©️Opeyemi Akintunde
AS INSPIRED BY THE LIVING WORD
I was so mad I couldn’t go to Leni’s house that day, so I could give her children the usual dosage of my slow poison.
Yes! for the past weeks, I had been poisoning the fizzy drinks I bought for them. I had been told by the man I bought the poison from, that it would take six months of continuous usage before it kills the victim.
“Why are you so worked up?” F.D had asked cutting the flow of my thoughts.
“Nothing, I am just missing Leni’s kids”
“Ok?”
“Yes, I love those boys”
I didn’t like the sound of the words pouring out of Promise mouth. She was sounding possessive of the boys…. Was I missing something?
“We should see them next week” I said
“Next week is too far”
“Really? I think we should start thinking of making another baby. Hopefully it will be two boys so you can stop been possessive of Leni’s kids” I said jokingly.
She turned to me….
“Where is that coming from?”
“Nowhere, it was a joke”
“Let it stay as a joke”
Promise walked out on me, I knew something was definitely wrong.
As we kept following Leni, we were going towards a part of the city I didn’t like going. A place that held so much memories for me.
We were driving towards the street from my past, my ugly past. I waited in anticipation to drive past the house that had the footprint of my past, but as we got closer, I saw Leni slowing down. Like an unexpected twist in a story, Leni drove into the house of my past…
“What was she doing in Mr. Teju’s house” I asked myself in fear.
“Maybe, the house has been sold to a different landlord, and Leni is a tenant there?” I supplied answers I was hoping was true….
The house was looking renovated and modern.
“Mummy J” I immediately reasoned. I knew where to find my answers. Mummy J was my big aunty when I lived in the Teju’s house. I hoped she was still living in her old house.
“Mr. Rogers, please take the next turn, I want to see an aunty who lives close by….”
“Ok ma”
YEARS BACK
I was twelve years old when I started living with Mr & Mrs Teju Cole. I came in as a maid. Their marriage was still young but Mrs. Teju didn’t like to do house chores, so her mother had brought me from the village through Mummy Jola.
Mummy Jola was from our village but lived in the city. Her own way of contributing to our village was to get houses in the city where children from our village could work as maids. The families where the children worked would be responsible for their education.
Mummy J was into selling foodstuffs in the vicinity, so when Mrs. Teju’s mother had come to visit her daughter, she saw the need for a maid. She had pleaded with Mummy J to help get a Maid for her daughter.
Good luck found me, and I was chosen.
To be continued…
