She Is Blind

Four Years Later...

FOUR YEARS LATER.

CHANGES.

Stretching my fingers as I click away at my Apple laptop, trying to document the most recent years of my life, I heave a sigh. Life has been quite good, when you are one of the most sought after Television anchors in the city of Abuja after working at a radio station for two years and you have big money coming in for you and a comfortable two storey building in the heart of the city, you have no other option than to say Life is Good.

My mind wanders to my younger brother AB and his girlfriend Jane, and I smile, because I know he wants to follow in my footsteps, he wants to propose to her while still in his service year. Amina, my best friend, and Peter, another friend, now have a son together, after they got married a year after me, and I wonder why they chose to name him David, although I know whose handiwork that is.

A child runs towards me, another one crawling behind her, the only two teeth peeking out of his laughing mouth, and I carry my daughter up on my shoulders, her giggles filling my heart with joy. She looks quite like me, same dark colouring, same face, same beauty. And as their mother comes tottering behind her, picking my crawling son up who is also as handsome as she is beautiful—they have obviously been playing, I feel happy that I am rich enough to care for my family. A presence behind their mother alerts me to the joy of the fact that I can take care of people beyond my family too.

Her mother leans over me, her eyes brown and glazing with fire, sparkling. And I know what she wants. I know she knows what I am typing, and that she wants me to stop typing because sometimes she gets jealous that my laptop gets more attention than her from me. I know she wants to drag me to the room and let the children play together so we can play together.

I remember when her eyes used to be pale blue, when she used to stagger with a walking stick around, when she used to wish she could see me so that she could appreciate how handsome I was. I remember when she used to cry about never seeing our children like she can now, about never getting to appreciate the outside beauty of the world, about being unable to tell the difference between white and black, both in colours and in people.

She wraps her arms around my neck and kisses the side of my cheek thrice in quick succession before playing with my beard that has gotten longer in recent years. I remember when her bandage was taken off and she screamed for joy because she could see, and it was not black, but colours she always wanted to see even though they had been blurry like in her dreams. She looks at what I have written although she does not always like to read it because it gets her emotional, reminding her of the things she was a part of without witnessing them.

"Are you done? You told me you are almost finished with it." she asks.

"Almost." I note. "I'm trying to end it."

"There will never be an end to it. The same way there will never be an end to us."

I smile, suddenly remembering when she started seeing for the first time, when everything had been blurry and I still had to lead her around and I still had to carry her, until it slowly eased up after two months, and she can see almost perfectly now. I remember her name is Gift because she fixed everything in my life, and because she fixes everything. Because my parents are now my parents again and are now proud of me,, because my sister Jemima will soon come to see her niece and nephew.

"I think I should end this for now, although I don't know if I will ever publish it or just let our kids read it." I admit.

"We'll talk about that later." she grins.

I stand up from where I have been hunched over and lift my wife in my arms, and she giggles as Nneka and the kids cheer, even our little son who looks like her. I take her upstairs to the room we share, and she pulls me close and kisses me before I lay her on the bed and look into her brown eyes and kiss her again.

"We'll go for Jean and Blessing's wedding next Saturday right?" she asks, grinning the way she always does.

"Why not."

"You're more handsome than Jean, now that I can see. He looks as if someone drained blood from him. I wonder how our children's cousins will look anyway."

"Say that again." I reply as I draw the curtains and close the door.

THE END.