Truths and Late night letters

All you ever wanted

was to be looked at

like your every breath

was worth it.

Early morning, she had been slightly indisposed and couldn't make it to the store with them.

Alone by herself, sipping hot gingered tea, her personal remedy for sore throat. Salima had begun thinking she possessed some kind of sadistic traits, to inflict pain on herself, as the very hot liquid travelled her throat burning the sore, she smiled satisfactorily. She breathed in the air of serenity the house held in her mother's absence and she imagined how free her father must be to have rid himself of them. for life.

Her father was living fly. they lived meagre in comparison to him.

Running a cosmetic retail shop with part of the money he had settled them with at the time of the divorce finality. they still leaned on their family for help, sometimes.

It was just like yesterday when her father had come out of hiding, agreeing to meet outside court with the proclamation of her mother's divorce. He pled to cut every tie with her mother, which meant them and in return settled them with money that could set them up to live well since it was money their mother had always wanted.

From the day he allotted money to them, Salima had reduced their ties to nothing but transactions, papers and ownership transfers. Her father had literally signed his will while alive and to her, he was dead.

Her father roamed with a free conscience because only thought he owed a debt of money, he was ignorant to the fact that he owed them the debt of a lacking protective figure in a cold world - a world it wasn't their choice to be in. he owed them debt of neglect, that they'll spend a lifetime tending the wounds. If he possessed any fear of God, he shouldn't forget the day he'll be questioned for abandoning lives he willfully brought to the world.

Even when he had sent another parcel along with two mobile phones, a letter attached to it, strictly for her eyes and his address- the attached address suggesting a thriving settlement in Abuja, that his home was open to them. She snubbed it.

There was nothing she wanted to hear from a man who could leave them without the day's meals because he was investing his money in another woman.

He had had it planned out all along. She heard from confirmed source that before leaving, his business over there had already been established and her stepmother had been running it. she heard too, he was into shipping. all in all business was booming for him and her father could be considered somewhat a rich man. She wondered if karma was asleep.

Salima faulted herself sometimes for declining to join her father.

So what if she would rather live with a strange woman and a bastard half brother than face what was close to annihilation with mama.

She disliked them equally, the two of them were unforgivable.

they had both done grave things that scarred them for life, both of them had given her taste of hell but at least with her father, she'll have money. She would be able to tolerate him for money's sake, that is, if he was generous with her. Even if she would never look at him with same eyes, betrayal was betrayal after all but bearable with money.

At the peak of their troubled existence, Salima acquiesced,Iman coped with mad rage. she spat curses and swore a war, she'll kill both her father and his wife and didn't mind rotting the rest of her life behind bars.

Iman had dug out their father's wife on social media and she and mama would scroll her pictures and mock her to their fill. they mocked her formerly trim figure that had blown up after just one child.

mama would call Salima hypocrite for not joining in and that she was secretly in support of their father because he had money.

"I guess you still want favor from your father and that's why you protect him even behind his back"

Her mother had eyed her as she had been inattentive to their trolling game.

"don't just drop any offensive comments on her photos, this is already embarrassing" Salima had said before leaving the sitting room to her mother and sister.

Perfectly concealed, she felt the combined rage of her mother and Iman in three folds but she knew better that mocking added nothing to them but more emptiness. they already were miserable.

Knowing so, Salima wept.

If it could have made their stepmother less happy or make their lives less pained or fill their stomachs or pay their bills, she would have mocked the hardest.The woman was obviously better off than them and keeping tab on her made them concede that they were below her. you only try to bring down what you deem higher than you.

Mama boasted of how more beautiful she still was and had a firmer body despite her grown girls.

It was a way of nursing her ego for not being the one with the boy child. for not being the one that was lavished with such love and fineries that her archenemy showed off on media. It was apparent that their stepmother fell short when it came to looks compared to her mother yet the way he looked at her in their photos, it was like her father saw his whole universe in her and didn't mind to be lost walking every planetary of her being.

Salima was jealous for them, her father never looked at any of them like that and she knew nobody ever would.

It was like their presence was an insignificant star that will soon burn out of his mind's existence.

Just as he had forgotten them, she'll forget him too.he too was a memory she'll fade out. soon enough.

