Call It Chicken Salad

                                          Call it Chicken Salad 

                                             Prologue

My dad used to say that he fell in love with my mother at first sight .

At the tender age of 6 , I always believed him . Believed that there was any such thing such as ‘love’ , let alone ‘love at first sight’ . But gradually , I started to realize things that I hadn’t when I was younger.

I saw my father sneaking off at night when I was 11 . He never saw me ,but I saw him . Later , when I was 13 , he started to disappear for days , sometimes even weeks , but he always said that things were busy at work and I believed him straight away . Why wouldn’t I ? Me and him had always been close and I believed that he would never find the need to hide something from me .

But , with my older sister and mother , it was a different story . My mother started getting angrier whenever Dad was home and finally , one day she let loose of all the steam that she had started storing up when Dad first began to disappear .

I remember the day as clearly as I could . I had been 15 and my sister 17 . We had been pretending to do our homework late at night at the kitchen table and Mom sat impatiently in the living room , with the T.V. blaring with some nonsense she probably couldn’t care less about .

At precisely 11:26 a.m. , Dad turned the key in the lock and entered the living room , looking surprised to see all three of us still awake . He gave me and my sister , Charlie a kiss on our heads and turned to Mom , opening his arms and stepping towards her to give her a hug . Mom stepped back , out of his reach and shook her head fiercely .

“Do not , ever , touch me with those hands which have been who-knows where !”she screeched at him , making us all flinch at her high-pitched voice . And anyone can probably guess what happened after .

Dad admitted that he had been seeing another woman behind Mom’s back for about a year and things went downhill after that . Mom and Dad got divorced in about 2 months but then came the question about who would live with whom .

Charlie’s first choice was Mom and so , I decided that living with Dad was the best option , even though it would be a bit weird at first , seeing him with another woman . But , honestly , it wasn’t . Her name was Becky and she was a few years younger than Dad with dark brown hair and gorgeous hazel eyes . She had been divorced once before but didn’t have any kids and was delighted to get a teenage daughter .

Dad was unbelieevably hapyy that Becky and I got along like two best friends and honestly , she was a much better mother than Mom had ever been .

So , it was one day that I asked Dad that how had he known that Becky was his ‘One’ . He just smiled gently at me and said , “Because what we have was something special . Call it chicken salad or , whatever , but the feeling can’t be described .” And since then , I began to wonder when I would get my chicken salad .