We won't be starting where we left off, because frankly, I don't know where exactly this falls in the time line. Just know that at some point, the subject of Itchy's parents were brought up. He had not, and had no plans to tell them that he was dating me. Itchy had just seen his oldest brother expelled from the family for dating and marrying a white woman. Itchy is Indian (dot, not feather). So are his parents (duh, well one is Indian and one is Pakistani but for simplicity's sake they are both Indian). Itchy's parents are also Muslim. They do not approve of their sons marrying white women. So when the eldest son did, they disowned him. Itchy did not want to deal with this, especially that early in our relationship. Since, really, who knew it would get this far?
I was told that we had to keep it a secret from them. I had no problem with that. Meeting someone else's parents is nerve wracking anyway. Why would I want to do that? It was pretty easy to do. His mom and dad lived an hour away due to his mom's work. They rented a house in Town B and owned a house in Town A, which is where I lived. But Town A is a big city, with suburbs, so we weren't even in the same suburb. Itchy's parents were only in Town A a few days a week. Itchy would live in my apartment when his parents were in Town B and then go to their house in Town A when they would be there.
Since Itchy's parents were under the impression that Itchy lived in their house, and only in their house, they kept it well stocked with food and other necessities. We did a lot of our grocery shopping there.
We kept this up for 3 years. With Itchy going back and forth between my apartment and his parent's house. There were a few close calls along the way. For example, we were staying at his parent's house because work was being done on my apartment, and his parents were on vacation in Asia. I had a lot of stuff at his house, as you can imagine. I got a call one night when I was at work telling me that I had to go get all of my stuff, including the cats, out of his house because his parents were coming back early! That was stressful. There were also a few scary moments when we would be hanging out in the house and would think that we heard the garage door open. We always had an escape plan. It was definitely interesting. It wasn't always easy. There were plenty of times when I was angry that he had to go back to his parent's house. We couldn't make plans on the weekends that his parents would be in Town A. It got old. It got stressful. It's a huge secret to keep.
Well, 2006 comes along. We had been dating for 3 years. Itchy is accepted into vet school. But the school is on The Island. He asks me to move there with him. I tell him YES! Hell, the chance to live in the Caribbean doesn't fall into your lap everyday. Of course, I'll go. But I think we should tell his parents first. The guilt was getting to me. It was getting to Itchy too. He wanted to tell them. It didn't seem right for his parents to be paying for school and all of our living expenses without them knowing.
Itchy was working out a plan to tell them. He talked to his brothers (by that point the eldest was back in contact with the family). They told him he was fool to tell them. His parents probably wouldn't pay for school if he told them. His brothers told him to keep his mouth shut. So he did.
We moved to The Island and didn't tell them.
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