I Don’t

Tamara stirred the contents of Hamburger Helper around in the skillet as it simmered. She checked her cornbread to see if it had reached the golden texture her family preferred. Peaking over her shoulder at her five year old, who was sitting on the floor combing her baby doll's hair, "Scoot back from the tv," she warned.

Her 12 year old strolled in the house bouncing his basketball on her hardwood floors. One glance from her and he knew to stop. "Is dinner ready yet?" he asked, his voice much deeper than she remembered this morning.

"Almost. Go get out of those sweaty clothes and wash your hands. We'll eat as soon as your daddy gets here," she advised.

As if on cue, Donnie walked in the house, leaving tracks of mud from his work boots. How many times do I have to tell him to come in through the garage door and leave his shoes in there? she thought to herself. Sighing aloud, she knew she'd have to clean the mud off her foyer and carpet or else it would drive her crazy.

"Daddy!" Zhia screamed, abandoning her doll and running out of the room to follow him. Tamara shook her head in amazement at how, daddy coming home always excited her daughter.

After shuffling food onto the four of their plates and sitting them on the table, Tamara called her family in so they could eat, and so she could hopefully, relax.

Donnie and the kids walked in and sat down. He prayed over their food and declared, "I have an announcement to make!" Drawing the attention of the kids and a raised eyebrow from Tamara, he continued, "Kids, this is it! Tamara…let's get married," he invited, grinning from ear to ear.

"Yay!" Zhia shouted. "You're going to be a princess, mommy," she informed.

Her 12 year old, unfazed by this 'news' continued eating: knowing the sooner he finished dinner, the sooner he could play video games.

Tamara rolled her eyes. Stabbing her green beans and putting them into her mouth, she stared intently at Donnie.

Donnie, almost forgetting, reached in his pocket and pulled out a gold, 1-carat ring and reached it across the table to her.

"Take it, mommy!" Zhia urged, smiling widely.

"Finish eating, Zhia," Tamara instructed as nicely as she could, with her son chuckling in the process. She sighed again.

"What's wrong, baby?" Donnie asked, arm still extended across the table. "This is what you've been waiting for, ain't it?"

Tamara chuckled, continuing to eat. Men, she thought, shaking her head back and forth.

Slamming his hand on the table, startling the children, "What the hell is wrong with you?" Donnie demanded.

"Uh oh, daddy's mad," her 5-year-old narrated.

Having had just about enough her damn self, Tamara deliberately rested her fork on her plate. Looking Donnie in his eyes. "Can we talk about this later?" she asked.

"No. We can talk about it right now!" he ordered, banging his hand against the table again, making her fork fall off her plate.

"Look mother--!" she yelled, catching herself because of her children.

"Oooh, mommy almost said a bad-" Zhia began.

"Zhia, Bernard…bye" she ordered.

Not needing to be told twice, Bernard grabbed his plate and his little sister and left the kitchen.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" Donnie questioned.

"ME?!" Tamara yelled indignantly. "You're the damn caveman banging tables, "I am man, hear me roar" in this bitch," Tamara reminded.

"Yeah, cause I propose to you and you leave me hangin,'" he pointed out.

"Pro-pose?" she laughed in bewilderment. "That wasn't a proposal."

"Like hell it wasn't," he said offended. "You're ungrateful. That's what you are."

"And you're an idiot," Tamara said, grabbing her plate from the table and walking to the sink with it.

"I don't know what else you want," he said, throwing his fork onto the table.

"First of all, you little ingrate, I want you to stop throwing silverware and pounding tables. And secondly…hmm, I don't know, maybe a decent proposal, not that I want to marry you anyway," she confessed.

"A decent proposal? You trying to play me? It don't get no mo' decent than that. I gotta ring," he said, folding his arms across his chest.

"THAT YOU PULLED OUT OF YOUR POCKET!" she yelled as loud as she could, thinking a higher octave might make it register to him. "Where the hell is the box?" she questioned.

Donnie, taken aback and unable to account for the box, sat quietly for a minute. "So…you don't want to marry me?" he asked.

Exasperated, she bluntly told him, "No."

"After all this fucking time together, and you don't want to marry me?" he asked, befuddled.

"No" she said, shrugging her shoulders.

"You're so full of shit," he accused. "So…you're telling me if I did come in here with a box you wouldn't have said yes?" he asked, already not believing her.

"No, I wouldn't have." She said, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. "You don't get it," she began. "There's so much, I don't even know where to start. One, I got over getting married and getting married to you a loonnnng time ago. Not to mention, you're tactless. What the hell makes you think I wouldn't want you to get on your knees, with a boxed ring? Oh! That's just for starters. Then, "hey kids this is it." Seriously? Proposing to your woman, in front of your kids, is ass-backwards! It's… it's thoughtless, it's ignorant, and quite frankly, it's ghetto." She confirmed.

Donnie sat in his seat feeling like a reprimanded child.

On a roll, Tamara continued, "Two, we've been together ten years and today-" she said, walking over to a calendar- "February…5^th, you decide to 'propose?' Why?" she insisted.

"Why not today?" he asked defensively.

Ignoring him, she continued, "Fuck today. Why ten years later, huh? Tell me that? Ten years, two kids later, and NOW you're ready? Are you kidding me?" she asked.

"Technically, one," he whispered, under what he thought, was his breath.

"You shole' right," she added, hearing his snide remark. "Let me rephrase that, ten years, one biological kid later, why now? When I wanted to get married, you didn't want to. "Had to get your money right, your job together,'" she listed, rolling her eyes. "But today, a day that means absolutely nothing to either one of us," she paused "you decide to suggest that we get married. Cause you damn sure didn't propose." She said picking up the plate out the sink and rinsing it off.

"So, if you feel that way, why are you with me? If you weren't waiting to get married, why are you still here?" he asked, still unable to make sense of it all.

"Two words. Love and comfortability. I love you, I tolerate you, and I'm comfortable with the way things are. But, do I want to marry you? No…I don't," she said dropping the plate in the sink and walking out of the room.