Ojuola (6)

(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(3)

Read Part 2 here

She is humming. A grating scattered tune that jars on Mary’s nerves. She endures. Mary’s mother keeps casting her dark stare at the back of her daughter’s head. Mary can feel it even as she stays her eyes on the car’s windscreen, perched on the front passenger’s seat.

“I did what’s right, it’s right,” she repeats mentally, as the breeze from the bushes on the highway caresses her cheeks. Ojuola’s face is wreathed in smiles. She is peaceful. Mary pats herself on the back for standing her ground.

“She comes with us, mum!” Mary had insisted, standing eye to eye with her mother. Her mother’s lips trembled. The fire in her daughter’s eyes quenched the ashes in hers. Her aunt had told her at the hospital when she birthed Mary – “My sister has returned to us. Your mother is now with you.” Mary, the mother to her mother can have whatever she wants.