The day I turned 14, Sam Nyondee arrived from the United States of America with an oyinbo wife. At first I did not know what it was that got people excited until Piori screamed it like he was paid to make the announcement to everyone. I did not know who Sam Nyondee was but the way Piori said his name into my face with a huge grin made it seem like he was someone I should know, someone my mother should have told me about or something.
Before Piori brought the news to us in the kitchen, I was helping my mother pound some pepper and egusi for soup. We saw the frenzy through the open door that led outside from the kitchen. I abandoned the pounding and left the pestle dangling from the edge of a mortar not minding it could roll over and fall to the ground and we would have to deal with a sandy meal. I flew to the doorpost to find out what was going on in Dukana. One call from my mother’s strong voice brought me back to my duty post and I felt like a puppy commanded to sit still while its friends played outside.
My mother was a woman who did not say so much when she could act with her hands or throw things at me. She kicked you if she thought her words were insufficient in driving sense into your head. Piori said she was once very bright, someone in the category of Sam Nyondee but did not continue her schooling like Sam because something interfered with her studies. My mother did not speak of this thing. It felt like it was a part of her life that she had rolled away, the way people rolled sleeping mats into a stack and kept it in a corner of the house. If it gathered dust, it was her business. Since it was the evening of my birthday, I didn’t want anything that would make her throw things at me. When she called my name, I knew it came from a place I needed to take seriously and I obeyed and recoiled. I rushed back to be by the side of the mortar and pestle and thanked my stars that the pestle did not roll over and fall to the ground. My body was in the kitchen but my ears longed for news of what was going on in Dukana.
As I pounded the ingredients for soup, watching it mesh into a mix, habanero pepper and white egusi becoming paste, I was perturbed by the activity outside because it did not fizzle out like when a masquerade was paraded for entertainment and they passed from house to house asking for money. Had we been reconnected to the national grid for electricity? I thought about it and looked outside like electricity was a thing that would be hidden if that had been done. If that was the case, I would have seen lit electric bulbs in our neighbors’ houses. My mind wandered out of our smoky kitchen like a man who was a spy. Was someone important visiting Dukana? I looked at my mother who appeared like she did not care about what it was that was going on outside. I didn’t like that she had stopped me from knowing what it was that was going on outside. If I knew what it was, she was sure I would tell her but since she didn’t act like it meant much to her, I played by her rule and stayed put.
The more I longed to know what was going on in Dukana, the more the town’s people became restless like someone had put a happy pill in their gin and they needed to torment the entire Dukana with their excessive energy. They ran across our doorpost like goats cut loose. I could see it in my mother’s body language that she wanted to knock out someone’s teeth for troubling her peace that evening. She bit her lower lip and looked up at me without lifting her head, only allowing her eyes to pass the message. When she looked outside, I looked outside. When she returned her gaze to her cooking, I returned my eyes to the pounding I was doing. From where I stood, I could see people hugging themselves and dancing to the music they made with their mouths. I could swear someone was calling my name to join the frenzy: “Sege-Bari, son of Waa-Kaa, why are you not out here with us?”
“Lazy people,” my mother said under her breath, enough to allow me hear her and feel the disdain in her voice as she adjusted her wrapper like she could pounce on anyone who didn’t watch their steps around her.
No good news had reached Dukana in a long while after the electricity poles were mounted but power had not been distributed. I wanted my birthday celebration to be the peak of the good news that day but Sam’s arrival was spoiling the day. Earlier, my friends and I had bought a battery and inserted it in an old cassette player we found in the house of the elder brother of Neenor. I hoisted the radio on my shoulder and disturbed the peace of the village with music. Some people saw us and shook their heads in disappointment. A few men said it was what they did when they were younger and encouraged us to dance to the music we played. I danced. My shoes packed up dust but it was beautiful and fulfilling. By the end of the day, everyone said what we did was the coolest thing they had seen in a while. I was happy because I was at the centre of the activity.
Piori was among the people who ran by the doorpost of our kitchen the day Sam arrived. My mother called him in and asked what it was that made the village mad and he cried out with so much joy his cheekbones popped. He said Sam Nyondee had returned to Dukana. My mother, who had folded her fingers into a fist to punch him, relaxed her muscles like something cold was poured on her body. She walked to her seat like something had stolen oxygen from where she’d stood earlier. Piori said that the people who helped Sam unpack the goodies he brought home said he returned with an oyinbo wife. My mother’s face shut up like she had a question, like she wanted to interrogate Sam for the audacity but shook her head and looked at me like she wanted me to see how insensible the village could be. I only saw it as insensible because it interfered with a record I wanted to keep, a record of having the coolest day in Dukana but for the impostor called Sam Nyondee.
