The Last Day I Saw Mother

By Chinelo Synclaire

The journey home felt insufferably long. I sat by the window inside the bus examining the landscape and the buildings, trying hard to suppress my anger each time the driver stopped to pick a new passenger. My school bag sat huddled between my legs and inside it was the A4 paper that summarized my semester’s results. I had not slept the previous night due to my excitement. I’d imagined different ways I would reveal my results to my parents and uncle Collins, and each option made me so giddy that I often felt pressed to pee. I knew Uncle Collins; my father’s twin would ask me what I wanted as a gift for acing my exams and I already had ideas.

At last, we got to the bus stop that led both to the house and the shop. Without thinking, I chose to head for the shop first. I had missed haggling prices with Mother’s customers. I entered the market and was welcomed with the acrid smell of the public waste containers that permanently stood at the market gate. Traders were standing on both sides of the street waving their wares and calling out to passers-by. The mosque project they’d begun some months earlier had been completed and there were men in their jalabiyas praying in the open space beside the building. Other than this, the market looked the same. Nothing had changed, but I wasn’t expecting anything different to have happened within the three months I was away. I made my way to Mother’s line, skillfully dodging the barrow pushers who carried people’s items and pushed with menacing speed, and I cursed under my breath when one poked me from behind with the edge of his barrow.

I arrived at my mother’s shop and for the first few seconds, I went still. Perhaps, I didn’t remember the market as much as I thought I did, and yet I was so sure that this was the place Mother’s shop had once stood. I moved forward cautiously, eyeing my surroundings with a tremble. Everything had changed. Mother’s booth was no longer there. In its place was a large, new container that occupied the space of her former shop and that of her neighbor who used to sell beside her. The entrance was tiled from one end to the other and just above the container sat a lightbox sign.

My heart sank. I looked around me and stifled the urge to go on my knees in tears. Mother’s shop had been closed down. Her neighbor had taken over her space and had expanded her shop. I felt the sting of hot tears at the corner of my eyes. While I stood there motionless, I saw a familiar figure emerge from behind the container. Aunty Cordelia! She was the woman whose shop previously stood beside Mother’s shop and who would always drop her church tracts in front of our shop. I stared at her, desiring that she saw in my eyes all the hostility I instantly felt towards her. I was sure Mother had been chased out because she couldn’t pay her rent, and this woman had eagerly paid for it instead of coming to Mother’s rescue. She had plagued us with her sanctimonious manner- singing loud worship songs every time that echoed into our shop, and squeezing her church bulletins through our padlock every Wednesday- meanwhile, she’d been eyeing Mother’s space all along.

She called my name in that patronizing voice adults use on teenagers. “You’re back from school! Welcome. How is boarding house and life as a senior student?”

I tightened my jaw, willing my mouth to only respond in monosyllables. “Fine ma,” I managed.

She turned to the huge container behind her, a benign smile on her face. “Have you seen what God has done? If not for Jehovah, who else can do this?”

I tilted my head to one corner. This woman was more deluded than I’d imagined. She was expecting me to thank God with her, for expanding her shop to our downfall.

“If your mother had opened today, you’d have seen inside. Dear Lord! God is good! Everywhere is stocked!”

I frowned. She noticed my confusion. “Yes, my son, your mother didn’t open today. Perhaps she went to the market. Today is Balogun market day.”

“O… kay,” I stuttered. “Please, where is my mother’s shop? Is—is it still in this market?”

It was her turn to frown. “Ah! You’re in front of your Mother’s shop, Princewill!” Her smile returned. “Oh! You’re not aware that your mother has expanded her shop?” She burst into gay laughter. It was obvious she enjoyed my confusion. “This is your mother’s new shop, my dear. See what God can do? All these belong to your mother,” she said, gesturing at the container.

A new giddiness was swelling inside of me. I asked her how. She went on about how she didn’t understand how, but business obviously boomed for Mother in such a short time that in less than a month, she was able to expand her shop and even make it more presentable than what she had previously. God had been doing a new thing in Mother’s life, she said.

