26.
Ofure did not imagine that the pillar holding her life would give way and her problems would tumble faster than she could hold on to them. Her savings were fast disappearing; her husband jobless and her children were slowly turning into strangers. Her husband no more searched for a panacea to his own slow death, all he did was wallow and rest his face on his welt palms. Ofure woke up at night to catch him sniffing sometimes, clawing on to the little good memories he once had. Now he was a skeleton of himself. A naked shadow.
When their son joined a gang and Esosa was always disappearing into shadows, she begged Collins to speak to the children.
‘You know I am always busy and I have only two eyes. I cannot do my job and look at them at the same time. Perhaps, you can talk to them and draw them to the right path’.
But they didn’t listen to Collins. He was poor and powerless, just like his words. They went through one ear and left through the other.
Ofure noticed that her dreams were slowly travelling beyond her grasp. She wanted her children to go to school, drive big cars and buy her wrappers when she got older. Why else was she sleeping with another man? Why all the stress and suffering? She knew she had to do something to make her children see the light. And so, the next time she met with the principal, she told him. He sat on the edge of the bed, breathing calmly what was left of his exhausted desires and arranging sheets of paper. Ofure laid naked beside him, tracing the patterns on his saggy back and summoning courage for her next step. She thought to say it in pidgin, but she decided to make use of the little English that he had been teaching her.
‘Sir, do you still want to escape with me?’
‘Escape?’
‘Yes. Last time, the hotel. You said me, you, escape together?’
‘Oh, yes. I wanted you to have enough time to think about it’
‘I have agree. I say yes’.
The old man pushed the paper he was reading and adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his noses.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes. But one thing’.
‘Anything. anything you want’
‘My children, can they come with us? Will you take them as your own?’
The man’s smile disappeared behind his soggy face and Ofure wished she hadn’t opened her dirty mouth to spoil her chances of a good life. But as quickly as the smile disappeared, it came back.
‘If they will accept me as you have, then I accept too’.
‘Do you say the truth on this?’
‘Yes Ofure. Anything that makes you happy. I love you’.
Ofure had never seen ice cream before, but in that moment, she tasted clouds melting on her tongue.