There is something about asking my old man for advice that makes me want to cry. It is the way he listens, like he has been waiting his entire life for that singular moment. I don’t, of course, cry; I am a man, and it is unAfrican. But I think about it sometimes.

He walks with a slight stoop to his right, the effects of torture early on in his life when he served in the Air Force. He has a bad spine now as a result. I don’t get to see him as often as I would like, which is a shame because my old man roasts a mean steak. He is old school, but he knows how to use foil paper – it is funny when he says it. If he roasted meat for you, you, too, would want to go back.

I went home to see him the other day, but we didn’t roast any meat. In fact, I doubt I would have had any had he insisted on it. His shoulders and neck hurt. But he is a proud man… to a measure. And so we went walking in the fields.

He wanted me to see what portion he was setting aside for trees – he says his land has rejected food crops. He also wanted to know why I hadn’t been going home with my wife, and if a child was expected any time soon. I said we needed to do crop rotation, that the land would be productive again.

We had been having some little trouble, I answered, my wife and I, but it was just a little hiccup we needed to get through. We would solve it soon.

He continued talking about the trees, and how the future was in trees. He talked about how barren the land had become and how we needed to leave it be for the next decade – the soil needs to forget how much it has lost before it can learn to feed us again. I nodded.

The little matter

It had rained; the air felt cool. We walked to a spot near the fence where he asked me to lift a tuft of dry grass and check for mushrooms. I picked two. I asked him why we couldn’t uproot the tea bushes and grow something else; he laughed and said it was not yet time.

But I suspect the reason is that the tea plantation is the last thing he has with which to remember his old folks – my grandparents – by. He misses them. I don’t think I will let anyone uproot the bushes either. They stay.

Later, he watched me milk the cows – he said he has never seen anyone milk as fast as I do. While we had tea, he asked me what the little matter between my wife and I was.

“She doesn’t tell me things,” I started. “We don’t click anymore.”

“What does it mean?” he asked after a pause.

“Clicking?”

“What would you like her to tell you?”

He didn’t like my response. He called her the next day. She didn’t answer. He tried again later, and got a text message - she was busy so could she please call him back later? Later never came.

Bottling things up

They spoke to me that night, mom and dad. Was it them, they wondered? Had they been too imposing? No, I replied emphatically. It was we. They refused to understand. It was the fourth time I had come home alone that year. They knew.

The following morning he watched me milk the cows again. The heifer he had given us after our wedding was about to calve. When it did, in a few weeks, there would be seven cattle to look after. The farmhand they were expecting hadn’t arrived. I worried how they would manage.

We talked about building a new shed for the cows and fencing off more pasture fields. I agreed with the things he said audibly enough for him to hear me above the sound of the streams of milk jetting into the bucket.

Mom had already left for school when I finished – she was on duty that week. I made him fermented porridge, which I served with a boiled egg, sweet bananas and slices of unleavened bread. He ate in silence.

I would be leaving in a few hours, and I wanted to speak with him. It had been difficult back in the city, bottling things up, keeping everything to myself.

I had told no one about my impending separation. It was then that it occurred to me that I had denied everything – not that they had believed me when I did – and there was nothing to talk about. He would let me handle it on my own, I realised.

If I hadn’t asked for help, it was because I didn’t need it. I was denying him the chance to be my dad. I was refusing to be vulnerable. Morrison, what a selfish jerk you are! I cursed inwardly.

I fed the cattle and cut enough napier grass to last a few days, which I deposited by the fence. If the farmhand didn’t show up soon, mom could help transfer the grass to the feeding trough. Perhaps the old man would manage a trip or two as well if he watched his step.

I was ready to leave now. Our man-hugs have always been awkward, but this one felt natural. He was acknowledging my pain, and I found it difficult to look at him directly afterwards. I wanted to close the gate after I had driven out, but he said he would do it, he insisted.

“I am an old man now,” he said as he held my hand. His trademark grip from my growing up days had loosened. I thought about his spine again and looked away.

“And when old men die, they need grandsons to bury them. Who is going to bury me when I go?”

Mom didn’t answer her phone when I called to say I was departing. Mostly likely she was in class. When we spoke later, she asked me to greet my wife when I got back to the city.

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