After I finished pounding the pepper and egusi, I sneaked out of our smoky kitchen and fell into the hands of the dark night, surprising myself and my mother who could always detect smart moves. Outside, I saw children who had been woken up by the jubilant noise. From their faces, they couldn’t tell if they should join to celebrate whatever it was that was going on or stay put to understand what was going on around them. Some of the children who were younger than me rubbed their eyes and stared confusedly at the people whose voices woke them up from sleep. One of the people who celebrated Sam’s return described Sam’s house to some people who had doubts that the newly constructed bungalow in Dukana that had a US flag was the man’s own. From what I could see, the people of Dukana wanted to see Sam for what he had become since he left the village. They said this aloud like he was a messiah of some sort and I disliked it.
Neenor and I found ourselves in the midst of the people. Neenor, my friend, was available whenever there was a situation to explore. We drifted from the rowdy session and found a quiet place to talk while nursing my anger about the day and how things had turned out. He asked what made me cold and I told him. Neenor said there was no reason to get angry since I had ruled the daytime and we had danced until our shoes ate dust and our armpits sweated and smelled like shit. He pointed out that Sam was only ruling the nighttime and the one who ruled the day reigned above anyone else. I liked how Neenor said it like I was full of light and Sam was full of darkness, like if someone used a kitchen knife to cut my belly, the light from within me would blind them. I looked at Neenor’s head and admired what large and admirable wisdom sat inside his big skull.
Neenor suggested we go to Sam’s place to see for ourselves what he looked like and touch his wife’s skin like the rest of the people in Dukana who were curious about what she looked like. We had seen movies of oyinbo people and how their skin looked clear like chicken whose feathers had been plucked. I did not like the idea of touching the skin of Sam’s wife but when I considered how it would be a good way to avenge his intrusion into my day, I agreed to Neenor’s idea and quickened my steps.
Neenor and I were younger when Sam left the village to study for a PhD in America. Everyone knew his story in detail but us. We only knew that he went to study for a higher degree but some people knew that he befriended some bright girls of his age whom he did not commit to and some people held grudges against him. I think he was close to my mother because she did not seem excited when Piori mentioned his name. Sam’s return felt like something she did not find important or maybe she did but it brought back memories I could not wrap my head around. Neenor and I walked through a less traveled route that night so no one we knew could ask us questions. When we sensed that someone was coming our way, we hid in a nearby bush and held our breath until they were gone.
Two men who were coming towards our direction talked aloud about Sam and laughed like their names were written on his will and all he brought back from America would be theirs. One of the men with a small, sharp voice that sounded like he talked through stacks of mosquito nets, or his throat was infected with something, said that until he left for America, Sam was the one who spent his time teaching people English grammar and pronunciation in the dilapidated primary school hall. That made sense. I had heard my mother talk about it. The man said he was among the people who gathered there after farm work to learn from Sam. He boasted like it was a thing of so much importance. The same man also said Sam told stories of the outside world and the magic of writing and pronunciations and how it could make people free. I wanted to cough out loud and tell the man to shut up but Neenor would not like it. The other voice was heavier, like the speaker was someone who sang baritone in a church choir. He said they nicknamed Sam “Suurr” because of the way he pronounced “Sir” in class during his teachings. The two men laughed at how they had remained stuck in Dukana while Sam had traveled the world and returned home. I asked Neenor if he knew what the men were talking about and he shook his head and pressed his finger against my lips. I tasted the dirt on his finger and spat out the dirt immediately.
Neenor and I passed by the house of a family that gathered themselves around dinner and talked about Sam’s return. A hurricane lamp hung in the midst of the family like they were people in a Nollywood movie set in pre-colonial times listening to folktales. The man of the house spoke into the lamp and said the Sam he knew was a fast-talking muscular man with a round belly that made him walk like he was pregnant. His listeners giggled and poked themselves. I disliked it. No one seemed to dislike Sam like I did. Maybe Neenor did. The man in the house said Sam did not like to wear shirts in the village before he traveled and he was always in shorts because the heat was not friendly. None of what he said added up to make sense and I walked away angrier.
