“What’s the matter, mom. Why the tears? Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“I am son, I am. But, I have missed so much of your growing up that I suddenly feel I was deprived of the best years of your life.”
“The best years are yet to come, mom, what with college and all.” He sounded so mature. “And I promise you’ll share them with me as much as possible because I have decided to go to a college here instead of the other part of the country.”
I smiled and hugged him hard. I then kissed him lightly on the lips and said, “I hope so, but for now, let’s get you home.”
“Yes, home.” He repeated as we started moving towards the parking lot.
I was happy. I couldn’t get enough of him. I kept touching his hand and his arm on the drive to our house. He was also happy as I could tell from the way he held my hand on occasion and squeezed it, or the way he pressed my shoulders as I tried to get home as fast as possible. The maid had instructions to get his room ready and to get the meal on the table the minute she saw my car pulling into the driveway.
His father, his sisters and our faithful maid, Juliah, were all waiting outside the house and charged him the minute my car stopped. After all the commotion died out, he went to Juliah and greeted her with so much respect that I couldn’t help but feel proud of the way he had turned out. Juliah cried as she held my hand and exclaimed how grown up he was. She said she remembered the day he used to run around in the yard giving her hard time and now he was probably the handsomest man she had ever laid her eyes on. I laughed as I gave her a hug.
He was tired so he went to his room after the meal and his sisters went with him. It took them a while to leave but they promised to come again next day to spend time with him. His father told him how happy he was to have him back with us for a while and how proud he was that his son had completed his school so well and had grown up to be such a nice young man.
I went to his room to make sure everything was okay and found him deep asleep still in his travel clothes. As he lay there like an angel that he was, I realized that I had lost my son forever. This man was not my son, he didn’t look like my son, he was some stranger. I sat next to him as I held his hand in mine and brought it to my chest and held it there with all the affection that I felt. I touched his face, I ran my fingers through his hair, I even caressed his back the way I used to do so many years ago. I had missed him and I cursed the day I had let my husband decide to send him so far away, “to build character”, as he so smugly had put.
I consoled myself by saying that now he was back and now he was with me, that now he was mine. He was so deep asleep he didn’t even realize that I was feeling him. It took me a while to leave the room and settle down.
I was up early the next morning, giving instructions about his breakfast, how it should be served, where it should be served and so on. I had heard the shower and knew that he was up early as well and that he’ll be out with me shortly. His father was going to work soon and his sisters probably wouldn’t show up for another three or four hours, so I decided that I was going to monopolize his time, to make up for the time we had lost, so to speak.