Running Away Solves Everything

Ekene

Being utterly ignored and avoided is more ruinous to a child than being given too much attention, and I’m startled, because I fear it could be a lasting thing. If anyone had told me that my very own mother wouldn’t ask where I was that night and how I was connected to the Ajuas at the moment of their accident, I would have spat then called the person a bluffer. But here I was, neglected and a little crazed, yet unquestioned and free. All because I fled in time. Did running away answer everything?

From the time Mummy arrived at the hospital till the next morning, I’d never seen her this quiet towards me. It’s either she’s scolding, yelling or partly praising, but never silent. She didn’t trust me anymore and her eyes pass the message a little too clearly.

“They are going to be okay,” Mum, instead of asking, ordered the doctor that came to attend to them.

“Yes Madam. Practically nothing happened to them.” His eyes hovered their conscious bodies. “Well, because they were brought here on time.”

“Yes, a girl brought them.” I glanced at mum’s distrustful eyes again.

Mumbling words of prayer, my mum placed her hand on Vivian’s mum’s forehead, then eyed the doctor. “Doctor,” her Igbo accent when she said doctor rang louder than the bell that had been chiming from a church nearby. “Let me get food and clothes for them. Please, take care of them.” She ended, with the timeframe for the please, more prolonged than the rest of the statement. She said some words under her breath, which I guessed were, “I have to deal with this one now,” — me, being the one— then took off expecting me to follow the sound of her shoes, because she wasn’t going to use words to deliver that instruction.

I stayed far away from her wrath and tried my very best to keep up with those flats.

I’ve been servile. She’s been presumptuous. I’ve tried to wipe all my malicious deeds away without coming clean for what I’d done. But she’s been vindictive for two days now. She plans to squeeze me till I wither like the brown leaves my cousins in the village sweep off the sands with palm fronds. I’m dirty, dusty with a lot more uncleanliness mushed up inside and that’s the clear description that fits me. Dirty, dusty, almost withered, unclean. I want to just say sorry, but that can’t happen without telling the truth.

“What?!” I’m in the sitting room when I hear this cry. “Who is in that parlour? Change the station!” Mum sprints from the entrance into the sitting room and snatches the remote control from my hand. “What’s that channel?”
I’m respecting myself and staying in my lane, because she’s got something on me and the moment she mentions anything about it to my Dad is the moment I bid y’all goodbye.

“Ekene, what is the station for Channels?” She doesn’t take her gaze off the TV, but I’d still take this as a path to total forgiveness. “”Ehn! What station?” Her agitation leads to a massive scream and I knew that, but I just couldn’t boot any faster.

It fidgets my brains in some way though. “254!”
The brief, unspecified period of time between when she presses the buttons and when the TV goes black is sufficient for me to ask, “What happened Mum?” but as the blee on the screen comes in view, she responds not to my enquiry.

“The case of the murder of Master Domshak is almost at a close as a suspect has been detained.” I’d heard of the guy that died in the hospital that night, but not of the man. It was almost like he was not important and I was totally exonerated. The news presenter is on the toes of the police officers that escort a girl out of a gate. She fights to keep her face away from the camera, but not to break free. I don’t know why my mother cares so much if this case had nothing to do with us. I thought she’d always said that the difference between Africans and the Europeans was that Africans, right from the start have always known what it meant to mind their own business.

The police officers like the attention that is coming their way, and it’s just when they sip a little out of the glass of glory that I get up and don’t take my eyes off the damn screen.

Everything goes dark, then black so fast, I wonder what went wrong, but I see Tomi is the girl. Now, she’s complying as the officers face the camera, and the best she does is to bow her head in shame. Handcuffs certainly weren’t her style.

I’m done looking at the hurt in Tomi’s eyes when Mum says, “That’s the helper, right? Tomi-lola.” What kind of a lame name is the Helper? “Aruma and I are getting her a lawyer. And son, because you were near that hotel that night, for reasons I don't know," her voice gets stern too quick. "Reasons we are still going to come back to later. And you saw her. You must help her out. Do you think she did it?”

I mean, when I saw her it wasn’t like she was super calm and dressed like she was returning from the bank or anything, but the thing is neither of us were. So, “No.”

“Then, tell me everything. What happened that night?” She doesn’t know I’m not paying full attention to her, even though my lips answer the question she asked. I thought I ran away from everything. I thought I had taken care of everything. My inner being's been twirling, and now, she’s finally giddy and nauseous. What’s that prayer in our manual everyone seeks refuge in after they’re caught doing examination malpractice?