I had heard people say Sam was a short man but it was the first time I was hearing that he did not like to wear shirts. I looked at the shirt I was wearing and looked at Neenor’s own. Mine did not cover my belly properly. Someone could say I did not like shirts too. I wondered if people would say I was like Sam because my shirt stopped halfway on my belly. Piori’s words popped into my head. He had said, in our kitchen, that the reason he was sharing the news of Sam’s return with excitement was because he was the one who announced it when he left Dukana. I asked Neenor if he liked Sam and he shook his head in the negative. I looked into his eyes to see if what I saw there corresponded with the shaking of his head and I could not harmonize it.
As Neenor and I walked towards Sam’s house, I tried to remember the sound of Piori’s voice and the excitement when he said the people had praised God for the news when Sam traveled abroad. I saw how my mother wanted to shut him up at some point but she was eager to get more information about Sam and the woman he returned with.
“He taught us phonetics and pronounced ‘sir’ as ‘suurr,” Piori said like it was the first time he was saying it.
At the crossroads to Sam’s house, Neenor and I met Mr. Sindam Amanyie who was a teacher in Dukana’s state school. He stopped us and examined us like a police officer would examine a suspect. I tried to avoid his face and the torchlight he shone in our faces. Mr. Amanyie asked us where we were going and I regretted not hiding from him. He was a large man whose corner of the mouth foamed when he spoke and even though it was night, we could see the white trademark at the sides of his mouth. When we told him we were just taking a walk, he brought his face closer to ours, his eyes going from me to Neenor and from Neenor to me so much that the smell of whatever he had eaten that night slapped us across the face and sent us puking. He looked at us and said we were unserious liars and accused us of going to Sam’s house for American goodies. He ordered us to turn back and head home. Neenor and I tried to argue with him but he shushed us and pointed to the way that led to my house.
As Neenor and I made a turn to go home, the voice of Mr. Amanyie saying to himself that he had prayed Sam’s travel into existence tormented me. He said no one would go there before him to get American goodies. He beat his chest and said he was the only one in Dukana who wrote letters to Sam through Sam’s father and got a response from him while he was in America. I imagined my mother’s face at the mention of Sam’s name and blocked my ears with my fingers hoping she would be proud of me, for hating the sound of Sam’s name the way she did. I thought briefly of my mother, what was she doing while I was out? Was she done cooking or was looking for me to eat with her or she was up and down the kitchen thinking of the activity of the day and whatever her ruse with Piori and Sam was.
Mr. Sindam Amanyie had cursive handwriting. It was a thing of delight when he wrote in Dukana. Whenever he wrote, we watched him write outside his house on evenings when he was not tired from farm work. He did not write inside the house for reasons best known to him. He set up a desk outside his house, to the delight of us and wrote long hand, pride oozing all over him like steam. We took our eyes off the foam around his mouth and enjoyed his handwriting. On one of those days he wrote letters, Mr. Amanyie asked Sam for an American English dictionary. He said he wanted to put it in a library he would curate for the people of Dukana. He looked at us, the children, like we would never understand what he was doing.
“How thoughtful he is to have remembered home,” someone spoke into the air while walking towards us. Mr. Amanyie quickened his steps to be ahead of the person whose voice we had heard. Neenor and I hid ourselves so we would not get another scolding from a stranger.
“I bet he brought home plenty goodies,” the voice said.
Another voice that we hadn’t known spoke and coughed and supported the man who was wishful about goodies.
“Some children do not remember home when they leave the shores of this land,” the voice said strongly. “They stay there in America and eat pasta and cheese and burger and grow big and forget home!”
In hiding, where we squatted in the dark, I asked Neenor in a low voice if he would remember Dukana if he traveled abroad and he shushed me. I wanted to push him so he would fall over for always shushing me but I knew it was for our own good what he did. If someone unfortunate discovered us and told my mother, it would be a terrible fate for both of us. My mother may not spare Neenor. We would both get resounding ass-whooping.
When they had walked off, Neenor asked me if I knew the American national anthem and I shook my head. Why was he asking me such a difficult question? Neenor said it was called the Star-Spangled Banner. He hummed it to himself and shook his head in admiration of his own feat. I looked at Neenor and sensed that he was sympathetic to America and Sam and may not be the friend I thought he was, a friend who ought to support me and dislike whatever I disliked. I asked that we return home and he looked at me disappointed like I had taken something that was precious to him but he was going to be a good friend and heed to my instruction. I liked it that he was disappointed. I liked it that he listened to me and returned home with me.
