjure an explanation. She was about to mutter something about checking on the cleaning crew’s work when she glanced down at her daughter’s foot which was bound in a powdery, white cast.

“Oh my God, baby!” she cried, leaping from the desk. “What happened to you baby?”

Diane rushed to her daughter’s side and scooped her in her arms just as she began to slide to the floor.

“Oh, Mom. It was awful,” Dijah sobbed. “I wish you had been there!”

“It’s okay, baby,” Diane soothed. She felt her heart thump wildly as adrenaline coursing through her veins. “Tell me everything. I can fix this. Your mom can fix this…”