It was the solemn promise she reminded herself everyday and she wiped her eyes of the tears that threatened to spill.

As for the letter attached to the parcel, Salima had not read it but she kept it safe and would read eventually, when something close to forgiveness touched her heart.To forgive was for her mind's peace,To forget was impossible. A lesson to live with.

Cold air flooded the room blowing out the steam of her tea, she gulped before it would lost its warmth.

Outside, the trees were bending to the wind's howl. the aches she awakened thinking of the past simmering down with the change of weather.she took a peep, pushing her head out the window, the clouds were moving fast and tiny drops had touched her nose. the room had turned shades darker and it began to rain.

.

Rain, it's the little things that are there to remind that life was still worth living. no matter how old she got,

once the clouds greyed and were heavy with the possibility of a downpour. She's never missed a chance to take a seat by the window watching droplets fall from an expanse seemingly unreachable, whenever her hands caught rain water it felt like she had touched heaven itself. the wind hummed carrying with it droplets, gently slapping them across her face and in a few minutes the gentle drops drummed the rooftop with an intensity that doubled with the passing minutes. With her hand held out and cool drops seeping through the spaces between her fingers, she closed her eyes and drew in the calming scent of freshly watered earth wishing its solace to steal her from the miserable present.

If only wishes were horses.

life had taken a drastic twist, everyday was uncertain. She overdosed on the bitter pills of fate and had long lost her inner peace.

no matter how much it rained, the peace brought with it was no match for the turmoil bottled inside of her. It was an unmentioned battle between the serenity tapped from rain and the chaos inside and chaos had emerged victor more times than she kept count.

Thunder claps echoed like the screams of her heart following suit of the lightening tearing across the sky.

The darker the night. The brighter the light. One strike of light swallowed the darkness spread across sky expanse.

darkness with how wide it was humbled before a string of light. darkness never curtails light.

It was a lesson. A sign that when her light would come, it would overshadow the dark days. She'll relish in it until she forgot past aches,It would come one day.

She knew. but that day seemed out of reach, so yonder it was like an impossible dream.

could she survive till then?

when there were thinner hopes to hold on to. when life had reduced to nothing but a grand illusion!. not even the ones she was born to and born with and right before her eyes all she ever adored, everything her existence pinned onto faded into void and her present was painfully echoes of her yesteryears when she had been just a child numbed to their reality.

Her eyes had seen more cries than smiles and her mind, barely seventeen had been cast to depths of gloom by the ones she held close.

Alas not even the sanctity of blood ties could stop human selfishness from unleashing it fangs and gobbling the whole being of its subject of target.

selfishness was a disease that knew not kith or kin.

who was to blame that their father had choose his own sanity over the death he faced at her mother's hands everyday. The truth was a bitter pill to swallow yet she told herself it, her mother was not the best of people not even to her own mother. she was barely good to anyone.

there were times she had doubted her maternity. she questioned answers that were yet everywhere,

in the voluminous hair she inherited from her.on her birth certificate her mother's signature stamped there that she delivered a baby girl at 5p.m.

Her mother was indeed her birth mother. the woman who had scarcely shown her anything of warmth and kindness. Salima had been brutalized and had her remains lynched. Her mother was in pieces and would not let anyone be in peace.

Mirrors, Fine pottery

just like people, once broken will never be whole again but remain as paradigm of a scarred existence and she knew she was never going to be the same girl.

"Salima!" She heard her name from the other end of the house.

Oh no she is back

As she rushed towards the door, she wondered if there was anyone in the world whose heart threatened to desert its cage upon hearing the voice of their own kin, a kin that seemed to suck up every bit of breathable air the moment they stepped in and no sooner you already wished they'll vanish and never come back but unfortunately it was your destiny to share a life with them.

Perhaps there wasn't and that's why her life was such a predicament.

"you're back,

welcome" the serene ambience melting with her mother's presence, she couldn't feel it anymore.

"you didn't put the buckets out and you know the tap's not been running for a week" she hissed and the blackness of her accusing eyes made Salima want to vanish.