The next day, I woke up to people drinking gin and laughing loudly. I was less angry because my birthday had passed. The people whom I had never seen drinking in Dukana had cups in their hands while making merry. I saw Mr. Amanyie and his brother, Gbara-Kuer. His brother said Brits were the best things in the world. I knew what Brits meant because they said it in Dukana all the time.
“America turns people into rubbish,” he said. “They make people see guns as their lord and personal savior instead of Christ, and in some cases, men who should not wear the clothes of women turn around to say that they are tired of their own bodies and they wish to become another thing,” Gbara-Kuer told Mr. Amanyie and downed a shot of gin and smacked his tongue like he had drowned whatever bad luck speaking about America would have brought him. Mr. Amanyie was knighted at St John’s Anglican Church, by the revered Bishop Nwizinzua, a man who was kind to my mother. He boasted of how it was his love for academics and everything American that fired up his old body into being young again and disagreed with his brother. I looked at him with rage. He wore a pair of shorts and a shirt with NYC written on it. He made a sign of the cross when his brother told him people changed in America, that America was like a big bubble that changed people because there was too much free-will in the country.
“Sam will not change,” he prayed. “And no child of mine will leave home a man and return a woman, not even an adopted child like my brilliant Sam Nyondee. Jesus will not allow it. The blood of our ancestors will not allow it. And I will not allow it too.” Mr. Amanyie slapped his chest where NYC was written and coughed hard and his wife, Waa-Amanyie, a small woman who had trained herself to not become angry each time her teacher-husband was on about America, passed him a glass of water.
My mother walked out of our house and handed me a thousand naira note to buy her shaving stick. She had built our house from her trading business. No one had supported her. She told me this when she was in a good mood. When I asked if my father did not help, she gave me an eye like I had fallen from the sky without a father. I brought my mind back to the moment and remembered that she had never sent me to buy her shaving stick. I stood there to be sure she was right about what she was asking me to buy. When she asked what I was still waiting for, I woke up from my trance and ran away, tumbling on all fours.
My mother was the first daughter in her family. In Dukana, first daughters were allowed to be unmarried, to have children and the children were to bear the names of the parents of the woman. It was what the biaken tradition allowed. My mother didn’t look like someone who paid attention to tradition but I wondered why she embraced this one and never said much about it.
At the shop of the man who sold everything in Dukana, two people were talking about Sam and I wanted to reach out and knock their heads. They had slowed down when I came in like I would be offended if I heard what they talked about. They spoke in K’ana and dribbled themselves into English as if the conversation was a soccer game. They could speak of the perfect weather and not Sam, I cursed. I told the man what I wanted to buy and while he brought out a pack of shaving sticks, he engaged his friend some more like he could not do without the conversation about an American returnee.
“It will be odd that a man who had gone to America, not as a teenager but an adult with strong pubic hair would return with body markings instead of a PhD,” the man said from behind his sales counter. They laughed at the way the man spoke like he had sealed his belly of expectations and Sam could not dare change it. In Dukana people owned you by virtue of coming from the same community as you. They wrote rules for you and expected you to live an ordered life because one person’s business was everyone’s business even though Dukana was not so small.
“Mene, I greet you. And this is not to disrespect you but everyone should be expecting surprises from all of these young people,” the other man said. I collected my change from the seller and instead of heading home I followed the part of my mind that said I could run to Sam Nyondee’s place to see for myself what it was that the village fussed about. I would stand afar and watch and not get noticed, I promised myself and it made sense.
As I ran like someone being pursued by a raging dog, I did not realize when the shaving stick fell from my pocket. I stopped to look around for it and could not find it. I tried to trace my steps but the more I walked back the more I was closer to the shop where I had bought it. As tears hung in my eyes for what my mother could do to me for displacing an item she had wanted me to buy, I thought of going to Sam’s place as a consolation for my current fate. It felt like an odd thing to do but it was what I did.
Outside of Sam’s bungalow with the American flag fluttering in the Dukana sky, people gathered like it was a festival. The house looked different, like the builder had a different mind from what we were used to in Dukana. I saw two women arguing among themselves.
“Oyinbo people ehn, if you look at their body closely, you will see veins,” one woman chipped in and slapped the laps of the woman she spoke to like the slap reiterated how factual her assertion was.
“Their hair is silk and wooly. And they eat air because you can’t tell me they eat yam and cassava like us and remain so light-skinned and beautiful,” she concluded.
