CHAPTER TWO

"Did you lock the door? Zuri cannot see this."

Angel ran upstairs and peeped into her bedroom. Zuri who was tucking herself with the blanket earlier, was now sited on the bed, her eyes wide open.

"Papa wants you to stay in bed, he is having a private conversation with mama," Angel said.

"What about you aren't you going to stay?" Zuri, just like every six-year-old, was stubborn.

"I will be in the kitchen, you should lock the door, I will let you know when breakfast is ready," Angel answered.

Angel quickly ran downstairs. On the stairs she stood and looked down at her trembling hands. She made slow steps on the remaining part of the stairs as she stared at the pool of blood in front of her. The lifeless body in front of her stared back at her with shock written all over it. The blood which was oozing out of its skull was now slipping to the white carpet at the sitting area.

"What will I do…no one will believe me…I swear she slipped," her father who had been pacing back and forth covering his face shook her body vigorously as he shouted.

"If you continue shouting, Zuri will know what happened to Mama and she will come running downstairs," Angel said.

"And what happened to Mama?" Her father asked her as he looked deep into her eyes.

"She slipped," Angel answered shakily.

"Except that is not convincing enough." Her father said.

"She slipped in the bathroom when taking a bath."

Her father looked at her for a moment and then whispered, "Help me move the body"

Angel quickly knelt down and held her mother's lifeless body and helped her father lift it up. She was so heavy and they knocked her down many times. Into her parents' bedroom they lay her gently on the bathroom floor. She stood to process what had happened for a moment but then her father was quick to interrupt. "Leave me to this, you clean everything up. Leave no evidence."

Angel quickly ran to get a rag. Back into the sitting room, now alone, Angel studied the train of blood that had become a pool in the sitting room and a thick line into her parents' room. She dipped the rug into the bucket and started to wipe her mother's blood. One wipe was enough to defile all the water. She made laps to and fro as she emptied her bucket and filled it with clean water. When she finished cleaning the floor, she folded the white carpet and put it away. In the guest room, she took a hot bath and folded her blood drained clothes. She put them together with the carpet in a plastic bag and hid them carefully in the storage room. She then hurried down to her father to let him know she was through.

Angel held the knob to her parents' room and pushed it open. The trail of blood from the door to the bathroom was now long gone. A hot tear fell on her cheek but she brushed it away and made her steps to the bathroom. One step away from the bathroom, her body froze. She tried to make a step but she could not make her body to do it. She felt her body tremble and in her mind, she felt the closeness of death. She felt herself in between the link of the dead and the living. She thought she saw the angel of death pass from in front of her then to the back and then blank…. For a moment she saw herself at a beach. Here all the fear was gone. She felt the peacefulness of the place when she saw her mother swimming while smiling at her.

"Come, do not be afraid. Remember you have always loved the smell of the sea. She made a step to her mother but then a drop of rain massaged her cheek. She looked up to see if there was any sign of rain.

"Can you hear me?"

Angel looked at the figure in front of her as her senses awakened to the world tingled with uncertainty. Her eyes were met her mother's lifeless form as it was being covered and pushed into a hearse. Outside, the wailing sirens of the police cars made her realize her fate.

"Angel, am so happy you are awake," her father said as he lifted and hugged her.

"Mr. William, would you mind telling me what happened?" One of the policemen asked.

"I was outside ready to drive to work when I heard Angel shouting, when I came into my room, I found her on the floor and my wife, Josephine, lying on the bathroom floor bleeding," Mr. William quivered as he responded, tears welling up his eyes, each word weighed down by the emotion he struggled to contain.

"And you, Angel, do you recall…?

"Am sorry sir, I cannot remember."

Angel stood up and left for her sister, she was worried as she did not know how Zuri could respond to all this. Her eyes met her sisters at the sitting room and they both ran and hugged each other tightly. Their short moment was interrupted when her father grabbed Angel by the hand and led her outside.

"I am going to the police station to write a statement, you stay with your sister in the house and don't answer any questions," her father instructed.

"Papa, I am scared," Angel said shakingly.

"Why, you cleaned everything right?" her father asked?

"Yes." Angel answered.

"Then there is no need to be scared," her father assured her.

Back into the house, Angel could not gather up the courage to talk Zuri down from crying. She decided to go to the kitchen to prepare some breakfast for them to eat. In the solitude of the kitchen, Angel's mind was stuck into the events of that fateful morning. She recollected how, driven by unexplainable fear, had helped her father cover up her mother's murder. "It was just an accident, not a murder, I could not let Papa go in for a mistake he did not commit," she tried to justify herself. The weight of guilt bore her down and tears blurred her vision.

How was she going to keep this truth from Zuri. With the internet silenced and her brother Tom stationed away by the army she had no one to talk to. "A letter!" She thought would be the only potential bridge to connect her to him but then the lies would stain her paper. In the gnawing silence, the urgency to reveal the truth waged her down. In between the struggle, a fear of losing both her parents made her yearn for explanations. She concluded that this is a secret she would die with.

"Did Papa hurt Mama?" Angel quickly looked back at her sister who was now standing at the kitchen door.

"Noo!" she answered and then slowly looked away.