"I don't know what it costs for you to be a responsible human being" her mother projected her own failings on her. Salima doubted her mother still knew the smell of her own kitchen, It was Salima who decided and made the meals. she split the chores between Iman and she even though she ended up doing majority. Her mother rested on her to keep the home going yet eagle eyed, she watched and only made comments on what salima got wrong or forgot to do.

Pleasing her mother was impossible.

"I'm not feeling too well, I left the shop to Iman" she passed the wet umbrella to Salima, a silent command she was expected to fold it. Salima had mastered reading minds.

"I'll join her soon, once the rain subsides" Salima was quick to suggest almost interrupting. She had grown so uncomfortable what with her mother's presence that when it was only two of them without Iman the house felt too small to contain them. she rather went with her aches than have her heart in mouth.

The rain had reduced to light pelts.

wearing a knitted woolen coat over her plain abaya, she wrapped her head and made her way to their store.

little rain drops leaving spots on her dress, life wasn't all good but it wasn't all bad either. She had learned a full heart, to delight in the littlest things even when everyday she had a reason to cry.

the squishy sound of her wet slipper on water soaked grounds made blissful sound that seized as she got closer to the concrete grounds of the complex where their shop stood in the middle.

getting in, Iman was surrounded by two girls as they watched something on her phone.

"Good morning" they chorused, "morning" she greeted back.

"mm, welcome. I thought you were sick" Iman uttered. her friends' presence cushioning the awkwardness that was always between them.

" I took some medicine. I'm much better" salima lied as the ache of her head leaned on one side, ticking like a time bomb. Iman refocused on her phone, her friends and she laughing over something. Salima kept her ears and threw in few words for courtesy sake and when they had switched the topic to weddings of society's high profilers, the talk of the town weddings,

Iman's face lit up, it was like no other subject fascinated her more.

they had seen the same broken home but Iman still fancied weddings. big, rich weddings. Money. Beauty. Fashion were all Iman's spec, to be worldly was human nature but when it broke the gauge and brimmed thorough materialism, it was a disease. to deny oneself of the ability to accept people for being them only to love for what they had to give was something her sister would never see as wrong.

Iman and her friends talked fancy of when they would get to be brides too and Iman turned the focus on herself, her voice dominating over theirs and her friends quietened and then listened like the minions they were. Salima observed her sister, the one she was once tightly bond with before whatever had turned them strangers. Iman was not a terrible person, she was only a badly brought up human who hadn't her vices tamed. the vices sprouted with branches and bore fruits of self-absorb. blindness to her own faults, Iman believed she was perfection and wouldn't stand if anyone pointed out to her as less.

They used to love each other in childhood before resentment and injustice caused a divide.

If they played together and broke something, their mother would have Salima bear the punishment for misleading her younger sister and Iman got away with everything.

Iman, so used to getting away that she thought the world laid at her fingertips and Salima so used to getting punished for both their offences that she thought herself feeble and withdrew in a shell.

both of them moved in fear, Iman's fear of being less than perfect, she feared becoming as undeserving and unloved as Salima.

And Salima feared never being enough.

The rain had stopped, and the clouds fluffy and light drained of the burden of water leaving in its wake cooler air. The day passed rapidly in attending to their business. Iman's friends had left and they rarely talked about anything aside the accounts for the days' sale.

Iman handled the record for the end of the day then they closed, reached home exhausted. Salima fixed herself noodles as Iman said she was filled from all the junk food she's eaten during day.

Having the liberty of being the only person awake, she turned on the TV, keeping the volume low. She was fixated on an episode from a cartoon scene when her phone beeped, a text from Habiba.

Hi,

I know you missed me because I do too. It's been a while,

we've barely seen each other. It has been stressful reading for senior year papers, I lost so much weight I know you can't recognize me anymore.

how are your exams ( I trust you to ace them) and mine, well all I can say is I tried my best and I have just one paper left and then graduation and then university.

Honestly I don't know if I'm ready for the transition. it's happening so fast.

there's a lot of things we have to talk about.

I might host a sleepover if my parent allow it and you must come.

Must!! ( see the emphasis)

P.s: my father's thinking of sending me to Cairo for a medical degree.

You have to make it. Plsssss.

