THE EVENING CONVERSATION
I t is a Wednesday evening, the kind that arrives quietly. The sun is folding itself behind the trees, and the house carries that familiar pre-supper stillness. I am seated on the wooden chair by the window, a book resting open on my lap. My fingers hold a page, but my eyes are not moving as fast as they should. I am thinking more than I am reading. Across the room, Chiyambi is watching me. She is ten, but her silence is never empty. It is the kind that gathers questions before releasing them. “Daddy,” she finally says, breaking the stillness, “do you ever get tired of reading?” I look up slowly, marking my page out of habit. “Not really,” I say. “Why?” She shifts on the couch, pulling her legs closer, studying me like I am one of the books she doesn’t understand. “Because you’re always reading,” she says. “Or writing. Or looking at your phone, analysing Facebook posts.” She pauses, then adds, “It looks like work… but also not like work.” I smile a little. “It is wor...