AMID SECRETS - CHAPTER 35
*Nwanyieze’s POV*
I love you. But I’m going to leave you, anyways. I’m just a terrible person. Look what I’ve done.
I place my head back on his shoulder, my nose touching his neck. Cologne, dust and sweat. He rises from the floor, with me in his arms, and places me on the bed before joining me. I turn to face him, seeking his warmth as he seeks mine. The way we fit so well, it’s like we were made for each other.
“You’re still shaking,” I observe.
“It’ll be gone in a few minutes,” he assures me.
I stroke the side of his face, run my fingers over his stubble. “Panic attacks.”
“I haven’t had them in years. This whole situation has been one huge trigger.”
“I’m sorry. Look what I’ve caused.”
He takes my hand, kisses it, and smiles. Warmth has returned to his hands. His smile disappears suddenly and he tells me, “I’m scared for you because I don’t know what ki||ed my family in this house, in this village. You went away, and I kept thinking of all the terrible things that could happen to you.”
“I was just three compounds away, helping the people there to fry garri.”
“That explains the firewood scent.”
“Firewood. Eau de toiletteby Nwanyieze,” I joke.
We laugh for a few moments.
“I know the fear was irrational. I know my mind exaggerated it, blew it out of proportion- but you have to understand where my fear is coming from,” Maduka says.
“I understand. I won’t do it again.”
“Please, don’t leave my side. I want to know where you are at all times, in this village. I’m not that possessive-”
“No, you’re not.”
His arm around me pulls me flush against him. Maduka kisses me slowly, gently, but I can tell he is restraining himself. I can taste the raw need on his lips. His shaking has stopped and he is steady again.
I need this, too, I realise. I need him.
My stomach growls angrily and he pulls away with a laugh.
“You need food more,” he says before getting up. “Stay here, I left the food in the sitting room. Let me get it.”
We devour the meal together, seated on the floor of his room. Daa Ndidi had given us a huge heap of boiled yam to go with the large bowl of pepper and onion sauce and fried fish. I suppose she had known how hungry we would be, after an emotionally draining day.
“Tasha is pregnant and plans to get an abortion,” Maduka tells me after the meal.
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her to do some research on abortion. Personally, I believe abortion is unfair. But then again, it is her choice.”
“What about her boyfriend?”
“From what I’ve heard, he is an abusive douchebag.”
“That’s terrible.”
“After me, she became a poor judge of character. I’ve never told her that, though.”
I find myself feeling sorry for Tasha. Still in love with someone and pregnant for another. How could she have left this man here? What had she been thinking?
“I hope she keeps the baby,” I tell Maduka.
Adanna comes to mind, beautiful little Adanna who came into the world after Mama Uju’s decision to avoid an abortion. And she had never regretted it, because Adanna had given her something to live for. I’m sure my own mother had thought of an abortion, too, but why she hadn’t gone ahead, I’ll never know. After all, she didn’t want me.
No one would have missed me. I wouldn’t have grown up in that useless family, and I definitely wouldn’t have ended up being a wh-_-re who would eventually fall in love with someone she doesn’t deserve. My birth mother’s plan had been stupid. Abortion is rebuked as a sin, but abandonment isn’t talked about often.
“I hope so, too,” he says.
I snap out of my thoughts and look at him. I can tell he’s thinking of something similar to me.
“Sometimes I wonder why that boy who found me never just left me there in the trash. A few more hours and I’d have died.”
Surprise and anger flash on his face. Maduka drops his piece of yam and just sits there, arms folded, glaring at me.
“How dare you?”
“How dare me what? It’s my life.”
He takes a deep breath, leans forward and holds both my hands. Maduka gazes at me, right into my eyes. I’m unable to move, staring right back at him and almost drowning in those brown depths.
“I’m glad he found you. You wouldn’t be this beautiful woman seating close to me, if he had left you to die. Things happen for a reason. And while they might not always be good or pleasant, they happen and it’s how we survive that makes us who and what we are. My family died, and it turned my life upside down. I can’t go back and change it. But I’m here. I’m back home with you.”
My throat feels like it’s slowly closing up. It’s like he’s speaking to my soul, making me realise that I could never change what has happened. The feeling of being unwanted, the abuse, the prostitution of my body in exchange for money.
“I ran away from home for a reason, even though I didn’t know it back then. I begged on the streets for a reason, lost an old friend, starved and searched for food in trash bins for a reason. I’m glad I did, because that was when I found you. Nwanyieze, I’m glad I didn’t abandon you in that refuse bin.”
