(Read Part 5 here)
She can hear it. The footfalls by her window. The first time she’d heard it, she’d broken into a cold sweat. She transited to Adatan and the nightmare-filled nights. She could hear the thump-thump of her heart in her ears, so she knew she was awake. Since that day, when she’d heard them through the door, sleep had with light cockroach-legs wandered away from her. She wanted to tell Mary but she could not. Not without proof. This was her mother and even if she did not have any love for her stepdad, they were her family, before she was brought in. She had to be sure. Very sure.
Ojuola crawls in the direction of the window. This is one of the times, she wishes she has her sight back. The footsteps are not loud; in the way a cat walks, but these are no cats. They are more than one. There is a dragging sound – as of a heavy sack on the concrete floor. “What’s going on in this house?” Ojuola peruses.
She’d stood by the door some days ago, hanging on to Mary’s hand as if her life depended on it. Mary had tried to reassure her. “It’s just a month training and I’ll be back.” The sounds of the night had started a day after she left. They may have always been there but she never heard them because she slept like oil on yam every night until that fateful day of revelation.
Bam! The sound of a single gunshot and Ojuola flattens herself against the wall. She scrambles for the wardrobe. She hits her head hard against its door. She hears the front door open and close. Nat is talking to someone. It’s not Mary’s mother. The other voice is a deep baritone, distinct from Nat’s squeaky tenor and Ireti’s tremulous treble.
Ojuola moves closer to the door. They are whispering but their gruff voices are carried by the silence of the night to her ears.
“Why did you let that gun go off? That could expose us!” Nat mutters in a shrill whisper.
“Boss, I no know say bullet dey inside am. No shaking,” a gruff voice replies.
Ojuola’s holds her balmy palms together in the middle of her lap. She was right. She heard them right.
“Everything don ready for tomorrow. Na dat big bank for T-Junction we go operate first,” a second hoarse voice says.
She hears the door closing a final time. She freezes as Nat’s footsteps stop at her door. She feels the door knob move against her stomach, pressed against it. He leaves. Mary had made her practice locking and unlocking the door before she left. Ojuola crumbles to the floor, her legs are too weak to carry her back to her bed now. Tonight, he’d left, what happens when the door can no longer stop him?
In the morning, Ojuola is listless. She can barely keep her eyes open when Ireti comes to get her for the doctor’s appointment.
“This girl are you sick?”
“No ma.”
Mary’s mother had taken to calling her; ‘this girl,’ unwilling to accept her identity as a real person. She grumbles throughout the ride to the hospital; about Mary and her forceful attitude, how she has better things to do than driving ‘this girl’ to the optometrist and Ojuola mumbles her ‘sorry ma’ many times.
“As I said on her previous visit, the cornea only has a superficial damage, so hopefully it can be remedied through surgery,” Dr. Ted says as he peers into Ojuola’s eyes, holding his pen-torch.
“In layman terms, you mean you can fix her eyes?” Ireti asks, irritation coating her voice.
Ojuola cannot stay still. She cannot wait to see again but like a bag of cement her heavy mind weighs her down. She needs to talk to the doctor. Alone. Dr Ted notices her discomfort.
“Are you okay, Oju?” He has a penchant for only calling half of her name. Maybe because it casts a nice irony with her blindness, the eyes of wealth that cannot see. Ojuola clears her throat. She knows she has to think fast.
“I’m thirsty. Can I have a cup of water, please?”
Dr Ted tells Ireti that the water dispenser is in the corridor. For a moment, Ireti hesitates. Ojuola counts the seconds with the rapid intakes of her breath. The door shuts after Ireti. Ojuola grabs Dr Ted’s hands.
“Please, you have to help me! Please!”
Dr Ted is confused. “Of course, I’m going to help you with your eyes….”
“No! Not my eyes! I need to…”
The door creaks open and Ireti returns….
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