Chapter 17: Chapter 17

Songs for this chapter are:

Another day - Punch, Monday Kiz (Hotel Del Luna OST)

Lean on me - 10CM (Hotel Del Luna OST)

All about you - Taeyeon (Hotel Del Luna OST)

Family photo - Andy Mineo

Cassandra

Health.

Health is dynamic and diverse and it affects the make-up of the human species in multiple ways. Humans are made up of the spirit, soul, and body and it had been so structured in a way that whatever the spirit takes in, touches the soul and is somewhat made visible to the body.

Some physical defects we see on some of our body parts are sometimes a manifestation of our emotional and mental health which is why we can sometimes just tell from the surreal thinness of the body, loss of hair, or even from facial spots that someone is going through something.

Perhaps, they are mourning the loss of a loved one, undergoing stress, or just passing through a phase that brings them unhappiness. Whatever the spirit and soul repels, so does the body which is why it's expensive to maintain healthy health.

In as much as we try to nurture our bodies the right way by eating healthily, drinking lots of water, and exercising habitually, it's important to take care of our mental health as well. If something isn't right with us or with the people we care about, then there's no way we can have peace of mind which makes it unbalanced as a whole.

Our body organs can not function efficiently either to let that good food we eat work in the right way for us because what's a healthy body without a peaceful mind? There's something about lack of peace that makes it hideous in one way or the other no matter how much we try to shield it. All it takes is an observation for it to be seen because it affects its victim gravely.

My mother wasn't healthy.

I knew it too well. I'd been unhealthy for many years. I never created sufficient time for myself to heal like someone who was ill emotionally, physically, and mentally which was why I

suffered phantosmia longer than I should have.

There was no day that I didn't think of my experience as a slave and there was no night that I didn't dream of the loan shark tearing a good pound of my flesh and throwing it into the fire to burn into ashes. Some other times, I found myself in a lake of fire, sinking and vanishing from the pain of the flames the loan shark had cast me into. Those series of dreams were the goriest. It was so terrible that it triggered my bad health whenever I managed to wake up.

When we don't take our time to heal from something, it affects us in the long run. When we bury emotions, we bury them alive and they only come back stronger somewhere later in our lives.

I knew all of that too well as I watched my mother sitting on the bare field just where my father's grave was situated. Just like I had guessed.

She wasn't at peace and it showed heavily. I watched her every movement; her hands fiddling with a withering bouquet of sunflowers aimlessly, gazing into nothing. Her eyes were deeply sunken and her hairline had received aggressively just like I'd remembered seeing my Dad's the morning after my escape.

My heart ached when it occurred to me that she'd probably spent days here, asking my Dad to forgive her for failing. My head ached, thinking of the number of times she must have cried with nights spent in heavily draining sadness.

As I watched her silently, I was thankful to have found her here alive. That I could talk to her before she dies with that feeling of being a failure that she must have harbored for too long. I started to wish it didn't take this long to think of her but I had been my captor for the longest time, holding on to things I should have rectified and thought of the things I should have considered as my ancient past.

It was the same mistake I made with Mustafa and I didn't learn my lesson until things got perilous. In as much as I've always felt like I was the captive in my predicament, I was very much the captor also. I didn't allow myself to feel certain things and I stopped myself from thinking of taking certain redeeming actions that would have saved me from so much.

I just wanted to remain stiff, like a coward. During the drive, I was hoping that I've not made the same mistake with my mother because I couldn't imagine the kind of pain I would have felt if I met her dead.

Our eyes met.

The light of the setting sun weighed on her eyes. They were bloodshot. Her forehead bore many gigantic red spots and was sore, down to her chin, like a recreation of the ancient disease, leprosy.

I moved my legs and settled on the ground where the grave was, lone in the fields. I sat next to my mother. The sunflower in her hand dropped to the ground. Her fingers were twitching at a finicky tempo.

My heart started to thrum beneath my chest. I was next to my mother. When last did I sit this close to her? When I was seven? Or eight? I'd forgotten that ethereal warmth that only a mother could provide because it was almost like I had never felt it before.

