It took me three weeks to recover from the shock…after i had witnessed mama and papa’s death at the village square, i had collapsed there and i woke up two days after incident with a very terrible fever that caused me to be in bed for a week plus.
Sometimes i woke up in the middle of the night and when i remembered mama, i always ended up crying. I missed papa too because no matter what he did, he was still my father.
I resumed school a week after i was discharged. Henna and the girls had come to visit me when i was sick and when i asked Henna how she was taking her mother’s death, she shrugged it off saying Grace had never been a mother to all of them so her death didnt really pain her very much.
Ifeanyi visited me periodically and told me he had seen me at the village square immediately he came down from the car. He had purposedly looked around knowing i’d be there.
I also asked him if he missed his mother and he said he wasnt…she had not really cared for all her children…all she cared about was money, fame and luxury.
When Mrs Asemota stepped into the class and saw me, she smiled and told me to see her after the class.
‘you must have gone through alot dear Ivyy….’ she said as she sat on her chair in the staff room. She drew another chair close to her and told me to sit.
I sat.
‘you see my dear, i went through the exact thing you are passing through now. My parents were killed in front of me and i did nothing to help them. I was just 13 then. Armed robbers had attacked our house, raped me in front of my parents who were held at gunpoint and after raping me, they shot both of them…’ she paused and looked at me.
‘you must have gone through alot Mrs Asemota…’
‘yes i did…because i had nowhere to go. We were in a foreign village as at that time and i never knew any of my relative…both from my mother’s side and from my father’s side…but i knew i came from Umueke. The villagers of Uzoi brought me back here together with my parents’ corpse and they were buried. The then Igwe handed me to a childless woman as at that time who promised to take care of me…but unfortunately, the woman maltreated me an sometimes made me wish that i died together with my parents…things actually became worse when i discovered i was pregnant from the rape incident…the woman decided there and then to make me suffer. I gave birth to the child…and i abandoned it with her and ran away to Amakpe…where i was taken in by a kind reverend sister who sent me to school and made sure i was well educated..and when i was done with my education, i came back for my child and i got a job here almost immediately and today, i can afford a luxurious apartment, a good car, my daughter is a happily married woman with kids, what more can i ask for? Yes, i wasnt able to get married…i couldnt get a husband because no man in Umueke wanted to marry a nonvirgin and a woman with a child as at that time’ She held my chin.
I smiled.
‘this is why you must keep yourself my child…i heard about the rumours about you and that riff-raff, Ralph and i was very disappointed…i was like, what does that boy have to offer you…forget about his parents’ status…dont let him fool you with his parents’ money…he’s still under their roof and he has a very long way to go before he can be actually be called a man. Se.x is something that the generation of nowadays hunger for like there is no tomorrow. I will not lie to you…i had se.x with some men in Amakpe in my school…and yes i enjoyed it but what did i gain? And i found myself praying and hoping for my period to come every end of the month. Sometimes, i leave the classroom just to check if my panties were stained and whenever my period came, despite the cramps, it became the happiest day of my life. The men i all had se.x with told me that they were going to marry them afterall so we should just start having se.x now, that it doesnt matter since we were still going to get married. Maybe they did have intentions to marry me but when they found out i was a nonvirgin, they only had their taste and abandoned me to nurse my heartbreak alone…i sold myself cheaply to many men in Amakpe…yes, maybe it was not my fault that i was raped…but maybe, if i had kept myself after then, i would have found a man who would understand me, but i didnt, i made a mistake…you see, i derive pleasure advicing young girls like you and telling them my story, because the wise ones would learn from it. You are the brightest student in this school my dear and you have a bright future and as your educational mother, i wont let you ruin it with your hands, maybe ur mother is not here to advice you anymore, maybe your mother is nt here for you to turn to anymore…but just know dat i’ll always be there for you…and feel free to open up to me anytime anyday’
She drew me close to her and hugged me.
I wept on her bossom. I missed my mother.
TBC
