We Are Able

Episode 18

I began to live in my aunt’s place. She took me along with her after the court case. My hobby became crying.
I couldn’t do without it.
Rachael asked me to stop thinking about my mother.

She told me that my mother would just be fine.
“I can’t live without her!” I said. “Let me go and live
with her in the prison.”

“You can’t go there, Rose. You can’t!” Rachael told me.
“God will see us through.”
When my aunt mentioned ‘God’ I frowned. What was
God looking at when my mother was incarcerated? Was
he sleeping or what? I need not ask my aunt those
questions thumping hard at my heart, else an endless
sermon would begin, taking me through Genesis to
Revelation.

My aunty loved to take advantage of any little situation
to share her gospel message. I don’t know if Jesus was
paying her salary for that. There wasn’t anyone I
haven’t challenged with questions that seemed bigger
than my age. Everyone I directed my questions to,
except her, hadn’t been able to supply any tangible
answers. But I dare not ask her any question, else she
would do Job’s life story into my eyes again.
I wiped my tears and sat up to ‘hear’ my aunty speak.

“Rose, I was in your class teacher’s home yesterday.”
“How’s she?”
“She was fine.”
“Did you tell her about mother?”
“Yes I did,” I said. “She was mad at Toyosi.”
“Was she there with you?”
“No, Rose, but Mrs Oyin was asking for her home
address. She said she was going to fight her in her
home. She asked me to give her Toyosi’s home
address.”

“And you gave her, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t!” my aunty said. “She was going to go to
Toyosi’s house to fight her.”
“You should have given it to her!” I said in annoyance.
“Why didn’t you…?”
“Do I know Toyosi’s home to start with? And even if I
knew, I wouldn’t allow somebody to go and foment
trouble in another person’s matrimonial home.”
“But…but Toyosi did that in our own home!” I began to
sob. The event of that gloomy night had set over my
face–that night mum and I were in that dark room. I had
even composed a poem of sorrow concerning that. I
‘sang’ it whenever my aunt was not with me.

Beside me sat a gaze
Her hands tied with rope
Then tears down my face
There seemed not a hope.
What could she rather say?
How would I hear her speak?

I knew I could write poems but I haven’t put my pen to
paper at any time to give it a try. Now I just had to do it
because it seemed to be the only thing that was
cooling off my tension.
I spent time standing in front of the mirror,
demonstrating it.
My aunt tapped me suddenly.
“Rose, Mrs Oyin would be here tomorrow morning,”
said my aunt.
“To see me?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “And to also come and get you ready
for your graduation ceremony next month, August.”
I fumed. I didn’t want to here anything concerning that
graduation. How would I be having a graduation
ceremony without my mother’s presence?
“I don’t want to be there?” I replied her.
“Why, Rose?” my aunt said and came close to me.
“Rose, you have to be there. Okay why don’t you want
to attend your own graduation ceremony?”
“Because my mom isn’t going to be there,” I replied.

She scrubbed my hair as if I was a baby. She began to
scratch something out of the centre of my head with
her index finger.
“What’s that?” I asked her. She stopped scratching and
said, “A white substance, Rose. What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. Immediately my aunt had
begun to bind and loose again. She wasn’t expressing it
with sign language anyway. When she was done with
her exercise, I asked, “What was that? Why were you
dancing like that?”
“You called that dance?” she said. “Anyway, it is not
dance. I was praying for you. You know, that white
thing, who knows how it got on your head? Toyosi your
stepmother could have done something terrible.”
“It’s not any Toyosi,” I said. I have just remembered
something; I was playing with chalk earlier. “I was
playing with chalk.”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” she began to laugh. I joined her in it. It
was the first time I would laugh since my mother was
imprisoned.
Mrs Oyin came to my aunt’s place as promised. She
assured me that my mother wouldn’t suffer long in the
prison.
“We are going to appeal it,” she said.
“Appeal?” my aunt said. “Will it work?” she was just
skeptical about it.
“It should,” she said.
“I just believe that there is nothing prayer cannot do,”
she said. “Let’s just commit everything into the hand of
God through fasting and prayer. He will do it.”
My teacher put out an angry face. The next ten minutes
was a silent moment for me but a rowdy one for them.

They had thrown the sign language behind them and
now it seemed they were shouting at each other. I
watched them opening their mouths in rage. I knew
what was going on; my aunt wanted everything settled
divinely but my class teacher was not supporting such
idea.
After they had argued it out between themselves, they
turned to me again with a smile. I had shut my eyes so
I wouldn’t ‘hear’ them.