The Dark Side of the Mentari

Breakfast with dad

From the large backpack he was carrying, it seemed like his father would stay here for a few days. What is it, Rania wondered in her heart. Her father would not argue with her mother.

Ah, I'll ask you later.

After opening the door, turning on the living room lights and letting the two people in Rania rushed into the kitchen, she said, turning on the kitchen lights then boiling water in an aluminum teapot to make tea and a large pot of water for his father's bath. He must be tired and tired after traveling for hours. This was the first time that his father had traveled so far. Fortunately, he was not lost.

Sayup heard Dandy and his father talking in the living room.

"Oh yeah, what did uncle ride?." I heard Dandy's voice

"So happened to be a hero there is a need here, so all uncle hitchhiking. If you get on the bus afraid of going out."

Once again Rania's heart twitched tight. Apparently his father was with Wira. So Wira already knows he lives here. Since when?

"Indeed, if you take a bus from the terminal, you have to change the city transportation twice before you get here. It's a little hard if it's never been."

"Eat him son, it's better that uncle doesn't come here than he doesn't get there." They laugh crisply. It was as if they had known each other for a long time.

Rania understood very well, her father was quiet and not a person who easily expressed feelings. But can quickly get along with others who are also connected to talk.

Waiting for the water in the small pot to boil Rania prepares the tea to be brewed, as well as pouring the sugar in three glasses. With a small spoon he got rid of black ants in a jar of sugar.

As if a century of waiting for boiling water, he was afraid that his father would mention his marriage to Wira in front of Dandy. It's nothing, he's just not ready for anyone else to know about it. He would have told them, but not now.

As soon as the water boiled Rania hurriedly poured it into a glass glass that already contained tea leaves and sugar. His father only wanted to drink real tea as usual picked by himself. Not a packaged tea bag that just pour hot water directly so. It was fortunate that the supplies he had brought from home a few months ago were still there.

With a tray Rania brought tea to the living room. Sitting next to his father while holding a tray after putting all three glasses of hot tea on the table.

"Drink first sir, brother." His voice clearly sounded nervous.

"Let's have Dandy drink his tea." Rania glanced at her father who grabbed the tea glass with his right hand.

"Yes uncle. Let's." Let's." Dandy followed her to grab her glass, blew it around for a while and took a little sip. It's still hot.

It's getting dark outside. Either because of the cloud or at night. There are no clocks in the living room. Rania was eager to ask the intention of her father's arrival, but the question that was already on the tip of her tongue was swallowed back, not tasty because there was Dandy. It was impossible just to visit him, his father must have had other intentions. I'll ask him later.

Dandy said his farewells just as the Maghrib prayer rang from the large mosque across the highway.

...****...

Since his arrival yesterday he has never once asked about Dandy. Which makes Rania even more wrong, he also did not mention the Wira who drove him here. People like her father are hard to guess. It makes no difference when you like something or vice versa.

Yang Rania knew all this time her father was more silent because he did not want to fuss with his stepmother. Moreover, in recent years he rarely went home, at most at home for only one week, during the Eid holiday. Other holidays he spent at the boarding house on the grounds of selling, fearing his customers moved. Though on the other hand he actually did not want to see the commotion of his parents. Grandma who repeatedly advised him to come home often just be taken. But still, other holidays are still spent at the boarding house.

Right, from the beginning in his heart he hated his stepmother. Seeing how quarrels after quarrels happen every day makes it so frantic. Grandma once said that her mother had changed, but her little heart always refused to believe. Indeed, several times the mother came to visit the boarding house on the grounds of stopping by, bringing a lot of souvenirs. From rice, vegetables, dried tempeh, peanut sauce, rempeyek, even fried anchovies. Haah, at most it is also the parentage of grandma.

"Well, Dandy, yesterday, the door was broken by someone?." He remembered last night his father asking about the door of his house that was poked by people, with an ordinary look.

"Yes sir, maybe a prankster."

"People's time? It's crime. Got to call the police."

"But there's nothing missing sir."

"Yes that's weird. That's why you have to be careful." The voice of the old man was ordinary, all the while, but in her heart Rania cheered happily. His father still cares about him. It's just that he conveys it in a different way.

Rice is ripe from earlier, vegetable lodeh cooked has also been boiling, just fry eggs and salted fish. His father had also gotten up and was walking in the alley in front of the house. Today he will take his father for a walk.

"It's ripe?." Suddenly, I was standing at the kitchen door.

"Eh, sir. Let's have breakfast first."

Rania hastened to make coffee, then spooned the rice to her father's plate.

"Here, vegetables and side dishes you take yourself nduk."

He held out a plate containing rice and took the plate to himself. It felt different, there was a sense of haru just like that, making his eyes foggy. I don't know when the last time they ate together was like this. Since the arrival of his stepmother his father was like away, or Rania who built a barrier wall so high between them. Every time he came home he would eat with his grandmother when his father had gone to the garden. When she eats with her parents, she feels uncomfortable.

In the past, when he was still Junior High, he had made a mistake that he did not want to remember for life. He ate a side dish that his stepmother bought from the market. He didn't know it wasn't for him, it was for his father. All afternoon he received advice from his mother for the mistake. He felt like a thief because of a piece of meat he ate without permission. No one knows but the two of them. There was no one else in the house.Dad and his grandmother went to his mother's family meeting at that time. His mother did not hit him, but his words were completely etched in his memory until now. It hurt his heart, dissolved in his bloodstream and throbbed pain as he remembered it.

"If it's not your right, it's not yours, don't eat it, you can't even touch it."

"Sorry mom, Rania doesn't know."

"If you don't know, you should ask first. Not just eat. What will your father come home to eat?."

He wanted to spit out everything he ate that afternoon. If only he did not rush to eat because of hunger from noon following scout activities at school and did not have time to eat lunch. If only he had asked first...

"Let's eat, don't daydream." Rania stammered at her father's voice and immediately took back the rice that had accidentally fallen on the table. He smiled, but his tears were on his plate.

As usual, her father did not ask her why she was crying. Did he not see those rolling tears?. Or just pretend not to see so that the girl is not confused to answer?. Only he knows.

"There's gonna be something you want to talk to me about."

Deg. Rania stopped the spoon that almost went into her mouth. He looked at his father wondering.

"but then, let's eat first."