I finally asked her about her own shop. Without any guile, she pointed at the back, from where she’d come from earlier. “My new shop is there now,” she said with a contented smile. She asked me again about school, and I answered her robustly this time, then I thanked her and told her I needed to head home. Once I’d walked a mile away, I gave in to the urge to kick into the air. Euphoria was rising on my insides and I didn’t know how to contain it. This was a headier feeling than when I saw my first semester results. How did all of these happen? All the while I’d been plaguing myself with worry over how my parents were doing, meanwhile, God had been …. how did Aunty Cordelia put it now, doing something in our lives…

My heart swelled. And no one told me. Father hadn’t said anything about our new status when he called my house master. Perhaps they’d hoped to surprise me upon my return home. I entered a bike home from the market gate, and my mind hovered from one happy thought to the other. Should I tell them about my results first, or congratulate Mother on the growth of her business, or keep quiet about both until they’d welcomed me and I’d eaten?

And then it dawned on me that I might meet no one at home. It was the last Friday of the month, and Father would certainly be away for his Town’s meeting, and wouldn’t return until evening. If Mother wasn’t at the shop selling, she was certainly at Balogun market, buying the things she’d sell. I shook my head and assured myself again that the first thing I’d do after I’d graduated and gotten a good job was to buy Mother a car. Her daily life was from one sweaty activity to another.

 I got off the bike at the front of our house and strutted into our compound with a new ease about life that I’d never felt before. I made a mental note to attend Aunty Cordelia’s church come Sunday so that I could tell God how grateful I was for the two good things that had happened this weekend. My parents did not go to church. Mother used Sundays to rest after working at the market for six days. Father, as always, simply hated to get up from the chair except to use the restroom, or when he wanted to retire into his bedroom for the day.

The compound was quiet. My parents were indeed not at home and the other neighbors had also gone about their daily business. I swaggered to our house, the two-bedroom that I’d called home for more than ten years now. It was also one of the things I said I’d change when I became a doctor. This one was almost falling apart on our heads. The walls were peeling badly, we shared a bathroom with three neighbors and we could never warm our food late in the evening because the general kitchen was a distance away from our flat. We had just our sitting room and the two bedrooms to ourselves, and earlier, it had even been one large room until Mother transformed it into two separate rooms.

The first time I’d ever seen emotions on Mother’s face was the day Mama Moyo the fish seller came to bang noisily on our gate, asking our neighbor Iya Sadiq to pay her the money she owed her. She stood at the gate banging loudly and hurling vile words at Iya Sadiq who strangely refused to come out and attend to her creditor. Mother had quietly walked to the gate after some minutes and asked Mama Moyo to wait for Iya Sadiq to pass the streets and then ask for her money. She was disturbing the peace of the compound; her debtor was not the only one living here. Mama Moyo looked at Mother all over and burst into a devious laughter. “You call this one a compound? This slum that disgusts even the gutter rats? Now I see why that woman has refused to pay me. This is poor people’s quarters.”               Mother’s face had paled, as though someone had used a suction pipe to drain out her life. She was not a woman given to emotions, but her expression that day showed that Mama Moyo had struck a spear. It was that day I swore I’d rent my parents a new house as soon as I started working.

 I neared our verandah where I planned to sit until either of my parents came, and I noticed the padlock on the door hung loosely. I stilled. Had someone tried to break into our home? What did we have for anyone to desire? Then I remembered our neighbor whose house thieves broke into a long time ago, making away with his mattress and pillow. At first, we’d laughed when he raised an alarm that afternoon after he returned from work. Peter was a struggling carpenter and it didn’t make sense that anyone would break into his small room where he stayed alone to steal anything, until the other neighbors confirmed that truly, where his mattress ought to be in his room, was empty. But that was a long time ago, and it happened at a time when our fence had fallen leaving a fraction of the compound exposed.

The fence had been re-erected and we’d not had a repeat of that incident. Anyone who broke into our house to steal our mattress was an ill-humored criminal. How did it sit well with anyone to deprive other human beings of a good night’s sleep after a tiring day? It felt more like mischief than robbery.

I dropped my bag on the verandah and noiselessly removed the padlock shackle from the eye of the staple. I walked inside stealthily, careful to make no sound. My heart seemed to beat faster in one minute than it had in an entire lifetime, but a wild curiosity was leading me. I got to our front door and lying there was a pair of scandals I had never seen in our house. I didn’t understand. Why would a thief take off their footwear?

I pressed my left foot into the door quietly until I had made enough space for my lanky body to creep through, and then I was inside our sitting room. I looked around carefully, and nothing seemed out of place. If anything, there was a new figurine decor sitting on our old center table. Our aging three-piece velvet sofa set was in the same position as I remembered. Our 16-inch CRT TV was still sitting on the cast iron stand attached to the wall.

