HE IS MY CHAUFFEUR ✅

FOUR

Unedited like previous ones.

_________

Coffee.

Work.

Newspaper and books.

Family.

Those words defined El-Mustapha's world and life. If someone were to ask him what life was, he was sure that's all he could come up with. Nothing else.

He had seen love, heard of it but never felt it. He grew up all alone, taught himself how to love himself and groom himself into what he was then. His mother and father get divorced when he was just five. He was very young, sure, but he could remember the scenes that unfolded the time of the divorce.

He didn't know why the incident was the only memory he could recall when he was five.

Maami was watching the television while he was playing on his little bike when Baba came in that night, he didn't understand the conversation they had.

But as usual, his Baba grabbed Maami by her neck and dragged her out of his sight. He didn't know what had happened but he could hear the echoes of her cries resonating in his ears. He had rushed to the room and tried opening the room but it was locked. He began crying too until he slept. In the morning when Mrs Lily their chef came, she woke him up and handed him to his nanny. After then, he met Maami lying on the floor of her room like a corpse. He had shouted, earning Lily's attention. Without much a do, she called the family doctor.

He checked his Maami but Baba never came until after six months. Whenever he came, the same things happened. And then, they moved to Nigeria. A while after, Maami told him that she and Baba's marriage had been dissolved by Daada.

He was happy that Maami would be fine for the rest of her life. He could remember jumping. As he jumped, instead of landing on the ground, he found himself caught in Baba's hold.

From then, Baba took him away from his Maami. While growing up, all he was trained upon, was business. Business and business. He grew up with Lily before she stopped coming. He started living on his own at eighteen and started following Baba to countries where he ran his businesses.

He could remember visiting Maami at Abuja in her new home when  he was still eighteen. Maami got married again and gave birth to a girl, Maya.

He could remember seeing a distasteful look on the face of Maami's husband when he said he was going to spend a week with her. On his third day, Maami came and told him to leave, indirectly.

It hurt him. It still did.

Maami didn't need him in her life. She wanted her marriage more. It was painful. He didn't relent, but Maami kept pushing him away in the unnoticed way. He got the headlight and stayed away.

But he loved his half-sister, Maya.

They communicated like the brother and sister they were. He wouldn't say it's love but it's a natural bond. Between people of the same blood.

Despite the fact that he was in Nigeria, managing all the companies named under the family name, he didn't try to visit Maami ever again. Maami sometimes visit him in his office. He would greet her but wouldn't feel any special feeling.

They would talk of business and how their families were fairing. When Maami brought up the 'M' word, he would frown and wouldn't say anything again. That's how she normally give up and leave.

He occasionally visit Maya at London where she's studying. Recently he found out that she was with a man - Jaybee- who was a known footballer.

When he asked Maya of Jaybee, she said there was nothing between them. She was nothing but a fan of Chelsea club and Jaybee was a good player.