______
*Maduka’s POV*
An hour has passed, and she still hasn’t spoken.
I sit alone in the sitting room, doing nothing but try to gather my thoughts and pray that she speaks to me soonest.
I had spilled out the whole story, from the discovery to the okada ride leading to the children’s hospital where Sister Benedicta had taken us in. I described the hospital, with its dark green walls. Then how Sister Benedicta had encouraged me to name her.
“I suspected it was you after you told me your name the first time we met. Your face barely changed. And then that mark on you arm, and your birthday, and you mentioned being found in the garbage…”
I had feared she wouldn’t believe me, and knowing the moment was right, I had pulled out my wallet from my pocket, opened it, and brought out a small Polaroid photograph. The photograph was fading, and had been through a lot of rubbing from my fingers. I had given it to her.
She’d stared at it and all Nwanyieze had said was, “Give me a minute, please,” and I had understood that she was reeling, she was surprised and confused and shocked and wh@??ver big word there is out there to describe more shock. I had left the room, taking one last look to see her sitting there on the floor, back straight.
And that was over an hour ago.
The door to the room opens and she steps out. Oil has stained her dress, but I’m sure that is the least of her worries. She literally flies to where I sit on one of the sofas, bends, and touches my face. Hers is streaked with tears.
“You once said everything was preordained.”
“Yes.” I lean into her touch. My eyes are equally thr_@tening to spill their tears; relief is like a flood, running through me from the thought that it’s all out, there will be no more secrets to keep from her.
“That’s me,” she says, touching her small face on the Polaroid photograph. In the picture, she’s dressed in a bright blue dress with ruffled sleeves, her hair in neat cornrows. I’m dressed in a pair of shorts and a white singlet. I have my arms around her, and we are both smiling at the camera. She was two and I was nine.
“Always full of energy. You hardly ever cried. You were a happy baby.”
“I really am your baby girl.”
I smile at her, and she smiles back.
“All this time. I’ve always thought that you acted like you knew me. I’ve said it countless times, but you never told me.”
“If I had told you back then, would you have believed?”
She shakes her head. “Tell me more.”
“The day I found you, I cried like a baby. You were so little, so hungry, so…precious. It was overwhelming- I had lost my family, and yours had abandoned you. I couldn’t understand why. We lived together in the orphanage for three years, before I was adopted. We both cried the day I left. You clung to my leg until one of the Sisters had to tear you off. I know this sounds like I’m reaching-”
“You’re not reaching,” she assures me. “Mama Uju and I, we investigated. That was before I gave up on ever finding my birth mother. Mama Uju had known all along that I had been adopted- Mummy had confided in her. After I had been disowned, Mama Uju took me to the orphanage. Sure enough, my name was in the records. Found in the trash by a boy, but they wouldn’t tell me who it was, so I wouldn’t begin a futile search. I was directed to the hospital, and the walls were dark green. Sick Bay, as it was popularly called.
“I couldn’t go in, because I had given up and was so ashamed that I had initially been unwanted and was experiencing it again. I just wanted to have a look and disappear forever. I thought I was cursed. Sometimes I still do.”
“Baby, you’re not cursed.”
She settles beside me on the sofa. Her eyes are sad, and I can tell she’s trying so hard to stop shedding tears. It’s like she’s struggling to keep something inside her.
“I have no prior memories of you. Or of my early years.”
“You were a toddler.”
“What do you remember about me?”
“You loved abacha. You still do.”
She laughs.
“You were stubborn, too. I watched you take your first steps, and I couldn’t bear to see you fall each time you tried. But the Sisters told me to stop carrying you each time you fell. You called me ‘Maa’ the first time you spoke. You knew how to manipulate me into doing your will, and I always fell for it.”
“This is too much,” she whispers, rubbing her temples.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“And…how could we even meet again by chance?”
“Maktub.”
She smiles. “You’ve read The Alchemist.”
“It is written.”
“I’m starting to believe so, too.”
“I know that somewhere, deep down, you think I’m going to get tired of you.”
She says nothing, confirming my words. I drag her closer, so she is sitting in my lap. Nwanyieze is now refusing to look at my face.
“Listen to me. I lost you once, but I don’t plan on repeating that.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You were adopted. You couldn’t control it.”
“Now I’m in control of some of my life’s events. Nwanyieze, I’m not going anywhere. It’s not obsession, is it?”
She shakes her head. Her eyes are still sad; but then again, didn’t our stories start on that note?
“It’s love, Maduka. Stubborn love that might be our undoing.”
Before I can ask her what she means, she lowers her head and kisses me.
And I forget the question.