We Are Able

Episode 12

Toyosi came one weekend. She wanted me to begin teaching her sign language. I became glad and began to
teach her with immediate effect. She would write whatever she needed to know on paper and I would make effort to demonstrate it to her in sign language.

My father John hadn’t changed for good. I keep
wondering why one’s biological father could deny one
in such manner. If he didn’t want me why then did he
get my mother impregnated and then made me come
to existence? He should have aborted my pregnancy
while I was in the womb, I thought.

“Mother, why is this man still like before?” I asked my
mother.

“He will change,” mother replied. “Let’s just keep trusting God and praying to him to touch the heart of
your father.

The Lord who touched the heart of Bode’s mother will surely touch his heart too,” she said.

“Amen,” I replied.

Toyosi came around at another weekend. She was furious when she saw Bode in the act of bully.

If not for the fact that I have permanently jettisoned the act of revenge, I would have torn him apart. Toyosi came in
time, just when Bode gave my nape a hard slap, having a leaf between his lips to mock me.

I had turned my neck upon my knee, gnashing my teeth.

The way Bode behaved really depicted the fact that he wasn’t a
bastard—I mean to say that he was my father’s child indeed, because that way exactly must have been my
father’s way of life at his childhood too—wicked ways.

I could read Toyosi’s lips. She was screaming at her
son. She rushed towards him and caught him by the left
arm.

The rest was a story—she beat him black and blue.

“Sorry young girl,” she said to me in sign language.

“Thank you,” I replied her, raising my face again.

Toyosi wrote a note. She wanted me to teach her how to spell her name ‘Toyosi’ in sign language.

If she had learnt the alphabets very well, she would have been
able to do that easily.

I demonstrated the spelling of her name in sign
language. She was glad. She opened her bag and gave
me some confectioneries she had bought. She had also
bought some fried rice in an eatery. She gave me a
bottle of orange juice. I gulped it down without care. It
wasn’t the first time I would be collecting gifts from
her.

Toyosi watched as I gulped the juice. She began to
caress my hair. She spoke to me in the little sign
language she had read. Then, she wrote another note,
asking me to spell my own name for her in sign language too.

“My name is very simple…,” I said. There was a knock
at the door.

Toyosi hasted to open the door for the knocker.

Rachael my aunty came in. The look on her face was rather outlandish. I wonder what had happened to her.

“Welcome ma,” I said.
“Thank you Rose,” she replied faintly. She saw the juice half-drunken on the table and frowned.

Toyosi went before her and genuflected for her to pay her some respect.

“Stand up my wife,” she helped to raise her up. “Where
is my sister?” Rachael asked me in sign language.

“My mummy has gone to the market,” I replied.

“Your father, what about him?”
“He’s gone to work,” I replied.
“Does he work every day?”
“Yes, except on Sundays,” I replied.
“Okay, I’ll wait for your mummy anyway,” she said.

“She’ll soon be back,” I said.
Toyosi was just beaming at us. She didn’t understand
much of what we were communicating since she wasn’t vast in sign language yet. She seemed to be uncomfortable with my aunt’s presence, perhaps
because of the halt to the sign language I was teaching
her. I could see her speaking to my aunt. She must be
bidding her goodbye, going by the way she was rising
up, her shiny cerise bag hung to her left shoulder. She
had a vignette on her neck which was the spot on her
body that had become a cynosure of my aunt’s eyes
since she came in.

Just when she was up, Bode rushed in again and gave me a bite on my right shoulder. Toyosi swiftly grabbed
him before he could escape and beat him silly.

Bode wept bitterly. The noise of his cry was surely ear-splitting, going by the manner some grotesque had
formed around the faces of the two women—Toyosi and my aunt. Toyosi twisted his arm and pinched him.

The story of his face was all about tears for the space of ten minutes after, even when her mother had left.

He was insulting me, but since I couldn’t hear him, I wasn’t
affected a bit. To make me affected, Bode poked the
leaf into her mouth again. I wasn’t bothered this time
around.

As soon as Toyosi left the house, Rachael swiftly drew
close to me.

“Rose, who drank that juice halfway?” she asked in a
critical manner.

“Me,” I said.
“You?” she frowned. “Have I not told you that you
shouldn’t collect anything from her anymore?”
“Ahn ahn, aunty, why? Why don’t you want me…?”
“Hey! Rose! You are very stubborn. The last time you
came to my house, remember I told you that you
shouldn’t trust someone so much. Why are you so much
trusting that Toyosi can’t harm you? I’m saying it again,
don’t take anything from Toyosi. I mean that woman
should not be trusted too soon!”
I bowed my head in cogitation. Whom do I follow, my
mother or my aunt. My mother was the one who asked
me to be free with Toyosi because it is only through
her that we can actually get the favour of my dad. If not
for Toyosi who came to fetch us from our refuge the
other time, perhaps my mother would still be staying
out of wedlock till now.

“But…but mother asked me to be free with her!” I
replied. My hands shook as I spoke.
“Hannah asked you to be free with her?” Rachael said as
if it was a serious issue. “Let her come and I’ll
challenge her about that.” The door began to open. It
was my mother.
“You are truly the daughter of our father,” my aunty said
as my mother got in.

“Why d’you say so?”
“We’re just talking about you Hannah,” Rachael smiled.

She was beautiful in her own way. Her mouth was
shaped in that oval Terminalia catappalike fruit shape. A
black little round spot stood out beside her nose. That
was what some of my mates called ‘Sign of God’.

“Gossipers,” my mother said jokingly in smiles.

“Why don’t you hear us before judging us?” she said.

“Em…by the way, did you meet Toyosi on your way
coming?

“I didn’t meet her, was she here?”
“Yes…she just left,” we said.
“Oh, Toyosi, I wished to see her,” my mother was sad.

She had so much loved her now. Since our
reconciliation with my dad, Toyosi had been helpful in
the area of helping us get things done. She was the one
who involved my daddy in registering me for Secondary
Education I would be commencing next month. If not
for her support in convincing my dad to do that, John
wouldn’t have bothered paying.
“Was she the one who brought you these things?” my
mother asked and I replied, “Yes.”
“God will bless her mightily. Whatever she lays her
hands upon shall prosper,” my mother prayed for her in
her amateur sign language. I had to correct some of
her misspoken words. At that juncture, she noticed the
look on Rachael’s face. “Rachael what’s the matter?

Why is your face like this?”
Rachael spoke. She said she was suspicious of Toyosi’s
sudden moves.

“Prophetess you have come again,” my mummy was
laughing. “It is you who said that my husband will
receive me back; it happened through Toyosi, now you
are doubting the motive of the person God used to
bring the reconciliation.”

“Just be careful of her, that’s all I have to say,” Rachael
said soberly.

“Okay o, we have heard you,” my mother replied and
made up a stiff neck. She moved her nose in a mocking
way.

“Well, Hannah, just be careful.”
Rachael saw the notes Toyosi had written. She read them out. Thereafter, she asked, “Did she ask you to
gesture her name in the sign language?” she asked.
“Yes, I replied!”

Rachael spotted the note in which she was asking me
to demonstrate my own name too.
“Did she also ask you to demonstrate your own name?”

Rachael asked fast. Her face was folded up in fright.

“Yes she did and…”

“What? Did you do it?” Rachael grabbed my arms in fright.

“I—I haven’t,” I said
. “I was about to say it when you came in.”
“Huugh,” she sighed in relief and sank to her chair.

“Don’t you dare tell her your name, Rose!” she said.

“Why?” my mother and I asked. She couldn’t say a word.

A horrible look was glommed to her gloomy face.

Mother and I laughed at her.