HOPE IT'S OVER 7

FINALE?

Mum got reengaged down the line, about half a decade after dad's horrible departure. I believed she too was not finding it easy to be a single mother. Single mother? Single mother indeed. She nagged over everything. She could hardly afford to pay for my school fee for some terms and I was pursued from the school at the assembly ground on several occasions. I loved school, I loved my education but things weren't going fine as I wished.

Though dad wasn't really responsible, but he was caring enough and took my education serious. He wouldn't joke with that. I watched him staggered home one night. Seeing me playing with my toy, he stuttered, "You have to become great in life. Take your books seriously." It's like that was the night mum murdered him, it seemed that was the last time he spoke to me. It was after his death I realised dad had no real relatives. No one came to arrest or charge mum to court. Everything was buried in the corner of our room. But mum always claimed it was self defense whenever I missed dad and cared to ask why she did it.

Mr. Felix would have been an unfortunate being could he had been like dad. I didn't know where he and mum had met but I knew he would always come to the new apartment he got for us, buy me some chocolates, and bread and bean cakes in the night while he spent nights alone with mum in the room. Mr. Felix was a rich man and he always brought different cars to our place. The two were something else, sex addicts and lacked sex manners, especially my mum. They wouldn't even close the door to their room whenever they were having fun. I thought I was having a secret fun by piercing once a while not until they graduated from the bedroom to the sitting room, right before me, before my very eyes, not even minding my presence. Mum was shameless. Both of them.

I began to grow desires, urge for sex. I wanted to experience what they were experiencing. I wanted to feel what mum was feeling. I wanted to know why she always moaned, her sounds her horrible as the sex they were having. I was alone at home one evening, mum had gone out to the market, and I was just there in my room, trying to masturbate for the first time. I tried dipping my fingers into my private, trying to feel the same, but I found it hard because I was still a virgin and I never wanted to lose my dignity to some objects or my own hungry and pointed fingers. Suddenly, Mr. Felix entered my room without knocking.

He saw my posture and knew what I was trying to do. I tried begging him never to tell mum but he insisted. "On one condition." He said. I agreed, maybe because I also wanted it; that evening, he broke my hymen, and made me feel like a woman, strong from inside out. I loved it. I enjoyed it, though it was painful at first.

Mr. Felix seemed to enjoy ride with me than with my mum. Since he tasted the soup of a virgin, he wouldn't let go of the pot. He asked my mum and offered to always take me to school in his car whenever he was around. School indeed. He was indeed nice in squeezing my body, enjoying every rounds at the back of his car. Oh! How I enjoyed sex!

We parked the car around a forested area like we used to do, a remote place, so we could enjoy ourselves like we used to. While he was digging, I was facing up and saw a figure stood by the right side mirror. My heart pounded, beating very fast, because I could easily recognise my mother. I pushed him away to quickly dress up. By the time I opened the door, she was no more there, no trace of her. It now looked as if I was dreaming. Was I imagining it?

I was expecting Mr. Felix to show up at our place to pick me up for school the next day just as he promised, but he wouldn't show up. I asked mum about big daddy, like I used to call him, but she said he had travelled out of the country, and he wouldn't be back again. She said never to worry that he left some money for us, enough to spend till eternity. Few months after, we moved to another house, a new one built with new materials. Mum bought new cars and also changed my school to a private one, and also got another man.

I hardly had seen my mum with a Bible before, but she said she had a calling and opened a church.

Since Steve said the whole case had to do with my mum, the renowned female minister of a famous church in town, Pastor Stanley Felicia, I was asked to follow the officers to her place so she could be invited peacefully, because she could not just be handled anyhow so as not to receive unwanted reactions from the public. She used to extend hands to the police in town too, so many of them knew her and attended her church, so they had to give her the respect she deserved.

Well, like anyone could guess, mum denied Steve's accusations against her.

"You killed my parents; you shot them before my eyes. I was there watching you but I couldn't move an inch." Steve claimed.

She wouldn't face him, but turned to the DPO, "You should transfer some files to the psychiatric hospital and not allow them lay waste on your table here. Better still, you could bring some like him to our church for deliverance instead of wasting your time. Or can't you hear the lunatic words from his mouth?"

The DPO sighed heavily, not knowing what to do.

"This case shouldn't bother any Judge in town. It's obvious this man is mad and needs help. Please help him. Or do you want to look into the matter? She asked him with a warning look. The DPO understood her well, remembering she had connections everywhere in the country and he could be unseat if he dared try to elongate the matter. He set a new file and gave it to an officer to handle. The next thing I knew was that Steve was charged with the murder of Gabriel Smith and for breaking into my apartment; theft. The other side of his story against my mother was not included, it never existed. The argument was not sound enough and Steve did not even have any evidence.

With my mother's help and connection, my murder attempt on Gabriel too was also dissolved. Mum's lawyer asked me to deny it in court and it would be over. True, no evidence was provided by Steve. He couldn't find them where he kept it. I knew that was my mum's handiwork; she must have asked some people to clean his house. Steve was smarter than the stupid way he was made to look like at the court, even before the Judge.

Something kept telling me Steve could be saying the truth. Yea, the truth. If mum could dabbed the knife through dad, who else could she not be capable of killing? Steve was sentenced to death on the gallows which was to take place in few days. I washed my face, did little make up and headed for the prison where Steve was confined till his death day.

I bribed the wardens on duty and I was allowed to meet him for few minutes. "I believe you, I believe you are saying the truth." I squatted before him and felt so bitter for him. I still loved him. Maybe little.

"I'm sorry I had to deny you in the court. I'm so sorry. I had no option..."

"Than to follow your mother's instructions." He cut in. "I understand. I was the one foolish. So painful I couldn't achieve my dreams. My parents will be so sad I couldn't avenge them."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." I cried.

"Sorry? You shouldn't be, because your mother will be." He said. "Moreover, why have you come? To mock me?"

"No. I came to ask you some things. Please."

"Oh! I see. I'm listening."

"Who were your parents? What's your father's name?"

He sighed, "Hmmm. My parents, my joy. My hope. My father, a strong and a wealthy being. Omogoriowo Anjola Felix."

The name got my eyes lit, and my heart skipped a pumping. I asked him to describe him, he did and there was 95% match between his father and the man who broke my hymen.

Now I was getting it. Mr. Felix was already married while he was going out with my mother and me. Mum knew. She must have had cunningly got the man's properties in a paperwork and got him and his wife killed to inherit him. Or how else could she explain how she got so rich in a twinkling of an eye? Why would she open a church if not to cover up for her past sinful ways and to make no one to suspect her? Something’s fishy.

I tried to remember her reply when I asked after Mr. Felix. I got to know she was speaking in parables...'he has travelled...he won't be back again...he left us some money, enough to spend till eternity.'

Steve met with his ancestors that week. Few months later, I got married to Jimmy, a brother mum introduced to me as a member and a worker in her church. She got us everything we needed, making sure I was happy and silent over every of her atrocities.

Every time I thought about Steve and everything that happened between us, I felt this burden within me, a sense of guilt which was missing in my mother’s heart. I hope one day I would grow the heart, get the confidence, and get necessary evidences that could prove my mum as a killer, and not a minister. Then, it would be over. But right now, I keep my head low to save my marriage.

Story by: MICHEALAHADEN & TABITHA