We Are Able

Episode 24

Toyosi asked me something in sign language. I was
surprised she was able to do the sign better than I left
her.

“Your mother would be here in few minutes,” she
assured me.

“Really?” I was excited.
“Yes,” she said. My father came to sit beside me and
held me close to his chest. He cleaved my hair and
kissed the middle of it. This is a miracle, I thought.
Bode was lying down ill. He needed care. Toyosi took
all his clothing material to wash. I asked her if I could
help, but she insisted that she would do them on her
own.

When I remembered that my poem collections would
soon be published, I intensified my effort on it, writing
more and more. This time around, they were poems of
happy reunions and happy endings. I couldn’t find it hard
coming about a poem anymore, because they were just
a replica of events unfolding.

It was a week already and my mother wasn’t back yet.
Toyosi had assured me that she would soon be here
with us, so why should I keep worrying?
I began to develop a poem. It was titled THE
STRATEGY OF GOD:
It all began with a solid tragedy
Until I thought there was no remedy
Never knowing it was a strategy
To bring about a wonderful comedy
I thought it would end in an elegy
But in the end it becomes an eulogy
All glory to God who made me a prodigy
Beyond all human analogy
I thought I had no ability
But I discovered them with agility
When challenges came with intensity
But now I can display my audacity…

Toyosi saw me writing it. She tapped me and smiled.

She had been reading it all the while, unknown to me. If
my ears could hear I would have noticed when she
opened the door and entered my room.
I quickly flipped the book closed.
“Come with me,” she said in sign language. “I have a…”
she couldn’t sign out what she meant.
“I have a something for you,” she said at last. She must
have thought of saying she had a surprise for me, but
she didn’t know how to do that in sign language.

I followed her. To my shock, it was my mother I saw
sitting right inside the parlour. I rushed to her and gave
her the tightest hug I have ever done to anyone.

Mother and I rolled on the floor, thanking our God for a
happy ending. My father met us in the euphoria. He was
happy too.

My father and my mother hugged each other for the
first time since I got to know them. Toyosi said that
she had become a born-again Christian now. She said
God told her to bring my mother back from the prison.

She even confessed to the fact that she was the
person calling me up in my dream.

“I knew I cannot kill whom God hasn’t killed because I
tried it with voice language the first time but Rose
didn’t hear me, let alone give a reply. The second time I
tried it, it was my own son who appeared and not
Rose,” Toyosi said. “Assuming Bode understood the
sign language, he would have been dead by now
because that is Apepa! ”

Toyosi wept and asked for our forgiveness. Willingly
we forgave her.

A week later, aunty Rachael came to tell us that she had
found a fiancé–a very rich one for that matter;
Honorable Daniel, the man she met during my
graduation ceremony.

“Daniel is a God-fearing man,” Rachael said. I could spot
a tint of gladness in her dimples. Her lips expanded and
contracted as she did the sign language. She was
telling my mother with her mouth and doing the sign
language at the same time.

“That’s great!” my mother was happy.
“Daniel would be travelling to the US with me
permanently. He would be settling down there.”

“Thank you Jesus!” I exclaimed in sign language. But I
would miss my aunty so much.

Our school had resumed but my father insisted that I
wasn’t going to continue in a public school of the
handicapped.

They said I would do my school in a private secondary
school for the deaf and dumb. I would be travelling to
Abuja for that purpose. It was a special school where
the special people from rich families attended.

My father and her concubine, Toyosi, took my mother
and I to Abuja to see the school I would be attending.

It was like heaven. The buildings were as tall as the
clouds. I saw rich children over there; the deaf, the
dumb, the lame, the blind. They had no cause to be
burdened in their hearts. Why should they worry when
they had all things at their reach? If there is money, the
disabled people wouldn’t have any reason to worry, I
thought.

My father and I returned home after the one-week
holiday in Abuja. My mum and Toyosi said they were
going to do a little shopping.

When we returned home, I found a letter hung in our
letterbox. I read it:
My aunt was notifying us that she had just travelled out
of the country with her fiancé, Honorable Daniel. They
wouldn’t be returning soon.
It was a mixture of joy and sadness for me when I read
the news. Oh! My aunty! There can never be any two
aunties in the world for me.

The picture of my school-to-be set on my face:
Springtime International Special School. I was glad I would be there someday, soonest.

Toyosi returned to the house late. I was shocked when
she returned all alone.
“Where is my mother?” I asked her. She made her
fingers into a bundle and flipped it over her mouth to
signal to me that I should speak with my mouth.

“Where is my mother?” I asked with a frown on my
face. She touched her ears to signal to me that she
couldn’t hear my voice. I was flabbergasted as I saw
her laughing out loud. John joined her in it.”