WOMEN OF HONOUR

Chapter Eight.

"Are you not going to say anything?" Martha retied her loose wrapper that came off from how agitated she had been while telling John what she'd seen Amaka doing. "I am telling you that I caught your youngest daughter with a man so how can you remain so calm?"

John whistled lowly, his hands breaking groundnut and putting them in the plate beside him.

Amaka was kneeling in front of her parents, eyes red and swollen with her shoulders hunched. Her heart was beating at thrice the normal speed.

The winds howled and in the neighbouring house, a child started screaming.

"Mama Abdullah's baby is crying again." John chuckled. "That boy likes crying in the night but in the afternoon you hardly know there is a baby in the house."

Nobody answered him nor did they share his humor. Rebecca sat some few distance to the right of her father, her eyes fixed on the ground.

If she had known Amaka would run to the boy from earlier, she would not have provoked her and would have spoken to her when their parents were asleep.

"So you are not going to say anything ehn?"

"You have always been so impatient" John laughed. "All these years and you've barely changed."

"I am not interested in talking about things that have passed. I am worried about my daughter who might be pregnant right now as we are talking."

"Mama I am not pregnant o!"

"Shut your mouth there. Just look at your shameful self there telling you are not pregnant. So you know that the thing you were doing can make you pregnant."

"What is the boy's name?" John had finished with his groundnuts and clapped his hands twice. "The boy your mother saw you with. What is his name?"

"His name is Emeka" Amaka said lowly.

"Will you open your mouth and talk or you want me to sound your face first?" True to her threat, Martha had jumped up to her feet. The scene from earlier was still bright in her head and it only fueled the boiling rage in her heart.

"His name is Emeka. We fetch water from the borehole in their house"

"You mean Chief Obekieze's son" John pushed in a dandy tone, a glossy look on his face.

Amaka nodded hesitantly, going a few steps back seeing the stifled expression on her mother's face and the excited one on her father's.

"Amaka are you sure you are not pregnant?"

She nodded and placed a finger on her tongue, on the ground and raised it back to her tongue before pointing at the sky.

John shook his head and cleared his throat. "It is okay that you are not pregnant but then you must try to get pregnant as soon as possible."

Not just Amaka, even Rebecca whose head had been lowered the whole time turned to their father, their faces an exact replica of the shock on their mother's face.

"She should.. Did you say she should get pregnant?"

"See Martha. If what she is saying is correct, that boy is the only son of his Father and do you know how rich that man is?"

He turned to look at the three of them and smacked his lips, his eyes rolling at the money he would have being the Chief's inlaw.

"If she can manage to get pregnant, then definitely, he will marry her and if she can marry that boy, our whole lives will change."

Martha stared at him, her eyes turning overcast. She took a deep breath and suppressed the emotions that were threatening to erupt inside her.

"Amaka I am warning you for the very last time. Stay away from that boy"

"Mama we are in love. He loves me and I love him."

"Leave the girl alone na." John walked past her and pulled Amaka up. "She said they are in love"

"Love" Martha scoffed. "You are in love and so what? You think a man's heart is something you can depend on? You think it is something worth entrusting your whole life to?" She turned to face John. "A man is the most unreliable thing in this world Amaka. I learnt this the hard way and I don't want you to too."

"Emeka is different." Amaka folded her arms, her brows locking.

"He is a man! He has two balls and a penis so what differentiates him from the others?"

Her tone made even Rebecca flinched and Amaka ran behind their father to hide.

Martha gave a low chuckle and sighed seeing that Amaka's heart was set and there was little she could say to change it now.

"How long have you known each other?"

"Six months"

"I have been married for twenty years. I married when I was only a few months older than you and I too, went against my father's wishes to marry."

"I thought you said you did not want to talk about what happened in the past so why are you bringing that up?!"

"Because I want your daughters to know the kind of useless man they have for a father." Martha fired back. "I want her to know that I made a very big stupid mistake back then so that she won't repeat the same mistake!"

"Are you saying I am stupid? Are you trying to insult me in front of my daughters?"

"I have told you before and I will tell you again. Don't ever call these girls your daughters again."

"Mama ozugo. Please it is okay." Rebecca pulled her mother's arm pleading. 

John's face was getting twisted by the second and Rebecca knew him well enough to understand that soon, he would get tired of using his mouth. His fists would then continue from where his lips had stopped.

"You better listen to your daughter that has more sense than you. Stupid woman. If you hadn't insisted on staying pregnant, do you think we would have ended up this way?"

Martha's blood cooled and she turned to stare at Rebecca whose face had turned pale.

"Let's go inside." She laced her fingers through hers and pulled. "Don't listen to what your father is saying. You know he always drinks and say any type of rubbish without thinking."

With a loud bang, Martha shut the door after them.

"Don't mind her." John patted Amaka's head. "Just listen to everything I say and you will be okay.  Since you two are in love, there's no harm in getting pregnant to get married ehn."

She nodded falteringly, her head replaying the way Emeka had hurried away without a backwards glance earlier on.

Amaka's heart gave a lurch and she stared at her father then at the closed door, her lips pressed together.

***************************
"Did you know about your sister and her boyfriend?" Martha remarked passively, pulling her shirt off.

"No Ma."

"You were never good at lying." She laughed "You always tap your fingers against your knee and your foot whenever you lie."

Rebecca stopped immediately, her eyes looking away from her mother's inquisitive ones and she lowered her head all together.

"Your father used to be like that too." Martha settled on the plastic chair whose armrest was held together by a tight wrapping of sellotape. "In the past, your father wasn't good at lying too. I always knew when he was lying but..."

She let the rest of her words trail away as John walked in whistling a happy tone. Behind him, Amaka followed cautiously, ready to bolt at the slightest movement.

Martha didn't spare them a single glance and went about her normal nightly ritual before settling to sleep, a blanket of gloom over the whole house.