[b]A Short Story[/b]
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As Onyinye came out of the airport, she
inhaled the familiar Lagos air, and became
ambivalent about coming back home after
almost seven years in the US. On one hand,
she loved being back to her home country,
and hearing the familiar buzz of people
going about their daily lives, brought back
so many memories.
Which brought her to the other part of the
equation—the reason she wasn’t so glad
about coming back when she thought of it.
Her dad. Ever since she traveled to the US
for her Masters degree in journalism, she
hadn’t seen him nor talked to him. And she
would have preferred it that way if the
person who had paid for her flight ticket
hadn’t maintained that it was pertinent she
came back. According to him, her father’s
life was in danger and she was the only
hope he had of getting out of whatever
quagmire he was in alive.
She got a taxi, and as the forty-something-
year-old man behind the wheels was
navigating through the infamous Lagos
traffic, she dialed Frank Bello’s number; the
man had insisted that she called him only
when she had gotten a taxi.
“Hello,” she said as he picked up the phone.
They talked for two minutes, during which
he instructed her to lodge in a hotel of
modest charges. It rankled her that he was
giving her commands anyhow, but he was
the only lead she had about her father.
Initially, when he had contacted her about
her father, she was sceptical about the
whole thing; she had heard of cases where
people were kidnapped, raped and killed
through such schemes. So the man had
sent her a video her dad had made before
he went off grid. In the video, he talked
about going under as some people were
after him and his experimental work.
A little over two hours later, she finally
landed on her hotel bed with a dull thud,
and without knowing it, she slept off. It
was the incessant ringing of her phone that
roused her from her glorious sleep and she
was instantly mortified when she saw who
was calling.
“Frank, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—” she
began explaining when the man cut her off.
“Open your door,” he simply said.
She was surprised. She was sure that she
hadn’t told anyone the hotel she checked
into. So how was he able to get the
location?
Shaking her head in wonder, she went to
the door, and through the peephole, saw
the hulk of the man blocking her view. She
immediately straightened her hair, ran her
hand over her body as she tried to look
presentable in her haggard state. Then she
opened the door.
And her father walked in, with the man she
recognized as Frank behind him.
Her shock was so complete, so numbing,
that she couldn’t even breathe properly. Her
mouth hung open in wonder as she tried to
piece the whole thing together.
“Dad—I mean Mr. Okoro—what are you
doing here?” she queried immediately.
In response, the sixty-five year old man
strode to the plush sofa in the room and sat
down, beckoning on her to join him. She
slowly sauntered to the sofa and perched
on it, making sure to be as far away from
him as possible.
Her father then said, “You haven’t stopped
calling me ‘Mr. Okoro’? I thought you would
have grown out of the habit of addressing
your own father so formally.”
“As I’ve told you before, I don’t take you as
my father. Not after you killed mom.”
At that, he sighed. He tried taking her hand,
but she fixed him with a cold stare that
made him withdraw his hand and settle for
tapping his index finger on the sofa.
“Your mother is actually the reason I’m
here,” he finally said after some minutes of
silence. “She’s still alive.”
“W–what do you mean ‘she’s alive’?”
“Your mother was never dead. She is alive,”
he repeated.
“How?”
Before he could reply, Frank whispered
something into his ear, and immediately he
sprang up, straightened his clothes and
said to her, “Sadly my dear, I have to go
now. But if you want to meet your mother,
come to this place tomorrow afternoon and
everything will be explained to you.” He
gave her a piece of paper with an address
scribbled on it. Then he turned on his heels
and left, with Frank following him.
After he left, Onyinye was perplexed. She
didn’t know what to make of the whole
situation; she had known that the manner
she was made to come back was fishy, but
the turn of events was totally beyond her
imagination. Firstly, her father had stormed
into her room, and had made himself
comfortable. And then secondly, he had
made outlandish claims about her mother
—may her soul rest in peace—being alive!
Was there no end to the man’s abilities to
deflect blames?
She thought about her family and how
happy they were then. They’d been one
happy family; she had loved her parents
very much, especially her mother who had
always been there for her. Everything had
been going well for them, until her father
got a secret government job. He had
refused to divulge the details of what the
job entailed, and he started staying out late;
most times he would not even come back
home at all.
One day she had come back home (during
those days she was still staying at home
after her NYSC programme), and she was
surprised with the quietness of the house.
Normally her mother would have been
around as she normally didn’t go out on
Saturdays, but she was nowhere to be
found. She went to her mother’s room, but
everything was in place.
