Failed Motherhood? My Mother Is The Poster Girl
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July 22, 2017
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Shaking my head!
My mother is an enigma. Believe you me! I really don’t understand what works her after living under same roof with her for twenty-one years. Actually, I am not her only child. I was born a twin, therefore I have a twin sister who she sent out when her conventional-defying sicknesses wouldn’t cope with her meager earnings as a secondary school teacher four years after our father departed this sinful world under mysterious circumstances. I will come to that later. My frail sickly sister was few months older than four years when our mother sent her to our grandmother’s and her sicknesses ceased to everybody’s consternation, which added to the poor profile and reputation my mother is building.
I grew up without actually knowing who my younger sister is. Once in a year, we would travel from Onitsha to our village and we all would stay under the roof of our grandmother instead of my father’s. Why are you asking? It has been said that my mother killed our father. I have heard one of my paternal uncles who came to visit me last year in my school say that when our father lost his battle to a mysterious illness, my mother being the prime suspect was invited home to swear before Amadioha to confirm to all that she had no hand in the untimely demise of my father who I only know too well from his framed photographs of their wedding, she refused to indulge the family on that. When it was suggested that she avail herself another opportunity to drink my late father’s corpse water to prove her innocence – of course, I supported her on this one – even when my kid’s opinion was not sought for, she pointed them to the route to hell. She ran instead to her mother’s house with me and mourned her husband for four months instead of the customary six months against her mother’s advice to avoid more tongues from wagging. Her excuse was the fact that her children are hungry and wouldn’t survive on the cheap gossips coming from her traducers.
My mother is so opinionated and strong-willed. I had learnt early in life to stay away from her and keep my opinions to myself. The beating of a lifetime I received the night I barged-in on her and one of her numerous young lovers was enough to guide me properly. But now, I am twenty-one and I live every day seeing myself becoming my father. I am such a chip-of-the-old block. In my room in school, I had a life-size portrait of my father on one side of my room with mine on the other. People hardly believed we are not same person. I always feel honoured and thankful to God for perfecting me after my father’s split image and physique.
My mother had resigned her teaching appointment the time the government of Chinwoke Mbadinuju refused to pay teachers their salaries and turned herself into a house-prostitute if there is such a word. Her clients were usually the young boys from across Onitsha markets. It got so bad that people on the street especially my mates were cajoling me for being the son of akwuna. I have always been a calm boy and not into such physicality that would make me engage the annoying boys and their tantrums in a fight. I went to my mother with the news about her on the street. She descended on me verbally and stunned me when she started raining abuses on me and my late father for pushing her into prostitution. I still can’t remember where I summoned the courage to ask her to go back to her teaching profession instead of being a plaything in the arms of small boys. She slapped the taste out of my mouth and smiled ruefully at me and said to me tersely:
“Those small boys pay your school fees and our house rent aside keeping me warm when your father couldn’t fight-off ordinary sickness.”
Still adamant and refusing to have her make me cry at the age of fourteen, I asked her this troubling question: “Did you actually kill my father mum?”
She raised her hand to smack me again but an unseen hand held her hand up there for about two minutes. When she gained the use of her hand again, she collapsed on the floor and started foaming in the mouth. I raised an alarm and it happened that our landlord’s first son who was at home and being one of her numerous younger lovers drove us to the hospital where she was revived. She went home that same day and our house was turned into a Mecca of some sort as all her younger lovers used the opportunity to prove to her who loved her most. I still can’t fathom the power she used over them that there was nothing like anger or jealousy among these lecherous young men. They all came and left after giving her their love in cash and in edibles.
When I turned seventeen, I gained admission into one of the best Federal Universities in South East. Now, I’m a graduate. My mother visited me only twice during my undergraduate days. The first time she visited me was on my matriculation whereby she ran into my father’s portrait and asked me to destroy it if she would come visit me again. The second time was when she returned to ascertain if I had carried out her instruction. Which I did not. She went haywire and promised not to pay my school fees again. When I did not bother her in my second year and she learnt somehow that my uncles had taken up my school responsibilities, she went after them to make trouble for them. They reached an agreement with her that she should continue to pay my school fees or they take it up completely.
When the Dubai-bug bit my mother, like in everything she does, she went into it with a huge appetite. Boys were begging to have her escort them to Dubai as she makes things easier for them over there. Now I will have to tell you that my mother had us when she was only eighteen and she is only 39 and still looking stunning but washed due to overuse. This year she completed her own one-storey duplex in the heart of Awada and one of her lovers bought her Range Rover Vogue aside two other 4-wheels in her garage. In this season of civilian government, my mother successfully turned herself into a Woman-leader of one of the important political parties and continued to increase her wealth via her brand of multiple streams of income.
I refuse to be impressed. I still remember vividly the night my mother walked into my room and threw herself into my bed and begged me to make love to her. It was the night of my graduation party few months back. Was she hallucinating! She told me in the morning that I look so much like my father whom she loved so much. My sister had such experience too when one of my mother’s clients barged into her room and wanted to forcefully take her. I beat hell comot for him head.
We have decided to leave her. Thank God! We can’t wait for the National Youth Service Corps programme to get to our batch.
