Chapter 16

"Did you call your Dad today? Mum asked while everyone ate silently watching TV. "No, I didn't, but I texted him and he told us he was getting much better".

Minutes later, mum asked again if I had texted or called Dada, to check on him, before she went to the room. I had texted him a day before but he did not reply, although he had received the text. I sent him texts again and was waiting for his reply since the texts went through to him.

I went in to the room minutes later after waiting for Dada to reply my texts and he still didn't. What did he say, mum asked when I got to the room. He said he was asleep and he wanted some rest that was why he didn't reply, I had lied to her.

"I have a bad feeling that was why I told you to call him, sorry if I'm disturbing you". "No you are not disturbing me, I replied smiling". "But you were acting as if I was".

That night before I slept I thought of how mum kept pestering me about Dada's wellbeing and if he was actually okay.

Tuesday 22 of September is one of my memorable days because that was when the news of Dada's death got to us.

Mum went to her shop early as usual and I tried selling some cookies to the school but that day, I noticed no one bought any snack from me and it bothered me.

Mum came home early crying. She came with an uncle. I tried asking her what had happened, at first I thought she got robbed or something. Then my uncle broke the news to us, that my Dad had just died and they were taking his corpse to his house.

Myself and my brothers looked at each other in shock for a while. Died? how? He said he was getting better and coming home this Saturday. I did not believe it at first, I tried convincing myself that it wasn't true. Within an hour, guest kept sweeping in and out our home to confirm the news of Dada's death. The first person I texted when I got to hold my phone was Nelson. I had death dreams about Dada when we were at Dad's and I told him about it. Hey, my bad dream came to pass, my Dad is dead. He wasn't home at the time, he went for about a week to camp.

We went to Dad's and I saw my uncles and aunts there. Everything felt cold. We went in to the living room and there was Dad's lifeless body, laying still.

I was still trying to convince myself that it was all not true not until I saw them put his body in a coffin and then into the ground. That was it, is that how people just leave and just like that he was gone forever. My brothers fell ill for days, I had different dreams about Dada for days.

When Nelson got back from camp, he came visiting several times, he even came with his mum one time to see my mum, although it was a bit awkward, I noticed he felt same too, he had decided to come that day and his mum chose to come with him, but I was glad he came around. The whole incident made me forget his birthday and all but he got me.

The strike ended and schools began to resume, Dolamu chose the school mum had wanted him to attend, but Dad didn't stay to see him get in to secondary school or celebrate his tenth birthday. Mum Gbotemi really tried, she sent him gifts and even baked him a cake. He wasn't really hyped about celebrating his birthday.

As for me, school wasn't the same, before resumption we had online classes and exams. The exams were terrible for me. Of course I had prepared well for them but I had to use Dad's faulty laptop which needed to be charged while using for the exams and network was bad too. I either could not start or complete an exams and because the lockdown just ended, it was hard to get a new SIM around where I lived. Even when I tried getting a spectranet, I was told to come the year after that I could not get any that year.

I tried complaining and explaining to officials in the school but they let me retake only one paper when school resumed and I had six carryovers from my first year in school. I was still in 200l because I was a direct entry student.

I was depressed at some point because I wasn't even studying my dream course and I blew my chances to change my course with having carryover courses.

I knew if Dada were alive I wouldn't have had network issues, the data card at Dada's got stolen during the burial and I definitely would have passed my online exams because they were all objective questions and I hadn't informed mum earlier about my upcoming exams, I only discussed about my school with Dada. Even when I tried getting a spectranet at that period, I couldn't get one because there was Covid and economic activities had just started booming.

Things with Nelson weren't going so well too, especially when I got back to school to retake my exams, they were at some point when I was back home but we became distant again the next year. I did not bother about it especially because he had ghosted me on my birthday, not until I got to retake my exam, change my school and course. He wasn't even trying to reach out to me too.

I tried reaching to him later, but he seemed cold towards me at first. He had ended IJMB and had also gotten admission into the university of Ilorin to study Medicine.

Eventually, I found out about his ex, that he got back together with her and they had started dating again.

I didn't even care because I felt when I needed him the most during my online exams and he had the facilities to help he didn't, he didn't care and instead became distant.