A friend To Remember.

1: A twelve-year-old Tragedy

*****
Sheila Arabowale looked up from her iPad, her glasses on the bridge of her nose. With slow deliberation, her eyes scanned the room, she was lounging in. The younger version of herself, Daniella sat across from her, her eyes glued to her screen, hands working in rapid movements to get the point across. These days Daniella was always occupied with something she had to do, especially on her phone.

A kept her reservation for her daughter excessive phone usage to herself. Seeingas it kept her daughter away from screaming her head off.

She just returned from her school and she was already in form-fitting clothes, jollying away on her device, without a care in the world. Sheila wished she could be like her daughter, spoiled, and free-spirited with no troubles and no care in the world.

Sheila had too many problems, and much to her dismay, she had no one to tell of her plight, her daughter was too young to understand her plight, and her husband was distant these days. Ever since what happened in their household twelve years ago, their household had been plundered into an unexplainable pain. She removed the glasses, wiped her eyes and sighed.

Daniella glanced at her briefly before she retured to her furious typing. Her mother was always sighing and she wanted to hear nothing of it. Choosing to act like she could not see the worry or the pain was the best thing for her. Daniella could never understand how she was just invisible but she chose to stop caring, her dead sister had more place in her mother's heart than she did.

"Why are you staring at me?" Daniella started, not looking up from her phone this time.

Sheila was somewhat taken aback by the question her daughter just posed. Her frown deepened and she blinked, "You are always on that device these days, Ella! It is bad for your health," she commented.

"I am not sure why that is any of your business, or why you are acting like you care but if you must know, I am doing something very important on my phone."

"You are being very rude Daniella," she snapped. Daniella shrugged as if she was past caring about whatever her mother thought of her.

"You are going to continue pressing that phone in front of me." Daniella sighed and finally looked up, She did not look directly at her mother before she stood, "I will conduct my business elsewhere then since you do not want me here."

"I never said that!" Sheila snapped defensively. "All I said was that you shouldn't be pressing your phone too much, that is not healthy. I don't think you want to start using glasses do you?"

Daniella sighed tiredly, "I am leaving anyway," she announced and turned to leave the living room.

"Wait!" Sheila suddenly called out. Daniella looked up from the phone, with curious eyes. "When is the sporting event coming along?" Sheila inquired, she did not care about the sporting event, they both knew she did not care about it but it would do her a lot of good if she knew what was going on in her daughter's life.

"I am not sure, the school is opening its doors to a pauper school. A government school, distasteful!" Daniella tsked. Sheila blinked at her daughter's attitude. Her daughter had developed some sort of hatred for people of lesser privilege.

"Watch your words, Ella," Sheila snapped. She could not really point out where she went wrong with Daniella's upbringing.

Ella secretly rolled her eyes. "I am going to my room," she announced and walked away, leaving Sheila to her thoughts.

What was there to do really? Nothing. She walked toward the other side of the large house, which could very well be called a mansion. She knocked on the door to her husband's office and heard a voice come in.