Must Read: Ade

Episode 7 years ago

Must Read: Ade

”Mrs. Yinka Orilowo (nee Adelanwa) became
our step mother after our mother’s death. All
wthigs went smoothly but one thing was
never known about her, she was a l£sb!an,
though secretly. She was one of the early
importers of the act due to her wide travels.


She had sworn then that she would never
marry but when her finances began
dwindling, she had to go back to her vomit
and then she got hooked up with my dad.


But unknown to anybody in and out of the
family, she had continued her acts secretly as
she had been doing.” Shola continued her
tale.


Rotimi had softened a little because he had
not known where the story is heading to.

I also suspected nothing because what Shola
was driving at was still beyond me and
barrages of questions had begun to form in
my mind.


”Two years into their marriage, things began
to take a different dimension. My eldest
brother fell ill while dad was abroad on a
trip. Our step mother never took care of him
as she ought to. Two days after the illness
began, he died at home. That was only when
she took him to the hospital. The doctor had
said that he died of complications as a result
of untimely treatment of the jaundice that
had attacked him. Yinka had came to destroy
the joy that dad and mum had toiled to build.


But she encouraged dad and his business.

What went on, we never knew because we
were too young to know.” Shola cleaned a
tear that formed in her left eye.


I was begining to feel for her. But how did
she become this bad? What happened to her
second sibling? These burned in me.


Rotimi shifted in his chair, a sign that he was
going with the flow of the story and that
was a good sign.


”Dad was a prosperous businessman. He
took us with him once in a while for holidays
and a year after my brother’s death, dad was
to take us all on his trip but Yinka convinced
him to leave us at home and go with her
alone. So, we were left in the care of our
nanny now of blessed memory. She took
care of us well, but fate would always deal us
a big blow. I was eight that year my brother
was ten, we knew next to nothing about
electricity other than switching on and off
the teevee. That day, Mamee, as we call our
nanny, went to the market. We were
watching the teevee when it suddenly went
off, my brother went to the socket to see
what happened. I remembered he went to
the kitchen to take an iron spoon and into
the socket it went. I saw my brother shaking,
I thought he was dancing till he fell down
clutching the spoon in the socket. I ran to
him, touched him and a force threw me off
and I landed on my butts. When I woke up, I
was in the family hospital with dad, Mamee,
and Yinka staring down at me. My brother
never survived that incident. That was how I
became the only one left of the three of us.”


Shola paused.


She was sobbing silently. Her cry was muffled
and I was sobbing inside. My eyes were
moist from unshed tears and they
threatened to start forming a torrent.


I sniffed to hold them back. Shola had
suffered, I pity her.

Rotimi was not better. He was an emotional
hump. The anger he had minutes earlier had
suddenly become grief. He was openly
sobbing. He brought out his handkerchief to
mop up his tears. He was almost distraught.
Such was the Rotimi I knew. One minute
mad, the other minute a pitiable sight.
”Shola, please before you continue, it would
be nice if you can get us a bottle of water.” I
said as I saw the need for us to have a slight
pause from the highly charged and sad
atmosphere in the room.


She stood up from her seat and walked as
fast as her legs could carry her to the dining
room. She came back with the earlier tray
she had brought. The only difference being
that she changed the bottle of water for two
colder ones and she came with three glasses
as against the initial two she had earlier
brought.



She placed the tray on the centre table,
opened it and filled a glass. I thought it was
for either I or Rotimi but she disappointed
me as she downed the content and went for
a second before dropping the glass and
going back to her seat.




We needed no further invitation as Rotimi
was the first to get to the table. He downed
three glasses of water too before going back
to his seat. I took only two glasses before
muttering a silent ‘Thank you’ to Shola who
did not respond.


”By her fifth year in our house, Yinka hadn’t
given birth to any child. This got dad worried
and I think they made a lot of attempts and
their efforts yielded result a year after my
brother was electrocuted. She got pregnant
and had a baby girl two months after my
ninth birthday. She still kept her l£sb!an
affairs secret and was successful in the
secret keeping. When her daughter clocked a
year and I had clocked ten, something
happened to alter my life till date.” Shola
recounted fresh tears springing from her
eyes. She cared less about cleanong them as
she went into the story of what happened.



Rotimi by now was on the rug his shirt
soaked in sweat despite the airconditioned
room…