STEEMSTORY: BITTERSWEET

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Mama and I were having another heated argument, one which rose so high it made a sham of the blazing Saturday sun atop our roof. My growing rage laced in tiny bits of sweats trickled down my face like raindrops on a window, sliding down unrestrained. I tried to maintain my composure, despite the continuous insults thrown at me with little success. Mama spat out words like a loose cannon, disowning things I never knew we had and I was ready to let things go as well.

"Leave my house!" Her voice ricocheted off the pale walls of our one-room apartment.

"You shameless girl," she continued, "you want to shame me?! After all, I have done to raise you and your siblings? After all, I have sacrificed for you this ungrateful child?!" Another reminder of the sacrifice I wished she never made. The thought of owing anyone anything nauseated me, although in my mother's case I never really knew what I owed her.

"Please!" I dismissed her before she made another false claim, "enough of this emotional blackmail. I've had enough of it. Should I give you an accolade for being a mother?"

Yes, yes tell her--let her know.

It seemed my response startled her--the blank look on her face.... like she didn't expect this defenseless girl to fight back, but I knew my mother too well to be fooled by her antics.

"Is it me--

her hands launched into the air. It was instant--the slap that followed. Pow! It landed, with a sting that pierced deep into my ears

--is it me you're talking to like that?!" she yelled.

"Mama--

another attempt to deafen me followed, but I docked this time.

--Shut up your mouth!" she bellowed, "shut up your dirty mouth I say."

I wanted to tell her that I was a grown woman and no one could tell me what to do but what came out of my mouth was a shameful silence.

"Oh! you want to beat me, ehn?" she asked after I denied her the response she desired, "Adanna? You want to beat your own mother?" like I didn't hear the first time. And then, without warning, she began to cry--crocodile tears. At least she should have given me the time to summon enough courage to defend myself against her false accusation, I would have told her the truth: that she deserved a sound slap, much like the one she gave me not too long ago.

She continued to sob, jumping like a mad puppy. Her hands clasped on both thighs as she landed on the ground each time like a bag of garri, "eh!" she cried, running around the tight space of our room lost in her own confusion, and out the door she went, screaming for help.

"Neighbors! Neighbors oooo... My daughter wants to beat me oo, come and help me oo" she beckoned, "Neighbors oo, my good will not kill me."

Before, this would be my cue to beg--to plead with her not embarrass our family. But over time I've learnt it only spurred her on to do more crazy things, like throwing her worn-out wrapper on the floor she eventually rolled on, exposing her nakedness, and drawing the attention of our neighbours-- Brother Emeka especially. The man always came to her rescue. His hands snaking through her body as he pleaded with her to stop crying, that I will change. Well, it was no secret thar he had a crush on my mother-- and every other widow in our compound.

Mama's voice trailed through the passage as she went in search of her neighbors, who she knew very well were eavesdropping behind a closed door. Neighbors who filled their days with gossip.

"You know say this Adanna girl is na ashewo(prostitute)?" I heard one say the other morning as I returned from work with her group of amebos(gossipers). The look on their faces--the look of terror when they realized that I had overheard their little chitchat was indeed priceless. I would have let their guilt swallow them as they shook and sweated like dirty pigs. "G-good morning aunty ada," they stuttered and shivered like cockroaches smothered by insecticide--women old enough to be my mother, but my anger didn't let me. I sizing their incompetence before grabbing one by the neck, Mama Amina, shoving sand into her dirty mouth. And ever since they've avoided me like a plague.

Mama was gone at last.I let out a sigh of relieve and sunk deep into our bed, staring at our rusty ceiling fan --I had never seen it move-- and my thoughts began to drift.

We fought about everything these days: how much garri I soaked, how I slept so peacefully, how the room's temperature changed whenever I was around; how I was becoming a bad influence on my sisters, Chidera and Amara.

"It's about time you find a place of your own Nne," mama ambushed me one evening during dinner. "You're thirty-two Nne, with no husband, nothing to show that you're a real woman. Even to get a decent job is war. All you do is eat my food and go out at night and return in the morning. Very soon Chidera and Amara will start following your footsteps, I don't want that for them oo."

I did not know how to take it. I lost my appetite that second. She had taken a blunt knife and driven it through my heart, unrestrained and unapologetic, in the presence of my siblings! Something in me wanted to scream so bad that day but I held back pain and it hurt me even more. I wanted to tell her that getting married was not an achievement, even though I desperately wanted to; I wanted to tell her that I got fired from my job some months back because I refused to sleep with my boss; I wanted to blame her so much for the thing I have become which she pretended not to notice. I am a prostitute mama! Say it! Say it!

Two weeks ago I saw Chidera behind the kitchen with Mama Debora's potbellied husband. Those filthy hands of his rustling under her skirt. I watched his smelly saliva droop over her neck as he kissed her so wantonly like the shameless beast he was. Blood rushed to my head. Even after biting and kicking, even after insulting every single person of his bloodline, even after threatening to cut off his penis if I ever caught him near my sister again, the man did not budge. He just stood unperturbed it baffled me. "No be ashewo all of una be? Your mama, your sisters, even you!" he said. The arrogance in his tone nauseated me, it crept underneath my skin. The audacity! My anger silenced me and brought tears to my eyes. Mama made matters words. "Look at what you caused!" she said, "see how you've shamed me? Nobody regards us anymore." Me? I cried all through that night. The pain that had been welled up in my heart consumed me. As much as I would have loved to yell back, I knew she was right. I had brought this on my family

"You're still here!"

I flinched.

"Oh! You're crying?" mama gloated.

I turned immediately to wipe the shameful tears of my face but it was too late.

"I'm not crying,"I grunted.

She sighed and walked passed me, kicking my legs away from her path as she forced her weight between me and the wooden center table.

I got up to leave but she pulled me back, "Where do you think you're going to?" she asked.

"Mama!"

"Shut up! Ewu(goat)."

We both sneered at each other. But something strange happened in that moment, something that had not occurred in a while. We smiled-- an awkward sheepish smile we could not hold back no matter how we tried. And the smile broke into laughter--a loud and unrestrained laughter that welled from our stomachs. I couldn't help but wonder where we lost it--this joy that sprung out of nowhere. I missed it.

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©EkpemanduChinonso 2018

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