All I wanted to do that moment was to hug her so tightly and tell her that I had forgiven her. I was tired of holding on to everything but I knew I needed to hear her excuse if I genuinely wanted to let go of my grudges and forgive her like I was supposed to. I knew I was going to regret it if I forfeited the conversation I was here to have so I controlled myself.

"I'm finding it difficult to believe that you are here, right next to me, " she said very, very meekly. Then she looked at me, pleading for my touch with her ambiance. I didn't know how possible that was but I felt it.

I gave my consent and she wasted no time in brushing her hand over my fingers like a flying feather. "You are just as soft as I remember from the last time I touched you."

The last time. I couldn't imagine how her heart must have ached, growing fonder by the minute and hoping she would get to touch me again. A tear escaped my eye.

"I had to come. I want us to continue from where we stopped fifteen years ago. I want to talk."

"I sold you out. You don't need to know my reason. What I did was unheard of. Please don't forgive me because I failed you. I—"

"You didn't sell me out mum. You paid the money and I've already forgiven you. I just want to hear you out. No matter how shallow your reason is I want to hear it. I turned out to be a worse mum. I made terrible choices too. All of the anger I had towards you wasn't the right kind of anger because I didn't channel it towards becoming a better person so I'm not here to invalidate your reason because I didn't do better. I'm just here to listen to your pain and to understand the pressure you must have felt before deeming it fit to make that mistake."

Silence followed. The popular simile that was often used was, 'as silent as a graveyard' but I couldn't place the intensity of the silence on the fact that we were at the graveyard. The coincidence didn't correlate. Unlike the graveyard that gave nothingness, darkness, and death, this silence brought a forthcoming light soon to be revealed.

"Your Dad was ill. I mean, he was always ill in one way or the other because he was a sickle cell but this time, he had a severe bone infirmity. He couldn't make many movements so I had to do the work. Yemisi had been hawking for a long while and I wanted her to start going to school like the rest of you.

It wasn't right to constantly have her exposed to the dangers of the street when it was on me as her parent to provide the necessities so I looked for ways to raise money. All the money we saved from Yemisi's hawking affair alone wasn't enough to add up to the amount we needed for the school I wanted her to attend. Well, me at least.

I didn't know what other jobs to opt for. I had gotten my pay for all the domestic jobs I did for that month which I used to pay David, Alexander, and Demi's school fees and to get some medicines for your Dad.

I felt the need to enroll Yemisi at a better school because...I don't know...It felt like a reward I had to give her because she deserved it. I knew I could have searched deeper and would have found a job but it was faster and easier to borrow and so I did once I heard about the loan shark from the mouths of a few neighbors. I was able to book an appointment with him.

I was able to enroll Yemisi in the school that I wished she would attend. I put you on the line but I felt I could save you even if the time frame he gave me was short. Your Dad got mad that I went ahead to overstep my boundaries by delving into what I originally couldn't afford, telling from my earnings then he got angrier when he learned that I put you on the line.

He had some savings that we could have used to enroll Yemisi at a decent school but he was forced to use it to pay the loan shark. I spent the rest of our years together even till his last breath, trying to atone for what I did because I hurt him badly. I wasn't financially intelligent so it prompted me to make bad decisions."

"You didn't have to lie to me then when I asked you why you were you talking to that scary man. It made me hate you so much whilst growing up, knowing that you put me in such danger because you wanted to get me toys. It made me feel so worthless and undeserving of anything but hearing your real reason now, I understand. Sister Yemisi is worth that sacrifice."

I could understand her mistake; her need to give her child a better life. Which parent didn't want that? Which parent wouldn't go the extra mile and perhaps make a few regrettable mistakes whilst trying to attain that? Maybe not many but I could read her heart and its genuineness.

"I'm happy you're here today. I've felt terrible for so long. I couldn't come close to you. All I could do was watch you from afar and that alone was the most torturous thing. More than the regret I felt from my actions even. It made me realize how gross I was but the punishment wasn't something I could bear. I didn't want to be accountable for it so I watched you closely from the shadows.

