If you haven’t read the first part of this story, here’s the link. Kindly read it before starting this one.

She was mostly absent-minded, my mother. She would be eating and I will call her severally but she won’t hear me call her. She would be staring into the sky and whispering something to herself. I will draw her attention; “Mom, why are you talking to yourself?” She would come back to her senses and say something like, “No, I’m not talking to myself. I’m singing silently to myself.” She was lying. Before I drew her attention, I might have been watching her for several minutes. You could even pass her by and she wouldn’t see you. Knowing what I knew, I didn’t want to bother her. I put myself in her shoes often. I wanted to feel how she was feeling. I wanted to determine what I would have done if her life was given to me to live. I pitied her. What a burden to carry.

One evening I went to her room. I suspect she was crying but wiped her tears off immediately she heard my footsteps. Her eyes were red and dull, like someone who had cried all her life. I asked her, “Is something the matter?” She asked me, “Why are you asking me that question?” I answered, “Nothing really but you’ve been dull recently. It’s so unlike you to be absent-minded but these days you go off as often as you want. I’m not a child any longer. I know it when there’s something wrong with someone. Do you miss your husband?” She smiled faintly. “I’m fine,” she said. “It comes with old age. When you grow up you’ll understand.”

I stayed with her and engaged her in a lengthy purposeless conversation. We talked about my children, my siblings, and whether or not my brother was behaving in school. When I was leaving I told her, “In case there’s something you’ll like to talk about, I’m your daughter. You can talk to me every day. Who you’ve become these days worries me. Talk to me if there’s something you need. Or I should call dad and ask him if he’s giving you troubles again?” She laughed. “How can he give me troubles when I haven’t seen him all this while?”

From there, she drew closer to me a little bit. She’ll come and sit next to me and bring stories of people I could hardly remember.

“Do you know Ansaba?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh, you know him. When you were a toddler, he called you his wife. He would always come for you when you were crying. Why would you not know such a man?”

“But mom, I was young. A toddler doesn’t remember his/her toddler days so it’s expected that I will forget about him.”

“Oh, even when you were in primary school, he was taking you to school whenever I was busy. If you forget this man then it means you have a fading memory. Someday, you won’t even remember your own mother.”

“Ok, you tell me. What about him? What has he done that you’re bringing him up today?”

“Nothing really but I heard his wife’s sister who also used to sell banku in the village had an accident recently.”

The conversations didn’t have form and value but I was glad she chose to talk to me instead of escaping into her memory and mourning the loss of her past. I myself had my share of escaping into my past. Whenever I went back there, I visited what I heard that dawn. The conversation between my mother and that caller. I asked myself many questions. I was trying so hard to piece together the little information I had to form a story but whatever I came up with didn’t gel with the truth. It kept me awake at night; “What will my brother do when he finally gets to know the truth? How about my father? Will he collapse and die in the face of the truth? How about my other siblings? Will they judge my mom and call her evil? No, they won’t. They saw what my father did to them so they’ll side with mom.” Questions without answers make the heart restless so I was always restless.

One late night, we were talking about our village when I intentionally brought up the policeman’s name. Immediately I mentioned his name she went mute for seconds. She was looking at me but thinking about something else. I asked, “You’ve gone quiet. Is everything ok?” She answered, “I’m going to sleep. It’s late.” Immediately she went inside I followed her. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her. She asked, “Why have you followed me here?” I said, “I know what is eating you up. The same thing is also eating me up. Let’s talk about it now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the policeman. That dawn, I heard what you were saying on the phone.”

She quickly got out of bed and closed her door. She asked me, “Where is your husband?” I answered, “Inside the room. Sleeping next to the kids.” She asked me, “What did you just say? What did you hear? What dawn? What conversation? When? Who?”

I wanted us to cut the chase and go straight to the point so I told her everything I heard that dawn. I created all the scenarios she created while talking on the phone. I said, “I know and I know it’s the reason for your new attitude.” She sighed heavily. All she said next was, “I’m happy you know about it. That night I saw a shadow when I was talking on the phone. I knew it was you but I wasn’t that sure. It’s the reason I’ve been thinking. It could have been your husband and that would have been worse. Knowing it was you makes me glad.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“What’s there to talk about? You said you heard me so what again do you want to hear?”

We spent the whole night discussing what actually happened. She wasn’t comfortable talking about what actually took place between her and the policeman. She said, “He’s dead so I can’t say so much about him.” When I asked why she did it, she responded, “At some point, I wanted to leave the marriage but I needed a reason. Telling my parents that my husband didn’t take care of me and the kids wasn’t going to cut it. I thought my safest bet was to cheat my way out. Then came the policeman. I didn’t know how I was going to do it but I saw him as an escape. Unfortunately, I got pregnant before we could go further.”

When the pregnancy happened, she hadn’t slept with my father for a very long time. They were fighting. The fight was about us and why my dad had given up on us. She wanted to use the pregnancy to escape so she spoke to her senior brother about it. It was her senior brother who stopped her from leaving the marriage. He warned her not to bring shame to the family. He told her to do everything to keep it from her husband. It was her senior brother who told her to find a way to sleep with my father so he could claim ownership of the pregnancy. So that man she was on the phone with that dawn was my uncle. She said, “Fortunately for me, it was that pregnancy that restored the marriage somehow. He didn’t take care of us, yes but he treated us as a family. He went out and came back home. He wanted to marry a second wife but he didn’t. Your brother brought an end to that chapter and we were good for a very long time.”

I was looking at her very well while she talked about the incident. She wasn’t sad. There was energy in her voice. It felt like happiness. It was like she was relieved to be talking about it. I asked her, “Will you ever tell dad about it?” She said, “I had three opportunities to tell him. The last one was when your sister was about to complete school. I had nothing on me but your dad refused to pay her final school fees while he invested everything in your brother. I wanted to tell him and break everything. After all, I wasn’t getting anything from him but then again, your uncle showed up and settled everything. He helped me pay the fees and asked for calm.”

From all indications, she wasn’t bothered whether or not my father heard about it. She was rather sorry for my brother. She said, “He’s the only one I owe an apology and because I can’t apologize enough to him, I will allow things to stay like that until my dying days. The only person who can relieve me is you. If you decide to tell him or your dad, we all would be set free. I don’t need your father. Sometimes his happiness gets on my nerves. He abandoned us from day one but clings to what is not his. That’s what bothers me.”

We talked all night until we heard the cock crow. Before I left she asked me, “What are going to do?” I told her, “It’s not my burden. When the time comes and you spill it, I will be there for you and my siblings but I swear I won’t be the one to bring this up anywhere.” She said, “I’ll say it before I die but I don’t know how I will die. You have to make me a promise. That when I die an impromptu death, you’ll tell them about it.” I said, “I can’t promise that. If you want them to hear about it, then do it before that day comes, if not, we are all going to the grave with it.”

My mom is still with me and very happy. She doesn’t go home to see my dad. When she has to travel, she goes to visit my other siblings and comes back to me. She looks healthy and goes about her life without remorse in her demeanor. My father also doesn’t care about her. All he cares about is my junior brother and how he’ll grow up to become like him. I don’t know my mother’s plan but it doesn’t look like she’s going to say anything to anyone.

We are all here, still a family. A small family with a big secret. A secret we are keeping until the end of our days.

—Eno

Do you have any relationship experience to share? Email it to us at [email protected]

NOTE: NO PART OF THIS CONTENT CAN BE REPUBLISHED OR REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT THE EXPLICIT CONSENT OF THE EDITORS OF THIS BLOG