That Incident

SIX

❦

𝘎𝘓𝘈𝘋 𝘚𝘏𝘌 𝘋𝘐𝘌𝘋

What Fred did reminded me everything of the past. His hands on my body. The strange movement. The smirk on his face.

Mrs Ujam had urged me to write down my thoughts in a journal and I am scrawled it all in the journal. I looked at how scattered the page looked.

I continued to write:

Is it crazy I am glad about my grandma's death? I can be unforgiving, can I? She hated me before I was born and also hated my mum for ever loving my dad. The witch was actually what I called her before I stopped cause my mum told me to stop. I sometimes wished I didn't have to listen to every word. Now I had to go to the family gathering where I will get to hear people cry over a woman who had done nothing but cause my family pain....

The family gathering!! It was actually today. I was so pained that I had to go with mum to where she's not respected at all. I just had to go though. After all it was a family gathering and we were family.

"Behave today. If you find anything they do or say upsetting, don't try to act without thinking." She warned me when we arrived at Uncle Tommy's house.

I nodded but not in assurance. I couldn't assure her anything.

I just looked forward to seeing my cous, Bimpe. She was not like any of them.

It had been awhile since I've been to Uncle Tommy's house. Two years ago to be precise. The house that had nicely painted walls as it was newly built then, had lots of green spirogyra at the end of the walls. Really disgusting.

My father's younger sister, Kamdi opened the door for us. Kamdi, a carbon copy of the vicious woman of a grandmother. They were quite identical in the likes of look and behaviour.

Her eyes red-rimmed from crying obviously. She gave out a loud snort as she let us in without saying a word. She hadn't forgotten about how I bit off her hair the last time we met. That's what she got for coming to our house and talking to my mother in a rude manner.

She wore a weave so I couldn't check to see if there were still scars on her scalp. I was sure to bite so deep her scalp that her hair won't be growing anytime soon. She would probably need a hair transplant.

"Kamdi, how are you? How is school? How has everything been?" My mum asked.

Doesn't she hate being nice all the time especially to mean people? She was always trying to be very careful as much as possible.

"Does it look like anything is good? How can you ask such dumb questions."

My fist tightened. Such arrogance.

"I understand what you are going through. Mama meant a lot to us."

"What do you know?" Her eyes tearing up. Veins on forehead clearly visible.

I searched around the sitting room for Bimpe. No sign of her.There were uncles, aunties, cousins I didn't relate with and people whose faces I had never seen in my life. Some seated on the couches. Some stood.

My dad and his mistress weren't in sight either. Uncle Tommy stood at the corner of the large sitting room biting at his nails. He shook his head from time to time, staring at the ceiling like as if to say that mama was in heaven or he was communicating with God. I couldn't even tell if he was weeping or pretending to.