Dysfunctional Family - Season 1 - Episode 2

4 years ago

Dysfunctional Family - Season 1 - Episode 2

After tacking her son into bed that night, Janet decided it was high time she started packing. She had a feeling George wasn’t going to show up that night so she utilized the silence and begun packing. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with her life after walking away from marriage but she was certain of one thing, she and Lubesha were going back to Zambia the next day.

After packing for over an hour, she felt her neck ache so she massaged it for a while then retired to bed. She was surprisingly dead tired.
When morning came, Janet woke up early, took a bath and got dressed. Lubesha did the same too.

“Are you ready, Lubesha?” chorused Janet from her room.
“Yes I am!” came the response from Lubesha’s room.

“You know today’s your last day at that school, right?” Janet asked her son as they strapped their seatbelts on later in the car. He spared her a glance. “I know. This is different from when we were leaving Zambia for this country, mum. Am doing this wholeheartedly so am more than ready.”
“We’ll be fine,” she caressed his face. “I got us.”
Lubesha patted his mum’s loving hand. “I know.” The drive to Lubesha’s school was awkward and silent. Janet pulled up in the parking lot and took a deep breath. “Let me go have a chat with your headmistress while you bid all your friends goodbye.”
“Okay.”

Janet knew the school like the back of her hand so she went straight to the headmistress’ office and knocked. She was told to go in.

“Mrs. Pondamali!” the headmistress was thrilled to see Janet. After all Lubesha who was now doing his eighth grade at that school was one of the brightest students the headmistress had come across so seeing his mum in her office was refreshing. Janet sat after she was offered a seat and she went down to business.
“But why would you ask for a transfer, Mrs. Pondamali? Isn’t the school any good?”
“It’s not the school’s fault, ma’am. This is just something personal.”
The headmistress sighed before shrugging. “We’ll certainly miss your boy.” “He’ll miss you too.”
After being granted the transfer form which had so many praises for Lubesha, Janet made her way to his classroom. She politely asked the teacher who was in class at that particular moment to summon Lubesha.
“Let me just complete the day,” pleaded Lubesha once he was outside with Janet. “Today’s my last day, mum.”
Janet understood where her son was coming from so she embraced him. “Okay…let me go finish packing back home. You just hop on a bus once class is done today, okay?”
“Deal.” She pecked his cheek. “Mummy loves you.”
Lubesha was a bit embarrassed but he replied, “Sonny loves you too.”
Janet giggled before taking to her heel and heading to her car. She drove straight home and as she drove into the driveway, she inwardly cussed. George was home. Slowly and dreading to go into the house, Janet still managed to put her fear aside and go in. She was no longer afraid of George, she comforted herself.
The living room was unoccupied and she guessed where he could possibly be, this made her cuss inwardly. As expected, she found George doing nothing in particular. “Hi.”

He ignored her and waited for her to stand before the mirror, taking off her earrings.
“Why are your bags packed?” asked George without preamble.
Janet didn’t flinch. “Because am leaving this house.” “Alone, I guess?”
“Am taking my son with me, George. He wants to come with.”
George leaned against the wall and laughed. All this was somehow funny to him. “And what makes you so sure I’ll let you go?”
Losing her patience, Janet stood right in front of him and boldly said, “Your actions have acted as my motivation. You clearly don’t give a d--n about our son and I so am leaving you for good, George.” She turned to continue packing.

Where he stood, George shook his head in disbelief. How did his wife gain such guts? He wondered. But that didn’t matter..He wasn’t going to let neither she nor Lubesha leave the house. Over my dead body, he thought.
“You better start unpacking before-”
“Before what, huh George? Before you beat me to a pulp? Well guess what, ain’t nobody afraid of you anymore!”
“You’re tempting me, Janet.” She clicked her tongue and went about her business.
“You know I hate being disobeyed,” said an angry George through gritted teeth. He yanked his wife by her hair and slammed her head against the wardrobe. And then he gave her a couple of rapid slaps.
Janet tasted blood. The searing pain wasn’t helping matters any how. And she decided that she was fade up. She was sick and tired of George treating her like a doormat so it was high time she stood up for herself.
In the struggle to free herself from George’s strong grip, Janet managed to take off one of her high heeled shoes and using the heel of the shoe, she hit George’s head. No, she dug into his head. “Holy crap!” screamed George, backing off. Blood was running down the side of his face.