Warmth swelled in her heart as she typed her reply assuring she would come. Salima thought of how family were not the ones you were bound with but could be complete strangers who made the world feel like it was worth your breath.

she washed her mouth and took her medicine. unable to sleep Salima's mind wandered to her father's letter and she brought it out from where she had hid it away from Iman.

It wasn't that forgiveness was In her heart, It was that curiosity for it got her that evening and she would have the heart to bear whatever its content was. She opened, the letter smelling of very fresh untouched paper, it was three pages much. she unfolded and began to read.

If you eventually open this paper, read with your heart because in every line, I have written all you need to know, in fervent truth.

and when you do read, you can judge me as you wish.

There are mistakes we make in life, some which cost us a lifetime or even a generation to amend.

I made such mistake and wished I could have done better in erasing.

I could have been more sensible : forgive me but your father is not much of a wise man.

I act first then I think later. I've walked same cold paths and mapped out same for you two, unknowingly. The guilt I still feel is why I'm obliged to write to you.

I never told you stories of my early life.

I grew up where love was alien. my mother was my father's last wife and died after having just me.

I grew up without knowing love, my father was a busy man, working to take care of my seventeen siblings plus myself.

My steps held me different, they showed me my place. Longer than I knew, I learned to have my own back but deep down was the yearn for true affection.

I ventured out of our small village as a young man finding means of livelihood. I saw myself through tertiary education and that's when I met your mother.

I wished time will leap backward so

I could make better choices,

forgive my fault that you didn't get to know a mother's sweetness.

I wish I wasn't as blind. True, I loved her once and it was she who turned me to a monster, my fault was letting her have such command over me.

There was no hand to guide my choice and I was sufficient in it.

Confident, I thought I did right and could have the love I had dreamed of my whole life.

Your mother, at my utmost regret, used to be sweet, too sweet I thought her a fairy from a kingdom lofty. her love would give me a bit of heaven on earth.

the love she poured in my hands, I had nowhere to keep. I thought I would be bathed in the bliss of her soft light, unbeknownst, I had been deceived.

Blessed, I thought I was to own such a beauty that agreed to all I said. she made her choice, to be a house wife, hastily, we married and realization began to dawn that all was pretence. her mask faded, fell off and I saw someone else.

I still was blinded in my love and thought I had become less in affection because of the demand work put on me yet the more I tried, the worse she became.

She was abusing, emotionally and mentally she ate me away. She didn't clean the house and I was ashamed to invite my friends home. The meals were not on time and I endured all, a tortured man bleeding silent. most times, I did wonder the things I could have done wrong for my woman to have turned drastic towards me.

Soon we were expecting and she slept all day, the house was terribly untidy. I made her see, to do her duties as a wife and she blew up.

She insulted me, my wretchedness and reminded me of the favor she did forsaking wealthy men to rot with a poor thing that could barely afford a maid to assist his pregnant wife.

I pleaded, I begged and made amends.

she took revenge on me by overworking herself and miscarried.

she parked out of my house and cried to her family of my mistreatments

I ended up feeling the guilt and still grieving a child that could have been my first and your older sibling.

Honestly, at the time, I didn't know what I was thinking to have tried that hard to make things work for a woman who tortured my feelings for her, she had me so wrapped around her fingers, I did the chores before leaving for work while she spent her days and my money on meaningless things.

She did nothing, she fed off me and still made life hell for me.

I was miserable, nobody could see. I had no mother to open my eyes. to scold me out of my stupidity.

I wanted a way out and didn't know how, I was patient she'll change but she manifested a new face everyday.

My dear Salima, the man you knew after your birth was already a corpse.

your mother killed me, she had emptied me of every feeling and I was numb.

I wanted to be a lot of things for you but I could not.

I didn't know what to feel when you were born. I was happy I had a child and sad it meant our lives were tied forever and somewhat I was hopeful the child would make her less in vileness.

After you were born, she demanded a maid even though I was still a struggling man with an average income.

I employed one, a month later your mother made her disappear. At the end of a year we had had three maids who all left without completing their term. at the same time my finances were strained and I lost my job.

All hell was let loose, your mother was only bothered for herself. How she wouldn't survive with a man with no earning.

how she would miss out on the trendiest clothes and soon, she stopped attending her family functions because she was ashamed of wearing clothes she had worn before, though they were new.

