There was a knock on the door but no one responded.
Angelina and her children were in deep sleep as a result of the stress they
went through the previous day. The knock kept coming. When it turned to
banging, it was Erinma who stirred.
“Mummy mummy,” she called,
nudging her mother.
“Mmm,” her mother said still
feeling sleepy.
“Wake up. Someone is at the
door.”
The next banging got Angelina fully
awake. She checked the wall clock in the room. It was just 6:15am.
“Who
could be knocking like this by this time of the day?” she asked herself.
Her
mind scanned through the events of the previous day as she wondered whether she
had defaulted in any way. While she thought, the banging came again as though
the person was bent on breaking down the door. She got up in a hurry and went out
of the room to the parlour. By then her daughters were all awake. Erinma followed
her.
“Go
back,” she said in low tone.
Erinma
went back.
When
she got to the window, she pushed the curtain a bit to peep at who was at the
door.
“Mcheew,”
she hissed when she saw who it was. “What is Dee Okoro doing here by this time
of the day?”
She stood for some seconds with her arms akimbo.
“Mummy who is that?” Ulunma her second daughter asked in hushed tone,
standing close to Erinma at the doorway to the room.
“Your
uncle,” their mother answered.
“What
is he looking for here?” Erinma asked and leaned against the wall. “Won’t he
allow us rest?”
“Let
me find out.”
Angelina opened the door and met Dee
Okoro fuming. Dee Okoro was Angelina’s late husband’s younger brother.
“Have
you not been hearing my knock?” he asked her.
“Dee
good morning,” she greeted squeezing her face to show her distaste.
“What
is good about the morning? You kept me here for the past 20 minutes, knocking
like a mad man.”
“Dee,
this is just after six. People are still sleeping in their houses.”
“Sleep
kill you there. That is how you used sleep to kill my brother.”
“Aah,
you can’t say that.”
“You
think we don’t know?”
“Dee
it is unfair to say that.”
“How
can you be sleeping like a dead woman by this time.”
Ulunma and Erinma murmured from the parlour
where they were, and he heard them.
“What
did you people say?” Dee Okoro asked, making to enter the house but Angelina
blocked him.
“Please
leave my children alone,” she said to him.
“Useless
children.”
Erinma
and Ulunma murmured again.
“Look,”
he said. “If I hear pim there again, I will flog both of you mercilessly.”
“Not
when I am alive,” Angelina said.
“You
will soon leave this house, you will see.”
“Which
house?”
“My
brother’s house which is now my entitlement.”
“You
mean my husband’s house?”
“Better
behave yourself before we find out who owns what?”
Angelina
sighed and folded her hands across her chest.
“So
Dee, how can I help you this morning?”
Dee
Okoro scratched his head, looking over Angelina’s shoulder at the children.
“I
will come back,” he said. “You and your useless children just spoilt my mood
this morning and broke my hand with your door.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry
for yourself. I will come back later.”
He turned and left in anger.
Angelina sighed and went back into the house, locking the door behind her.
“Mummy
what is it this time?” Ulunma asked her mother. “What does he want?”
“The
only thing he wants is to frustrate me, that’s all.”
“It
will not work for him.”
Angelina sat on the chair in the
sitting room and a tear dropped from her eye.
“From the
first day I came into this family,” she said. “it has been torment after
torment.”
“Mummy
please don’t cry,” Erinma said.
“Your
father was my shield from their hatred, but now he is gone.”
She
swallowed a lump in her throat.
“Mummy
we are here for you,” Ulunma said.
Angelina pulled her daughters close
and hugged them.
“You are
still too young to understand what I have gone through,” she said to them. “I
pray you will not marry into a wicked family, especially where they don’t like
you.”
“Mummy
we won’t.”
She held them for a while then she
cleaned her teary face with the back of her hand.
“Do
you still want to sleep small?” she asked the girls.
“No
mummy,” Ulunma said. “Let us sweep.”
“And
eat,” Erinma added.
“Fooood,”
Ulunma teased her younger sister.
Angelina got up from the chair
and told the girls to get brooms.
“I
will sweep the room,” Ulunma said.
“No,
is me that will sweep it,” Erinma said.
“Ulunma
said it first,” Angelina said.
“This
parlour is more difficult to sweep,” Erinma said. “Unless I will not sweep
under the chair.”
“You
will o.”
Ulunma smiled and went to get the
brooms while Angelina went to the kitchen to clean up and prepare breakfast for
the girls.
“Mummy
when is Adaoma coming back?” Erinma asked as she swept.
“Whenever
she is done with her exams?” Angelina answered from the kitchen.
“Ok.
She should hurry and come o.”
“I
will tell her when next I speak with her aunty.”
When
they were done with the chores, they ate.
Later that evening, Angelina and her
daughters were sitting on the pavement in front of their house when they looked
up and saw Dee Okoro coming towards them. Angelina’s heart skipped a beat as
she readjusted herself where she was sitting. When he came close, Angelina and
the girls greeted him. He mumbled a response. There was silence for a while as
he kept looking at the girls as though they were obstacles to his mission.
Angelina, still having a feeling of disgust told Ulunma and Erinma to go inside
the house. They were reluctant to move.
“Go ok,”
Angelina told them.
They got up and dragged their feet as they went into the parlour.
“Why do
you keep seeing me as your enemy?” Dee Okoro said, sitting close to Angelina.
She
shifted from him. “You have never liked
me from the beginning.”
“It
is not true.”
“Hmmm.”
“Have
you considered my offer?”
“Which
offer?”
“You
know na,” he said with a babyish smile on his face, and tried to caress her
arm.
Angelina shifted again and cleaned
the part of her upper arm where his palm touched. It was barely one week after
she buried her husband and she knew the harassment from his brother would not
end. At least, not anytime soon.
{to be continued}
PhotoCred: Canva.com
