VILE

Chapter 51: The Present

"Are you comfortable?" Tomike asked as she adjusted the pillow behind him.

"Yes, I'm okay. This is the hundredth time you've asked"

"I'm just making sure. If you need anything just call my cell, no need to stand up or stress yourself calling out for me"

"Noted"

"Alright, I guess you're good. I'll leave now"

Dayo didn't reply a word as he turned away from her.

He was still trying to wrap his head around it, but it made sense even more to him now. At least he could now understand why she always had so much hate for him, even as a child. She was a broken woman who didn't know how to love right because she was never loved right.

He closed his eyes as he pulled a pillow close to his chest and hugged it. He had drifted off when he felt soft strokes on his head. He opened his eyes and saw his mother kneeling on the floor beside his bed.

"Mum?"

"Dayo"

There were tears in her eyes.

Tomike had walked out of the room feeling the same heaviness she had felt everytime she walked out of Dayo's room in the last few weeks. But she decided that now that he was back home things needed to change.

She paced the floor outside the room for a few minutes before she decided she was ready. She was ready to be a mother, the best one mother earth had ever produced. She was ready to let go and be naked honest to her son. She would walk into his room and say exactly what she felt. And that was what she did.

Dayo sat up immediately, trying to understand the situation. Why was she in his room crying? Why was she kneeling beside him? What exactly was going on?

"Dayo, I'm sorry, I really am" now she was already subbing and the tears rolled down freely.

"I am so so sorry. I should have been there for you, I should have been a better mother. But you have to understand that it was hard for me" she took his hands and held them.

"Whenever I looked at you, whenever I looked in your eyes, it reminded me of him. I saw him every time and that made me scared that you'd grow up to be him. The only thing that seemed sensible to do was to run. I thought that running away from you would be running away from the pain, the shame, and the anger that I felt.

"I didn’t consider you or your feelings. I was selfish because I felt like I deserved it. I felt like after all those years of torture and pain and not being able to feel the love of a father or a mother I deserved some sort of freedom from it all.

"That’s why I ran away, that’s why I wanted so much to get to the top to shake off everything that had happened to me. I am sorry that you had to be at the receiving end of my foolishness. You’re a victim just like me and for years you went through so much emotional neglect. Now that i think of it, it was absolutely wrong for me to project all my pain and fears on you.

"I’m not sure you can truly forgive me, but I promise you that I will try my absolute best to be a better mom...... to do what I never did for you" She took a long pause to catch her breath. Then she looked him deeply in the eye.

"My boy, I love you, more than I even knew I did. I guess it took me almost losing you to realize how much I love you. Please forgive this little girl who was hurt, forgive me my love" She knelt there holding his hands as she emptied her heart.

He was crying too. Never in his wildest imaginations would he have thought his mother was capable of this. He was surprised, pleasantly surprised.

"Mum...mum" he tried to speak but instead of words only more subbing came. Of course he'd forgiven her, this was all he ever wanted. When she looked up at him, her face red and swollen, he removed his hands from her grip and opened up his arms to her. She seemed disappointed at first, but when she realized he wanted a hug her she immediately sat on the bed and almost crushed the young man in her tight embrace.

"Mom, you're choking me" he gasped out.

"Oh sorry, I'm too excited" she let go of him and they both chuckled. She held his face in her hands and mouthed the words "My boy" with a smile on her face. She side hugged him again and this time they both lay on the bed until Dayo fell asleep and then his mother as well.