“Getting married to anyone outside our culture is a disservice to the system because how would they raise children who would not know how to speak K’ana, our language, our pride? They will go and raise children who will shake hands with their elders and use their left hands to collect food from people old enough to be their parents,” the second woman spoke like she had suddenly become an advocate.
I returned my gaze to the house that Sam owned and told myself I would build something bigger if I traveled abroad.
At the entrance of Sam Nyondee’s house, the path laid with an interlocking block, the people of Dukana assembled in a jubilant mood. There was music from the local drummers who weaved Sam’s name into tunes. The drummers were mostly youths with ripping muscles, some jacked up from working lumber jobs. They were older than me. They had on their faces such happiness that said they were there for all the good things that had come from America and I hated it. A man asked why the people were not inside the house with Sam and another man told him that Sam and his wife were still asleep. He checked his rusty timepiece and it was 7.30. He shook his head. In Dukana, people woke up at 5AM to prepare for farm work and here, a returnee was still asleep, he sighed.
“Laziness,” the man spat on the ground.
“They arrived late last night and were jetlagged,” Mr. Amanyie walked into the conversation like a ghost. I clutched my heart and made to run away from Mr. Amanyie but there was no place to escape to. The man he spoke to did not understand what Mr. Amanyie meant by jetlag and it showed on his face and the way he swallowed saliva while looking at Mr. Amanyie to explain further the word he had used.
At 8AM, Sam’s parents appeared like assistant celebrities, smiling so much I felt their faces should hurt them. They waved to the crowd and said they were happy that a day like this had come, their son had returned with a degree, not a master’s degree but a PhD in Education, a rigorous degree that had their son working so hard, calling them to ask questions about their culture and more. I thought about myself. If I traveled abroad and returned, who would stand by my mother and give a pep talk before a large crowd of villagers? I could picture my mother doing everything by herself satisfactorily.
A young lady from Sam’s house passed a tray of tangerine to the people outside.
“It is an American souvenir,” the young woman said while allowing people to pick the souvenir. The people from behind who felt the orange would not get to them rushed at the tray and fought over it. I gave them way because they were adults. If I wanted to taste the tangerine, the hate I had for Sam and the noise about his return quenched whatever the urge could have been.
“But it looks like the one we plant in Dukana,” a man replied the woman who served the tray.
“Eat it and see,” the lady admonished the man and scoffed.
As people struggled to take bulbs of tangerine, the music stopped.
“It does not have seeds inside. This is strange,” a man screamed while spitting out the tangerine.
“What is strange, ehn, bushman? You are not used to American fruits and you are here claiming that something is strange,” Mr. Amanyie tackled the man aggressively. I sat on my thought and erased whatever opinion I would have shared.
“Ah. I am not used to what? Your American people have given an abortion medicine to their tangerine and now it does not have seed and you don’t want me to talk!” the man fired back. The people panicked at the mention of abortion. But as they were about to ask all the questions in the world, Sam Nyondee opened his door and his people saw him in the flesh and smiled and chorused, forgetting their worries. He was like every other man in Dukana – stoutly built with muscles. He looked like he had just woken up from sleep. His eyes were puffy and he did not wear a shirt. I looked at Mr. Amanyie but his eyes were on Sam. He looked at his hand to see if the man had brought his dictionary.
“Welcome home, my son. You look great like a man from Texas. Your head does not look heavy, like someone who has read too many books for a PhD,” Mr. Amanyie said, grinning to himself like someone who had made a very important speech.
“It is good to see you, good sir,” Sam said through what sounded like an anglicized K’ana language. He was not going to speak English to the people who were obsessed with all the English he had taught them when he was in the village and who could not wait to hear more from what he had learned. Mr. Amanyie was ecstatic that his boy could still recognize him and say “suurr” with a fine American accent even though he could not say words clearly in K’ana.
“My wife came back with me. She would say hello to you all and we will have someone roast a goat while we thank God for a safe trip,” Sam said and the people threw their hands in the air and rejoiced with dancing as someone led a goat to a fireplace that had been set.
Sam was a true son of the soil, they chorused. My nose twitched in disgust. He had not allowed America to contaminate his mind, Mr. Amanyie said, beating his chest and I wish I replaced that hand he used for his chest with a chisel so he could stab himself and feel the pain.
While the people danced and rejoiced as the music resumed, a woman whose head was shaved completely and who wore a pair of earrings that was as big as a full moon walked out of Sam’s house. She wore a pair of shorts that made her thighs thick. Her skin glistened like she had returned from taking a run and had used vegetable oil to apply on her body.
