Remember To Forget

32

Madam Coker stirred her meat stock into the pot of egusi soup as it simmered with an enticing aroma. She placed her wooden spoon beside the gas cooker after analyzing the taste of a drop on her palm. She draped her fingers through her apron to clean of her sweaty palm. Her son-in-law and her daughter would soon be back home. She was preparing their favorite soup as she was excited to hear about the sex of her unborn grandchild.

Madam Coker put off the gas cooker and moved to hang her clothes in the backyard, that was when she saw the black car that has been packed at the end of the streets for weeks. At first she thought it was normal as alot of tenants parked outside their houses but this car was different.

It's windows were tinted black and it changed its position from a different house to another. Madam Coker knew people called her a nosy neighbor, but she cared less.

She didn't know what to do about the situation at hand.

So she did her chores, walked inside and considered calling the police but by the time she had decided what to do, the car was no longer there. It was gone.

So Madam Coker called the young man that came to visit the other day. After she had told him what she had witnessed a year ago, on the day of her neighbor's accident. He had dropped his card and told her to call him anytime.

Maybe he could help, Madam Coker thought. Then she dialed the lawyer's number.

As a call came into John's phone, he excused himself and listened attentively as Madam Coker gave a very detailed description of the car and it's tinted windows.

John was grateful for her call but he knew her information was worth nothing, his brother and his family resided in an estate with other national important public figure and that could be a security team's car but still he wrote down everything she said and he sent it to his friend who was also helping him to identity a spy he believed was close to his family.

When John stepped into the palor, he nodded to his mother to continue her tale. It was a truth he disliked but they all needed it to make sense of their next step. His father was a dangerous man but every man had a weak spot and they needed to drive a spear through his.

Laura felt every gaze on her, of comfort or pity, she wasn't sure and she didn't want to be. The last thing she needed was to look into their eyes and see a reflection of sympathy to her pathetic life.

Taking deep breaths, she felt his gaze on her the most. Jonathan's eyes never left her, she felt his stare skip through her flesh and it made her shiver a little but she squared her shoulders and prepared her mind for the worse.

It had not been easy to remember her past and her present, she didn't remember everything but she knew enough. Even though her soul hungered to know more.

As time had gone by, there were tantalizing flashes of memory, glimpses of vague, ephemeral images that came and went too quickly for her to grasp them, to hold them and examine them. They came at unexpected moments, catching her off guard and filling her with confusion and sometimes leading to an intense panic attack.

She had been weak and discouraged but she knew she needed more.

More to save her family, her village and put a monster back to hell.

Laura has been told who she was or who she was meant to be for months. She was tired of it, she wanted to be who she remembered, she needed every little detail to do that.

"After the girl in the basement had..." Naomi stopped when Laura cut her off.

"Her name was Katherine."