RETURN TO ME

It all started on a Saturday. Iya Abiwere walked into our house, she brought Death along, and they came looking for no one else but my baby sister…

My mother left us twice this year; the first time, to run away from my father’s beatings, the second time, when death came to take her away. Today makes it seven month since she left. I still do not agree that she died. Mothers do not die; they just turn to ghost. Beautiful ghosts.

I remember how it all happened seven months ago. It was on a Saturday, the worst day of my life. Keji, my baby sister just turned four months old when my father told us Iya Abiwere would be coming over for her circumcision.

We all thought he was joking. Yes, it really sounded more like a joke. I was not circumcised because I was with my maternal grandparents till I was ten. My father was away on a peace-keeping mission till my seventh birthday. He is a soldier.

My mother pleaded with my father not to follow such archaic practices. She threatened to run away with Keji, call the police on him, inform my grandparents, but all her tactics fell on deaf ears. My father was adamant. He made up his mind months before Keji was born. In his defense, he said I do not respect him enough solely because I was not circumcised.

I wanted to tell my father that I do not respect him because he beats my mother when he is drunk, shout her down, and sometimes lock the kitchen door and go away for days with girls barely older than me. My father had forced his fingers into my vulva on two different occasions; he said he wanted to check if I was still a virgin. He said girls’ starts to confront their fathers only when they have been having sex. I wish he’d remember that I am seventeen years old.

When Iya Abiwere got to our house, she brought Death along. She had barely settled down to business when it all happened.

“Oya Baba Soldier, bring the girl to the room, I hope you have bought the schnapps sha” she said to my father who sat down in the palour with my mother holding on to his trousers, begging him. My father carried Keji gently and placed her on the bed, whilst he held her down.

“Bami la itan omo yii, so that I will cut it out quickly” Iya Abiwere commanded

“okay, oya e cut e,” my father said.

My mother would not calmly watch the horror about to happen to her baby girl take place. She screamed and like a mad woman charged towards my father, she must have though she was a Wonder woman, ready to save her little girl. She crashed into the room, pushed Iya Abiwere away and struggled with my father who not only overpowered her but flung her towards the door.

At that instant three things happened. Blood splattered everywhere; my mother hit her head on the door frame and slumped; blood was gushing out of Keji’s stomach as all her intestines were out. Iya Abiwere had accidentally sliced through her abdomen and not the clitoris.

© Ololade Edun.