“The good people of my husband’s village, I greet you all! Kana mue! I hope I said it correctly. Sam taught me how to say that. Sam and I are glad to be welcomed this way, like royalty. It gives us so much joy to see that the African people thrive in community. This is what we need to have a thriving continent!” she said smiling like she had been gifted an enormous piece of the roast goat.
The people fell silent at the sound of her voice like someone had fetched a bucket of cold water and had used it to wet them. I was quiet too. I listened even after the woman had stopped speaking like there was something more that needed to be said, maybe a song that needed to wrap up her speech. She was of a darker skin – black, almost darker than some of us in Dukana but her tongue was like that of an oyinbo person – the way they spoke in movies. Mr. Amanyie was the first person to speak. He asked the type of sorcery Sam had performed on them. Wasn’t it rumored that Sam Nyondee had gone abroad to earn a PhD and had returned with an oyinbo wife? Why was a darker skinned woman in bum shorts addressing them like an oyinbo person? Everyone in Dukana knew that black people were in America, in movies, but sometimes they thought they spoke something else or maybe they never saw any of them in the flesh to see that they spoke like the Caucasians.
Sam’s wife did not understand why the crowd went cold on her. Sam could not comprehend the coldness too. While some people continued roasting the goat without acknowledging what was going on, a man who stood next to Mr. Amanyie and I coughed and began to walk away. His friends joined him. “Sam Nyondee has played us for a fool. He put oyinbo English inside the body of a woman from our land and brought her to us as an oyinbo person,” one of the men said. I was happy that Sam’s day was ruined through the way the villagers spoke about him. I could see the confused looks on the faces of those who were walking away. If I could call my mother to see what had happened, I would have done so but she did not know I was at Sam’s place.
***
And so it became news in Dukana and beyond that Sam Nyondee had not returned home with an actual oyinbo wife. The people accused him of everything they could think about. I looked at it and liked it that at least they were disappointed in Sam and he was not the hero as earlier portrayed. He was darkness and I was light.
Mr. Amanyie said Sam could have managed to bring anyone with a lighter skin, even a drug addict, just to convince the people that she was an oyinbo person. When Sam heard the rumor of his community people disbelieving in the authenticity of his African-American wife as an oyinbo, he said his community people were raving mad but everyone saw him as the mad man who had earned a PhD in America but could not bring home an oyinbo woman so she would be the first oyinbo to walk the streets of Dukana. I told my mother about the incident at Sam’s house and something that looked like a smirk appeared on her face. She asked how I had found out about the incident. Before I could answer her question, she asked for her shaving stick and change and I froze.
“Where is the thing I sent you to buy?” She thundered and I could not tell her anything. My throat became dry like someone had used a towel to mop saliva off it. I wanted to tell a lie that Neenor had it and he was bringing it over but before my lies could form into words a knock that was heavier than a bag of cement landed on my head and I could feel my height reducing. The pains from the knock shortened my neck and I let out a loud cry.
“You are as silly as that stupid returnee father of yours,” she said and stomped away.
I could hear her footfalls in a loop, like her walking away was never ending, like I had been living a lie, like I had been encircling something that stood right in front of me that I could not figure out, like I had been fighting a darkness that was part of me but I had no idea about. How was Sam my father? I wanted to scream it at her. How could light and darkness be related, how could they coexist? Why did my mother not tell me anything about it until I lost her shaving stick? I sat at the spot where my mother had spoken to me like the memory of her stomping away would come back in reverse and I would run back to buying her shaving stick and I would not lose it and I would not care about Sam, and no one would disturb our cooking and she would be my sweet mother who was not bothered about a man, any man but who was a stern mother in whose arm I was loved and cared for.
The day my mother confronted Sam in our house, I was outside playing soccer. No one had expected me to be home. When I approached our door and heard voices, I tiptoed and peeped and listened. Through the space between the door and the door frame, I saw my mother standing over Sam and Sam seated with his face avoiding my mother’s eyes. Whatever they were discussing involved me and some other things they had not settled from their past. I was deep into what they were discussing when my body pushed the door and it creaked and opened and revealed my sweaty face and dusty feet. My mother and Sam looked at me like I was displaced.
“Is he the one?” Sam asked, his eyes fixated on me.
“Come in here,” my mother ordered angrily.
I looked at both of them, what their faces held and how I had intruded and I ran away. I did not know where I was running to but I ran as far as my legs could take me. I ran because it was what light would do, run far away from darkness.