“I’ve had it with your abusive ways!” she was uncontrollably crying as she unplugged the heel from his head just for her to plunge it into his head again.
“That’s for treating me like a mop!” and again..”That’s for laying your filthy hands on me…” She was frantic and kept on hitting George’s head. When she finally came to her senses, it was too late.
“George? George!”

Janet cowered into a corner where she wept for a good thirty minutes. George was unconscious and she needed nobody to spell out to her that she had just committed murder.

“But I didn’t mean to,” she cried aloud.
‘Oh don’t be stupid,’ scolded her inner voice. ‘Who’s gonna buy that bullcrap story of yours if and when you narrate what happened here? You’ll be arrested and prosecuted for murder, Janet. This is the end of you. You’ll spend the rest of your miserable life behind bars!’

“No I won’t,” she stood, wiping her tears and heading to the bedside drawer where she pulled out bottles of anti depressants, pain killers and sedatives. She had bought all those pills when George started stressing her with his unruly behaviour and now the pills would come in handy. I am a coward, she thought as she threw several pills into her mouth. Am so sorry, Lubesha. Mummy’s sorry.

She drank a total of 113 pills. That would do the trick.

Janet sat beside George’s corpse and hugged it..It was at that juncture that she realised she still loved him. A giddy Lubesha Pondamali dispatched from a public bus and trekked home. Both his parents’ cars were in the parking lot so he figured they were both around.

“What hard luck we have, couldn’t Dad have spent just one more day wherever he goes?” he groaned. “Gosh..I wonder how mum and I will leave with Dad around. Lord help us.” The second Lubesha stepped foot into the house, he felt a weird vibe course through him. Something wasn’t right somewhere.

“Mum? Am home!”
“Lubesha? Am in the bedroom!”
Lubesha shrugged and headed to the bedroom but froze in the doorway upon seeing the ugly sight la!d before him.
His father was laying in a pool of blood on his mother’s laps while his mother’s gaze was all over the place. She looked so weak. And the empty pill bottles spoke volumes.
“What- what happened here?” his voice was a whisper. “I ended it all, son. Come here, mama wants to have a talk with you.”
He was shaking as he walked over to where both his parents were. “Mum.”

Janet tightly hugged him. “I am so sorry, Lubesha. You’ll have to get all the money you can find from one of your father’s jackets in the wardrobe…there’s money in one of my drawers too. Take the money and run, Lubesha! Go to Zambia and look for my sister, your aunt Juliet.”

“The one who likes neither of us very much? There’s no way am leaving here without you, mother. What did you do?” he picked an empty pill bottle. “What have you done, mother?”
“It’s too late..” She was beginning to feel weak and drowsy. And it was d--n hot in the room that she begun perspiring. “I love you so much…and I hereby bless you. You’ll lead a prosperous life, son. You’ll live long and bear children who’ll leave an imprint on this earth. Your children and their children will be known across the country. But if you want that to come to pass, you have to go. Now!”
“That don’t matter, mum. Am taking you to the hospital.” He was sniffing as he tried to carry his mother who was quite too heavy for him.

With all his might, Lubesha managed to drag a weak Janet to the hallway where she frantically shook her head.
“It’s too late..” The sweat was overwhelmingly too much.

Lubesha crouched down before his mum and hugged her like there was no tomorrow. “Why are you doing this to me, mother? You know you’re all I have. Why?”
Her son’s tears were breaking her heart but there was nothing she could do. “Be strong, Lubesha Pondamali. Be strong.” with those words, Janet breathed her last. No words can describe the pain Lubesha felt at that moment but even though his mother was dead, he had to honour her last wish so he left her there in the hallway and went to look for money from the places she had mentioned before dying. Lubesha pocketed all the Ugandan shillings he could find and stepped out of the house with nothing but a small travelling bag. Lusaka city was still very far from Kampala but he was going to get there.

He said to himself. “Mum stayed in that marriage because of me, I won’t let her death go in vain. She sacrificed so much for me and the least I can do is find my way to aunt Juliet’s house…”