She blamed me for impoverishing her, for making her child suffer, even if it was me at the time who would nurse you at night while she slept.

I struggled on, with the money I had saved up, I started a shop and soon after landed another job.

I pleaded she ran the business while I took the job but your mother stubbornly turned it down.

She accused me of an attempt to kill her because I wished her to saddle responsibilities of a child and a business at the same time and I was too man and heartless to know how tiring motherhood was.

I handled the business and lost the opportunity to chase my dream in the tech field.

I thought all was done, A finished, half-dead man I was.

I was too old for dreams, to chase the life I wanted and believed life was meant to be so. I focused on running the business, to cater for the family I had created, unfortunately.

Now, imagine my plight as a man trapped at a dry well bottom, a man that was dying to reach the surface again, then a hand of help extends, the hands of an angel.

what could I do,

For an angel did come to me. forgive my language once more. my dead flesh beat back alive. I felt like I was truly breathing, living for the first time.

I tasted life. I knew love for the first time.

I was loved without reason, without measure, without giving anything and I poured out myself.

There was nothing I could ever pay this angel back with, it was never enough.

for all my misery disappeared with her presence. I began to forget my everything aside her, I had known sweetness and wanted to be far from my pain.

That's my mistake, that I failed to consider you two in my selfishness. blinded by love as I was, I made my decision. This angel was not only as sweet, she had the prowess for business.

God answered my prayers.

My dreams had come back alive.

ecstatic, I ran, I couldn't look back.

I'm a coward, yes but see from my view. pity my plight.

It was the first time I got the chance to escape, to break free of your mother's shackles. Of her leeching teeth.

I never forgot you two, I thought of settling first then find a way of bringing you in, but I no longer desired your mother.

It was impossible to separate mother and child and I knew the pain I would cause you with the option which seemed the last resort would not let you ever want to see my face again.

I had to divorce her, cut her away totally.

Forgive me again, especially you Salima, you're the soft one, you had taken all the blow of your mother for me. She had burned you with the resentment she has for me.

You are courageous. Enduring.

even if I have a male now , you're my most dear child. you trained yourself without any of our help and I can't be more proud. Your mother might tell you otherwise and see you less but you are special. she only loves Iman because Iman was groomed in her likeness and she loves herself and everything that points back to her.

I saw your mother take out my aggression on you and I did nothing.

I was weak myself and helpless.

You have suffered things you didn't deserve, your young heart has been strained.

and my unwise decision roughed you up the most,

I've sought forgiveness for my sins, for my own cowardice and my weakness. For the lives I've thrown in hardship for my own mistakes.

You deserve better.

and I pray for you. May you find all the happiness your mother and I couldn't give.

I know your gentle soul has forgiven me long before I wrote this to you though you wouldn't admit.

But I'll still beg you. Your father is in need of your forgiveness.

My home address is attached. It is open to you whenever but your pride disallows you to think of my home as yours, you're like myself so I know your mind.

your stepmother, Aafiya would love to meet you and your brother too, Anas. We're expecting one more and it's a girl. your siblings will want to meet you.

I do not expect that you reply to me and your judgement do not be hard on me. It doesn't make me less an offender but all I've said is the truth and I leave your good heart to pass the verdict.

From a grieving father, that wishes you all the happiness in the world.

Salima had wetted the paper, she sniffed and rubbed her eyes. what difference did it make that they lived in a metaphorical burnt house, she could see ash mound on her palm. Everyday looked grey, a bleak tommorow. for her father's actions, it didn't matter whatever excuse he made, it was too late. he had wounded them terribly and she was lost of words of what to name the emotion she harbored. she folded the paper and hid it back. That night the weight of what her father claimed was the truth cloaked her and her mind could barely make sense of all he had written. She knew the truth, that her mother was nothing less of terrific, she was capable of worse than her father had described but what was their own crime to be left in the middle of their war, that their father had them pay for her mother's crime and their mother too made them pay for not getting the life she deserved and being stuck raising them.

She'll read the letter again, she'll then think of the verdict to pass but then, at that moment all she wanted was to sleep with a mind as blank as an empty slate.