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“Ugh!” She sighed. After turning off the stove to keep her scrambled eggs from burning, she trudged out of the kitchen. “Follow the master.”
Clearly, Jay was playing his father because the moment Chess walked into his room and yelled, “Jason Khan Winters,” he flew out of his bed like it was made out of hot coal.
“What the-” Tazeem’s jaw dropped as he watched their son speed off the bathroom.
“See.” Chess pointed to herself. “Master.”
“Indeed.” Tazeem laughed as he followed her back to the kitchen.
Even though he didn’t know the first thing about a spatula, he did his best to help her out with breakfast.
While they were cooking, Senia emerged from her room to get a glass of water. Though Chess had already briefed her sister about the situation with Tazeem, this was the first time they were meeting face-to-face in eight years and it was awkward. Worse, Senia was coming from an all-nighter so she wasn’t in the mood for a touching reunion. After a brief hello and the obligatory ‘How have you been?’, Senia ducked back to her room.
“I can’t believe that’s the same kid who used to beg me to write her notes so she could ditch gym class in high school.” Tazeem exclaimed in awe. “She’s grown so much.”
“You have no idea.” Chess confessed, “In many ways, she’s even more grown than I am. You won’t believe what she does for a living.”
Tazeem was curious. “What does she do?”
On and on, they chatted as they cooked. And by the time Jay emerged fully dressed for school, breakfast was on the table.
“And don’t try to make your dad cook for you something else while I’m gone.” Chess threatened her son, “If you don’t eat what’s on the table, you better believe that I’ll send you to school hungry.”
Jay immediately gave her guilty look, proving that he’d been caught scheming.
Tazeem started, “If he wants-”
“Uh-uh.” Chess cut him off. “You two can play your little games on your time, not on mine.”
With that warning, she headed to her bedroom. It took about half-an-hour for her to get showered and ready for work, and when she came back to the dining room, both Tazeem and Jay were done with breakfast. In fact, Jay was currently in front of the TV watching a cartoon.
Chess pressed a fist to her hip as she scowled at her son. “Since when did we start watching TV on a weekday morning?”
Jay immediately pointed the finger at his father. “He said I could.”
“He asked me if he could and…” Tazeem’s words drifted into silence as he gave her a helpless look.
Chess could only sigh and shake her head as she turned off the TV.
They finished everything early enough to make the bus, but Tazeem wanted to drive Jay to school himself so they all piled into Tazeem’s car. Even though they got to Jay’s school at peak drop-off time, Tazeem wanted to get out of the car to say bye to Jay. Only Chess’s raised eyebrows and the other parents’ irritated honks kept him in his seat. Still, he yelled a hearty ‘bye’ to Jay as Jay got out of the car. To Tazeem’s disappointment, Jay didn’t even look back, let alone say ‘bye’ back.
“It will get better,” Chess consoled. “He just needs a little time to get used to you.”
Tazeem gave her a forlorn look. “I hope you’re right.”
“I am.” She paused briefly then added, “But you know I can’t keep being the bad cop to your good guy, right? You’ll need to grow a backbone soon if you don’t want Jay running you.”
“I know.” Tazeem sighed. “But I just want to reassure him that I’m here for the long run before I start putting my foot down.”
“Can’t you do both at the same time?”
“How?” he asked.
And honestly, she had no answers. “Maybe we can contact a child therapist to help us out.”
“That’s actually a good idea.” He asked, “Do you have anyone in mind?”
Chess offered, “Let me look into it and get back to you.”