And then I heard it. It was imperceptible at first, almost as though it was my brain regurgitating distant sounds, but when I stilled, I could hear it clearer. It wasn’t my mind. The thief was in our room, either my parents’ room or mine. I wasn’t sure, but there was a presence there that had missed its rhythm and announced its existence.

Fear and anger coursed through me at the same time. I picked the human figurine on the center table and examined it. With enough force, it could smash the head of another into a convulsion, and at that thought, a new boldness assailed me.

With slow, deliberate steps, I edged towards our room, the tipped edge of the figurine pointing outwards. My bare feet against the vinyl flooring began to make a squeaking noise so I paused to let it quieten. Then I heard that sound again. It was insistent this time.

I took a few furtive steps closer until I was standing in the middle of the two rooms. I was sure now that the thief wasn’t in my room. He’d probably been disappointed to find nothing but dusty books, my old clothes, and a six-spring foam. He was in my parents’ room.

I leaned my body towards their door and pressed my neck. I heard clearly now. It was a muffled sound, a whimpering release as though the thief was in pain.

Did it hurt to rummage through my parents’ old boxes and stacked belongings only to find nothing of value?

I held the door handle and took a deep breath. The last time I’d had a physical confrontation with another human was in JSS 2. I’d fought with another student, a notorious bully who had picked on me for no reason and threw my food away to gain his friends’ respect. The knowledge that I had no money to buy food and that my fate was starvation until school was over, had pushed me into a blind rage. I charged at him with a madness that belied my usual calm self, and at first, he had been too taken aback to counter-attack, but when he’d gotten himself together, he’d tried to match my rage in his blows. But he wasn’t the one who was afraid of starving that day. He wasn’t the one who had no money in his pocket. He wasn’t the one who would go home to a scanty pot. It was me, and so no matter how he willed it, the fear of the hunger that would befall me that day surpassed his need to win in the eyes of his friends.

That day, I dragged the bully by his collar across our refectory’s dusty hallway and left him with a bloodied nose and a bruised knee. The next day, there was a new respect in the eyes of the boys when I passed by, and by lunch break, I’d gotten an invitation from another clique of bullies to join their team. I had refused because I was more comfortable with my friends- the underdogs, and we preferred to roam classes picking books to read, than picking on other students.

As I held the door handle, I asked myself if this was going to be another physical altercation day for me. I looked at the figurine in my hand and wondered if it was a sufficient weapon for what was to come. I didn’t even know the capacity of the person inside the room, and yet the rising anger in my heart made me feel capable of doing anything.

I put my hand on the handle, and the next sound I heard stopped me instantly. The thief wasn’t a man! It was a woman. I could swear this because the sound I heard was as clear as day to my ears. It was a woman…making the strangest sound…

I frowned and took my hand off the handle, leaning closer to listen. It was distinct now. There was another soul in there asides from the whimpering thief. An aider perhaps?

It was crazy. The strangest activity was happening there and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I needed to go outside and call an adult, but the compound was empty like a desolate land, and I didn’t want to leave things to get worse while looking for an adult on the street. I was sixteen anyway. Whatever another male adult could handle, I should be able to as well.

So, I shut my eyes and braced myself. I arched the tipped edge of the figurine forward in anticipation of an attack or a defense- whichever would be needful, and in one push, I flung the door open.

My mouth fell open at the sight of what would later become the most lacerating image of my lifetime. I began to tremble. I heard the figurine fall from my hand with a thud, and break into several tiny ceramic shards.

The second time I ever saw Mother show emotion was that day, as she looked up at me from beneath the weight of Uncle Collins’ sweaty body, her eyes stark with fear, and her lips quavering incoherent babbles to me.

He staggered off of her with a jerk, pulling up the sheet to cover himself, and in that second, I saw him struggle to repossess some of the dignity and bearing I’d associated with him all my life. But as he looked away from my eyes, I knew, just as he did, that he’d lost their company.

I shut the door and ran. I ran outside and far into the streets, and I never looked back.

Chinelo Synclaire is a lawyer and writer based in Abuja, Nigeria. Two of her short stories have been published on Brittle Paper, one of which earned her their Writer of the Month award in April, 2023. She is currently working on her debut novel.