So my mother-in-law is back with us for a short time before her return to Ethiopia. I believe I have mentioned to someone, maybe not as a post, that her stay with us is not as bad as I had imagined it could be. In truth, it gives my wife someone to talk to, and Ethiopians (or “abasha” if you want to appear “in the know” to them) seem to need people to be happy, far more than I do at least.

At dinner the other night sat my wife, her mother, my step-son, A-, and the two toddlers and I. Whatever caused the moment to develop, the toddlers were declaring that A- was the source of the problem. To hear this gives me great pleasure and my laughter indicated as much.

My mother-in-law asked her daughter, my wife, what was so funny and my wife tried to explain, but even a dummy like me knows this “joke” is very hard to translate. I gave my wife the tip, “Tell your mom that I have trained the two younger ones to always blame A-.”

My wife, generally one to laugh thoughtlessly when anyone laughs, stopped smiling as she realized that her mom might not like to know this fact. Her mom, point of fact, raised A- in the homeland from 1-8 until his father allowed him to join his mom (now my wife) back in 2018. Sensing this, I added, “Tell her that it’s because A- had it so easy for his first 8 years.”

A- surprisingly, and unsurprisingly, clarified, “9 years,” I think because he didn’t officially move in with me until 2019.

The mother-in-law didn’t appear to think it was as funny as I did and to boot she told my wife that, “A- did not have it very easy and he was a very good boy.”

This of course made me laugh even harder because it is patently untrue as measured by his habits/character etc. and the fact that it was now clear to me that “easy” and “hard” were not being translated accurately.

As you know, dear furinj (that’s the name for white folks), by “easy” I meant things like “A-went through life unmolested to the point of living a perfectly terrible balance of getting everything he desired, having no understandable cause-and-effect relationship to his life choices, and being emotionally and mentally neglected.”

My mother-in-law, of course, meant, “He was beaten, with implements sometimes, and while I regret that, he is clearly better for it.”

The next day, he and I had to get some of his grandma’s stuff out of our shed and you can imagine the picture. I would climb over things, begin to lift them or push them and expect that the boy would take note of his necessary role and “put in his oar” as it were. Instead, he moved out of the way every time, as if he was just there to watch. (Bear in mind, it has been four years of this. This includes when I get in the car and hand the pizza boxes to him in the passenger seat only to watch as he squishes back into the seat thinking that the boxes are going to accidentally bump him otherwise.)

We find everything; the grandma’s bags are now in the house. Now they need to be carried to upstairs. He grabs two of them as she watches. I know their language enough to count to ten and hear the number “hulet” which is “two”. So I put together that ol’ grandma is suggesting that he doesn’t need to carry two at a time—and I can attest that they were heavy. A- boldly insists that he can do it—a fact to be decided in real time.

I can’t help but chide him and comment, “Oh, I see. When grandma’s watching you turn into a strongman. Nice.”

A- responds in kind, “I was a good boy for nine years…”

That’s not exactly how I’d put it.