We Are Able

Episode 16

We remained in the house until 9am when my father returned with some police with Toyosi.

They loosed my mother and replaced the rope on her hands with
handcuffs.

I screamed. No one paid attention to me. John pushed
me out of the way. My mother was led away despite all
the gesticulation she was making.
Rachael my aunt came to time. She was shocked when
she saw my mother on handcuffs. Her head gear
toppled over and fell on the table in the sitting room.

She put her hands on her head.

What was the count charge against mother? Who would
let me know? My father began to point at my face. His
face was coarse. He must have been shouting, going
by his Adam apple which was bouncing up and down in
his jugular.

My aunt held me by my right wrist and began to pull me
out of the house. It was as if my father had instructed
her to take me with her. I weep when I saw my mother
being sandwiched into the police peacock van.
“What happened?” I asked my aunt.
“Let’s get home first,” she said.

As soon as we arrived Aunty Rachael’s home, she
changed her clothes and got prepared to go out.
“Where are you going aunty?”
“To the police station,” she said.
“Aunty, what’s my mummy’s offence?” I asked.
“Wait for me to return,” she said and began to hurry
away.
I folded my arms. My eyes had seen too much already.

To die is better than to live. If only I have my life in
control I would rather have taken it.
Tears poured out of my eyes; maybe blood I didn’t
know. I wiped my tears with the back of my left hand. I
felt lonely.

It was getting to 11am before my aunt returned.
“Welcome,” I said in haste. “What about mum?”
“She’s–she’s there…” my aunt said and burst in tears.
“Rose, tell me…tell me…what really happened?”

I narrated the whole event.
“It’s your fault, Rose, yourself and your mother’s fault.

I–I told you Toyosi is dangerous, you didn’t listen to me…”

Rachael patted me on the back. She told me exactly
what the charge against my mother was.
“Rose, do you know what really happened? Your father
charged your mother for attempted murder.”
“What!” I screamed.

Rachael told the story to detail: Bode saw a woman
sitting beside a herbalist and moving her hands over a
calabash of water. He said that the woman he saw was
your mother. His own image was inside the water they
were looking at. Bode woke up and rushed to meet his
father in fright.
“Hmm,” I sighed with my hands when my aunt ended
the story. “Aunty, that woman Bode saw is his own
mother, not mine.”

“But who in this world will believe that?” Rachael
replied me. “It was your mother and yourself they
heard your voices in the night calling Bode’s name;
when your mother made use of sign language to call
Bode to death in the spiritual, the boy didn’t respond
because he is ignorant of the sign, so you resorted into
calling his name in the physical!”
“Aunty!” I shouted in sign language. “Do you believe
that?” I was in great shock. My mouth remained open
wide as I expected a response from my aunt.
She burst into tears and arched her back. She grabbed
me and folded me in her bossom. My head was right
below her bony chin. Her long hair carressed my unclad
shoulders. Her tears fell in drops and then in excess on
my body. They were cold. She disentangled. I knew she
was about to use the sign language–the British sign
language:
“I don’t believe every bit of their story, Rose, but no
one else wouldn’t believe it; indeed Bode had the
dream because he fled to his daddy’s bedside: your
mummy wasn’t beside your daddy at that dead of the
night, where was she?”
“Em–em, she was beside me on my own bed,” I said.

“And what were you both doing in Bode’s room in the
dead night? They said your mother wanted to kill me
physically when he didn’t die spiritually, that was why
you were in his room. They said you didn’t find him and
then resorted into searching his room, perhaps he was
hiding somewhere in the corner of the room–so you
scattered his bed, his wardrobe and everything in there
in desperation.”

I sobbed. I didn’t seem to see a way out of this.

“And lastly, your father said he found your mother
carrying a calabash. Rose, what’s that for?”

“We found it there,” I said.

“Did you people do all these things at all? Why did you
go scattering Bode’s room?”
“It was true we were looking for Bode, just because of
the dream I had; it was the same dream Bode claimed
he saw, but it is a blatant lie that it was my mother who
did the sign language in it; rather it is Bode’s mother,
Toyosi.”

“Toyosi?” How? Why would she be calling her son’s
name?” she asked.
“Yes she’s the one. She was asking me to tell her my
name in sign language; I told her Bode’s name instead,
remembering that you have asked me not to tell her my
name if she asked. Then she was calling her son’s
name in the dream unknowingly.”

“Hmm. Now I understand, my aunty said.”
We were silent for some minutes.
“So what next?” I asked.
“Your mother would be charged to court for attempted
murder next week.”
I screamed and fell to the floor.