Ìrètí [Completed]

1| WE

Life can be unfair
But it's like I'm unfair to life
Because me just having life alone
Is unfair.

"Leave me alone, Ajayi"

"You cursed woman, shut up! Ronke, shut up!"

Father and mother are fighting and like always, my siblings and I are outside the apartment listening to what is happening inside.

Father came home drunk this night. This is the third time this week and he's beating up mother again.

Well, I shouldn't really say 'beating up' since mother is also retaliating. So, it's a fight. They're fighting.

The door to the room opposite our apartment opens and Mummy Ayo comes out to the walkway. She looks at us and shakes her head then she walks away to the entrance of the house. I know she's going to talk with Baba Ahmed at the front of the building.

She doesn't try to intervene anymore whenever father beats mother. No one in the building, not even Baba Ahmed, do anymore after mother had told them to mind their own business and leave our family alone. In this our face-me-and-face-you building, it's not possible for one to not interfere when regular fights that disturb the whole building occur but since my mother, whom they're trying to advice and help, doesn't appreciate their efforts, they have to leave her to her problem.

I look at Itunu and I can see the sadness in her eyes. Before we always comforted mother even if it was just looking at her with comforting eyes which she always ignored, but now can we still do it? After eavesdropping on what mother secretly told Mrs. Oyedele last week and accidentally hearing about the truth about us, Itunu and I can't even talk freely with mother, not to talk of consoling her now.

I'm sure father will soon leave now and then come home sober tomorrow to beg mother. Mother will surely forgive him and pretend to forget about the beating and then we'll live normally until the next fight.

I've always wondered why mother always endure all what father does to her and why she forbids us from talking about it with her but now I know why. She's suffering for her sins.

"What should we do?" Itunu asks me.

"Are you asking me? What can we do?" I reply, looking away from her.

"Why is daddy always beating mummy?" Iyanu asks in his babyish voice.

Looking at Iyanu in Itunu's arms, I kind of find him pitiful. He's still a little boy and from the time he became sensible, he has always seen our father fighting with our mother. I wonder how he'd feel if he had also heard what mother had told Mrs. Oyedele but he's just four years old and I'm sure he wouldn't even understand.

I glance at his left arm. Before, I thought maybe it was mom's malnutrition or stress during pregnancy that caused his left arm to not develop well from the womb which resulted in his left arm being shorter than the right arm. Now, I know better. It's our parents' sins that caused his limb malformation.

I look at Itunu, waiting for her to reply. She's the one who always respond to Iyanu whenever he asks questions like these.

"Iyanu" Itunu says quietly, looking gently at Iyanu in her arms. "Daddy doesn't like to beat Mummy. Things just happen. But remember, you must not beat or fight with people. It's bad."

"So Daddy is bad." Iyanu says.

"I didn't say that." Itunu says with a sigh.

"It's bad to fight. Daddy is bad because he is beating mummy" Iyanu says.

Itunu looks at me with a rueful smile on her face. I feel so sad looking at her. My younger sister is a very optimistic and strong person, but seeing her in this way is so saddening. I think I also look so pitiful now.