It was when she turned and was about to
go out of the room that her eye caught a
piece of paper which was pinned to the
wall of her, close to the bathroom. She took
the paper and what she read in it made her
eyes pop out of their sockets.
It was a suicide note, in which her mother
apologized for having to go that way,
saying that she was unhappy with her life
and that she found no joy in her life and
marriage. She further pleaded with Onyinye
to forgive her and move on with her life.
She had done that, of course. Immediately
she got her scholarship to study in the US,
Onyinye had cut off all ties with her father,
who she had believed was that cause of her
mother’s death. She had maintained that if
he had been there for his wife, he would
have noticed that she was depressed and
would have helped her.
“Come to think of it,” she suddenly said out
loud, “how am I sure that he wasn’t
cheating on mom all in the guise of
working for the government?”
Thinking about the past wasn’t going to do
her any good, she finally admitted, and
went about arranging her room. She
decided that inasmuch as she hated her
father, she would go to the place he asked
her to come to tomorrow. Maybe… just
maybe, he had answers to her many
unanswered questions.
By 1.30pm the next day, she stepped out of
the hotel, found a cab and headed to the
place her father had asked her to come to.
It was a long and arduous one hour drive
that left her tired as she came out of the
car. She went into the eatery and
immediately saw her father, Frank and one
other person who was immediately
recognizable—her mother.
She gasped in shock and stood still, not
knowing what to make of the situation. So
he was saying the truth, she thought.
She gently approached their table and her
father stood up and brought out the chair
for her. She slowly sat down, all the while
staring at the woman she had believed to
be dead for four years now. Her mother, on
the other hand, found it hard to look at her
in the face, preferring to stare at her nails
as her lips quivered in silent cries.
“Hi, Onyinye,” her mother greeted shyly.
“Hey m–mom,” Onyinye stuttered. “You’re
alive!” she breathlessly added.
In response, her mother pleaded for her
forgiveness, saying that she never meant to
hurt her or her father.
That was when her father spoke up with a
cold anger that was his trademark. He told
Onyinye the whole truth, deciding to leave
nothing unsaid.
Her mother had been cheating on him with
a much younger man, who happened to
work for a pharmaceutical company. At that
time, her father was engaged in a serious
experimental work on cancer. One day, her
mother had found the details of the
research and had given it to her lover. Two
days later, she filed for divorce, but her
father didn’t want Onyinye to go through
the pain of witnessing her parents’
separation, so he’d done everything in
secret and had written the note she found
on the wall.
After she left him, that was when he
discovered that she had stolen his secrets
and as Onyinye was studying abroad, her
father was languishing in prison because
the people that employed him for the
research did not believe his tale of his work
being stolen.
What saved him was when her mother had
finally confessed to the police when her
lover had left her for a Brazilian woman. By
that time, it was already too late; she got to
pay a fine of ten million naira and the boy
was nowhere to be found. After his release
from prison, her father set out to find her
and had employed Frank who was a private
investigator to track her down.
“The rest you already know,” he concluded,
whispering the words as if he was afraid of
talking too loudly.
After he was done, Onyinye opened her
mouth to talk, but no word came out. She
tried so hard not to cry, but little choking
sobs escaped from her throat. Her mother
reached out to her tentatively, held her
hand and said:
“Please my daughter, I know that nothing I
say will take away the pain of the past. But I
just need one thing from you—your
forgiveness.”
Onyinye looked at her father and didn’t
know what to say to him. She had hated
him for so long for a crime he did not
commit; he had actually shielded her from
the true nature of things and she had
turned against him for that.
“Dad, I don’t know how to ask for your
forgiveness. I’m so sorry—” she said before
he cut her off.
“It’s all right, my daughter. I understood
your hate for me, and with how you saw
things, it was justifiable,” he replied and
took her hand.
She then turned to her mother. “I’ll forgive
you only if Dad forgives you,” she said. She
looked at her dad, and surprisingly, he
nodded his consent. “Since he has forgiven
you, I also forgive you. But I do not want to
have anything to do with you.”
Amidst tears, her mother nodded her head
in understanding, and was about to say
something before her father held her
mother’s arm. “It’s better if I tell her,” he
said to her. She nodded and he continued,
this time facing Onyinye, “Your mother has
cervical cancer and has two months left to
live. Don’t you think it’s best she spent the
rest of her days with her family?”
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[b]THE END[/b]