I wanted to see your face, to know if you were doing well. I wasn't too sure that you were especially when I saw you standing in that witness box in court and the opposing lawyer brought up my actions against your defense. I just wished you would win the case which was why I came with the scroll. I gave it to Alex and made him promise not to reveal my presence at the courthouse.

You winning the case was the eraser I needed to wipe off some of the guilt I was feeling but when I saw how distraught you looked, I knew I had done the absolute worst thing and it was irredeemable so I left."

Goodness, gracious! I don't want to believe that what I'm thinking might be true.

"And...you've been here ever since?" I asked hesitantly, not sure if I wanted to hear the answer.

"Yes." she swallowed.

I felt the urge to ask if she ate anything at all but I was too afraid and too hurt from hearing that she stayed here for so long, in pain. Suffering in silence.

"Oh my God! You should've asked Sister Yemisi or Brother Alex for an update even if you were too sad to stay behind. We eventually won the case. Have you always been watching me from the shadows like that?"

My face was heavy with tears. Guilt was such a terrible thing to feel. Something any human would want to get rid of in an instant. How agonizing it must have been for her trying so hard to clear her conscience for so many years and nothing seemed to work well for her.

"I asked about you all the time and always wanted to know what you were up to. When you were on your death bed, I wasn't sure if you needed me to be there with you and it was extremely painful to watch you from a distance knowing that I wouldn't dare to come close either so Yemisi and I begged Ebun to come home from Russia just so you could have some extra support and feel the homeliness I wasn't able to provide for you."

"I'm sorry for being this way to you for so long, mother. I caused you a kind of pain that you didn't even need to feel. What you did wasn't evil. I did the worst things but didn't get treated like how I treated you. I'm not pushing you away anymore, mum. I want to always be by your side henceforth, to have you closer to me than my skin, " I promised with deep desperation.

She smiled wryly then shook her head, closing her eyes as more tears fell with a kind of bitterness that shouldn't be felt for the horror of its depths being inexplicable.

"I'm afraid it's too late."

My face fell immediately I heard that and my heart rose with a fast-paced beat. I loathed that sentence more than anything. God. I was already willing to have this woman back into my life. I was already thankful that my mistakes weren't going to come with the same consequences.

I was ignorant, empty, and broken. I was going through so much that I couldn't even think of this woman. I was busy trying to make things right from the pieces left and I wanted to save the last hurdle for the most appropriate time. God. No. Please, I deserve a happy ending if I'm not being too greedy that is but I don't think it's bad to wish that everything would fall into place.

"W-what do you mean by that?"

"I drank poison earlier which explains why these spots are all over my face. I'm going to die at any moment from now."

I wanted to beg her to stop cracking a joke as expensive as that until I saw a small plastic bottle, empty with an open lid on the ground.

Then she started wheezing. Like a reflex action, I jerked my head and faced her and I saw a tiny droplet of blood smear her pale lips. She wasn't joking and I had to stop taking it as a joke. Right. Away.

"Mummy, please hold on. You can't go now. You can hold on for a little longer, can't you? I'll take you to the hospital right now."

Thankfully she was lightly weighted so it was easy to lift her off the ground and rush towards the car but I was slowly starting to wish Yemisi followed me because I didn't know of a hospital close by. It was just the quest to keep her alive that occupied my mind.

Have faith.

"You've forgiven me right?" she asked faintly as soon as I dropped her in the back seat of the car and I settled in the front to start driving.

"Yes, mum," I answered, wondering why she was asking me again.

Then silence followed like the one a graveyard would provide. Slowly, I called on my mother but got no response. It frightened me but something just told me to keep driving till I could find a hospital in the neighborhood. She was just getting weak and I needed to be fast, I thought.

Twenty minutes later, I stopped the car at a small clinic and went for my mum in the backseat only to touch her skin and realize that it lacked temperature. Her eyes weren't closed so it couldn't be what I thought it was just yet. With courage from a source I couldn't decipher, I reached for her chest and pressed my palm against it.

Her heart wasn't beating.

***

Exodus 14:14 - "The Lord will fight for you and you will hold your peace."