Must Read: Poetic Heart - Season 1 - Episode 8

Episode 6 years ago

Must Read: Poetic Heart - Season 1 - Episode 8

“Promise you’d come to Abuja to visit. Dad asks for you each time I go home at the end of semester breaks.”


“I promise. Promise you’d find someplace else for your internship than your boyfriend’s house.”



“Promise you’d find a boyfriend…and keep him.”


“Yeah, you’ve got me.” I go over to her and give her a hug. “I’m going to miss you.”


“I’ll miss you too.”


I make it to the bus park before 7 am, I’m very time conscious and I really want to pick out the best seat. My favorite is the window seat on the second row – the front seat is uncomfortable and the roads make the back seat pure torturous. I pay for, and collect my ticket and immediately claim my position on the bus. The bus takes ages to get full, and when it finally does it's 8:45 am. I plug in my earphones and close my eyes immediately the bus tires leave the park ground.



The journey takes longer than I remember it does, about eight hours, and when I get home I’m too exhausted eat. I wrap my arms around mom who is all smiles and dimples – I got my dimples from Mom. She looks prettier than I remember and in a kind of way smaller and more vulnerable. I almost can’t believe I haven’t seen her in five months. She tries to take him my bag but I don’t let her. Suddenly I have a million things I have to say to her and I’m sure she does to me too.



We talk for hours and hours and I forget how tired I am. Mom is the only one with the ability to do that to me. I won’t say I’m quiet, but getting words out of my mouth sometimes could be quite tasking. There is something different about Mom though, but I can’t tell exactly what it is. It could be because I haven’t seen her for long while or maybe the makeup, the makeup… “Mom, when did you start applying makeup?”



My question catches her off guard and she panics for a second, “You don’t like it?”



“Mom relax, I love it. You were at the store today right?” Stupidly obvious question.
Mom owns a mini supermarket at Festac. She started it on a small scale when Daddy left – he didn’t actually leave leave…mom decided she couldn’t be a second wife and he consented to her going, we go on a ‘family’ dinner twice every year – I only go because of mom, left to me I’d sue him and never ever have to do anything with him again. But not mom, she has the kindest heart imaginable. She left him with nothing but a pure conscience (by this I mean she left koboless). It was really difficult at first. We had to go back to Grandma’s place, thankfully still in Lagos so I didn’t have to change schools, while Mom raised money to start a business.



When she opened the provision store, it was just room-space but now it’s really grown and even though we aren’t ‘swimming in cash,’ we are very comfortable, we live in our own house and Mom has a really nice car that I confiscate each time I come home.



The next morning, I check my mail and rush off to the bathroom to prepare for the day ahead. I have to meet up with the ICT firm I submitted an application to, I got called for an oral interview. Mom has already left for the store and yes, she took a cab.


I’m sitting in the car, and I take a few minutes to get familiar with the feel of it, I’ve been driving Sophia’s car while in school because she’s such a big baby and would rather sit on the passenger seat yapping away and taking videos of the both of us than getting behind the wheel. Mom’s perfume fills the whole car and I make a mental note to steal it when I get home – she’d give me if I asked but it is much fun taking it because she’d know I was the one who did and would come to my room to either bribe it back from me, or tickle me into releasing it. Too bad her shoes don’t fit me
Mom and I are really close and she’s more like a sister to me than a mother. Most times when we go out together, people mistake us for actual siblings, her petite frame doesn’t help matters. Mom had me when she was 19, she got married to Dad really early – obviously swept away by his sweet talk. Dad is about ten years older than she is. I got most of my facial features from her – my thread blindfold-able eyes, oval face, dimples and full lips. My height, complexion and long nose, I got from Dad.
I back the car out of the driveway and minutes later am driving on my way to my new job – I haven’t gotten the job yet but I’m so certain I will. I tune up the volume of the radio, my favorite morning show ‘Mannie and the angels’ is on, I smile…nothing could possibly go wrong.