A Promise From My Heart

44.

NOORIE'S POV

The previous Saturday, I was at a family friend's wedding. I had watched the mother and daughter dance with tears in my eyes. There was a reality that constricted my throat nearly cutting my air pipe and stopping the flow of air. It was the fact that I won't experience this with my mother on my own day. There would be no mother to hold me and hug me while we danced and cried like the bride and her mother. I would never have that moment that so many do with their mothers. And it hurt so bad, I nearly bent from the pain.

Each passing second increased the tingly sensation caused by salty liquid pressing against eyes. My throat burned from trying to hold the welling tears. Unable to stay any longer, I had run out and found a private place to cry.

The next Saturday, I walked into Ini's uncle's home for an interment. Her uncle had died and her cousin, Binyerechi, was someone I was friends with. We might not be close friends but we were close enough for me to visit her and give my condolences. Funerals are events I do not like to attend due to the reason that most times I do not know what to say. The gloomy atmosphere and quiet hush of voices does not help. There's always a hanging cloud of sorrow caused by someone's death, a loved one that won't be seen again.

It reminded of my mum's. The way people trooped in and out of our house to give their condolences. It's still one of the days I despised the most. The words were always the same and the prayers were of no different.

The day had ended with a family disagreement accompanied with shouts and exchange of insults in Igbo language. The fight enthused from the deceased's eldest brother, Uncle Munachimso, demanding for the key to his younger brother's room. When asked why he needed the key, he had replied with no shame, an annoying sense of entitlement and vaunt that he wanted to lock his brother's room. He also needed the documents to the deceased's properties including the house we were in.

To say I was shocked would be an underestimation of how I felt. I had heard stories about such happening and seen them in movies but never had I witnessed it first-hand. Seeing it gave me a mixed reaction with one standing out amidst all, shock. My jaw had fallen to the ground.

Ini's mother who was sisters to the deceased's wife had told him it was not possible. Uncle Munachimso had told her she has no right as a woman to speak on matters that involved men. He continued to say "he won't blame her but civilization that made women think they can be equal to men". Those words had provoked Ini's mother who gave him a comeback that surely hit the right spot. The man flared up at the insult and with authority had told Ini's aunt, Aunty Adimchi, to get what he requested for. Aunty Adimchi's eldest son had told his uncle it was not possible.

What had even worsened everything was when he had told Aunty Adimchi that she would have to drink the water used to wash her husband's dead body to prove she did not kill him. "God forbid! Tufiakwa!" Many had bellowed at such an out-dated tradition. Drink the water used to wash a dead body? My body had shuddered at such despicable thought. His reason? His younger brother's death was untimely. All hell broke loose. I sat in a corner, watched the whole drama as the so-called elders from the man's side agreed to such a vile act. Ini's mother supported her sister who could only cry, spoke up for her and fought for her.

This man had not worked a day for his brother's wealth. He did not know how it had come by and how his brother had built his wealth until his death. Someone from nowhere wanted to claim everything as his own. It ended with the man leaving, confusion everywhere, a promise to meet in court which was Ini's mother's doing and the louder cries of the deceased's wife.

I poured water into the flower vase then stepped back to admire the new flower arrangement. The collection of purple, white and greenery livened the living room, endorsed a smile across my face and overwhelmed me with satisfaction and pride. Its scent perfumed the whole space birthing calmness in me.