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Seventeen: Sister

Seventeen

The way to be always safe is to possess other people with an opinion that they can never do an ill thing to us, without suffering for it.
DLV
Moral Reflections

I began questioning the authenticity of the foundation of love and happiness we'd spent our lives building on the first day I set my eyes on Hannah. My father was carrying joy and stars in his eyes. It almost felt like he'd begun to believe that she belonged to him and I started questioning my life.

Was this how it always was?

Was father always being deceitful when he ran him and told us all of those stories at work?...was it his way of hiding an affair he felt guilty about?

Did Mum only cook those amazing meals for us as a pang of guilt coping mechanism that she needed to do to feel better about her infidelity?

Did I always pretend to be happy and normal when I secretly thought we were weird?

All these questions began to reshape my ideology of life unknowingly, and I soon became rebellious.

"He's just growing older," my mum would tell my dad while rubbing dusting powder on Hannah's face and body. "It's just how they behave when they're sixteen." She'd snow but I knew she wasn't convinced of her own words.

"He's just keeping bad friends!" Dad would say before storming out of the car on a Sunday morning after the preacher met with him about warning me against making friends with his beautiful daughter.

What used to be a happy home soon started to feel and look like a cliché Muyiwa Ademola-produced movie, and the awkward part was that the one person who wrecked it began to look like the only thing that was keeping our family together: Hannah.

While I screamed at my parents and threatened to destroy things if they didn't increase my allowance, Hannah would be the one dancing and singing complex Christian songs perfectly, leaving my parents impressed.

This only infuriated me more and when I turned 17, I went home with the hope of never returning to the madhouse—or at least, that was what I thought it was.

I'd just turned 23 when I got a strange phone call from a girl.

"Who are you?"

"It's me—Hannah." She responded and her voice, although evidence from the texture of it that she was still 8/9 ish yet it still sounded like she was wise regardless. She wasn't an ignorant kid and I could just tell. I was older but my hatred for her hadn't reduced hearing her voice after so many years only fueled my anger the more.

"Yes, what do you want?"

"I don't want anything brother, I just wanted to inform you that Daddy is dead." She said so coldly like she had been keeping a record of hatred herself.

I froze.

"What did you say?"

"He's dead—Mama wanted you to know." The line went off and I remember crying my eyes out in the bathroom of my office. I cried at the thought that I'd never set my eyes on my father again; the man who'd been more than a father to me—a man who'd expressed the true meaning of love to everyone he knew.

Guilt and shame got the better of me and I stayed away from every burial arrangement. I just sent the money I could at the time and when I called my mother, she told me that she understood but I could tell that she was in pain.

I got another phone call months later and it was Hannah again.

"What do you want?"

"Mummy is very sick. Please, come home." She sounded like she was trying too hard to be a young woman but her last sentence betrayed her terribly and I could've sworn that I heard her sniffle.

"Tell my mother I'll be there to see her first thing tomorrow morning."

"Okay, brother. How are you?" It wasn't until I ended the call abruptly and spent hours contemplating her question did I realize that no one had asked me that question in a long time and I remember crying my eyes out that night as I realized that I'd let hatred consume and deny me of true happiness and family.

I left for home as early as possible the next morning and I arrived when the street was still asleep to avoid questioning Maybe my relationship with Hannah would have changed that day if I hadn't seen Mr. Akanbi stepping out of my father's house while I approached the gate with my car.

It was hard to recognize Hannah. She'd gotten taller, and slimmer, and was becoming a beautiful young lady. These things only angered me. I wondered in fury at where the little round baby who'd danced around every corner and peek into my room only to run away as soon as I picked a shoe to throw at her except she had a big smile on her little face at the time. This one standing in front of me was a different kid entirely.

"Welcome, sir." She greeted me coldly and I could tell that she must have been keeping tabs on me because she recognized me almost immediately.

"Where's she?"

"She ran a fever yesterday and I got so scared so I called the neighbor to come to help me and they took her to their house for better treatment."

"Who's the neighbor?" She pointed toward the Coker's family house and said the dreaded name, "Daddy Akanbi's father's house."

I remember connecting my palm with her slender cheeks and how she screeched in pain and trembled in fear and confusion while I rained her with insults upon insults on how she was stupid to let someone carry my mother to their house.

"They've been the one taking care of us even while Daddy was sick and before she died...that's why," I remember her whimpering in fear as she held on tight to her cheeks with tears streaming down her face.

I yelled at her, cursed at her, threatened to beat her, and even called her a bastard that day.

She was only 9 and she didn't beg to be born. I'll never forgive myself, I just never will.

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