Chapter Four.
The Past.
Tiaraoluwa.

School was going to start next week. For the first time in six terms I was going to resume on the first day. It was a miracle really that I could because somehow my dad had managed to pay my fees on time.Yes, it's a miracle he has a new contract and so for the next six months or so or while the contract lasted we would be relatively well off. You might wonder then how we survive when he's out of work. I'll give you your answer.
We were not rich but my father was a landlord and we lived off on the rent.

You might ask... If we collected rent how come were so poor? The answer is simple. Some people despite their education are ignorant. My father is reputed as a compassionate man amongst his tenants but to his immediate family he was stingy.

Irrespective of the hike in cost of living, he never increased the rent yet he succumbed to the will of his tenants. He helped them fix leaking roofs and broken windows; He refused to give tenants quit notices when they couldn't pay their rent which by the way was below the standard rent fee paid in other places; he never signed agreements on what would happen if tenants refused to pay their rent. He would always say,  "they are also struggling, we can't be cruel. We should be compassionate like Jesus."

A lot of times, I want to tell him to shut the fuck up about Jesus. From what I know, Jesus would never do anything to inconvenience his own. Jesus wasn't selfish or hypocritical but my father was.

My father extended the house when I was in 11th grade, we had two sitting rooms, two kitchens, and two rooms. It was like two apartments which were connected. I think that was his own way of seperating himself from us. No one was allowed into his side of the house which had an average finish but no furniture. The roof in his room and living room did not leak neither did the kitchen but in our side of the house everywhere leaked. It was also uncomfortable for us kids. My sister and I, full grown women had to share a room with my brother and mother.

His decisions made us live in poverty despite his net worth. Whenever he had money from rent, he would ask my mother to write a list of food items we needed. He would take the list and scrap out a lot of things then give her money to buy the things in the revised list. Oftentimes, they fought because she bought what she deemed necessary foregoing less pressing needs.

The rest of the money would go for our school fees but rent was never enough therefore we accrued large debts. My mother worked as the personal assistant for the owner of my school. Therefore after much back and forth it was usually decided that we be allowed back in school however my mother has to bear the brunt of it. As a result, about seventy percent of her salary wenr into paying our fees but it was still far from covering all so our debts grew. I hated that my mother had to go through such; she never had money to buy new clothes or shoes or handbags and so the teachers at the school mocked her; she always had to work overtime without complaint because she was largely indebted to the proprietress; she barely had enough to eat and lost a lot of waste as a result.
The only time we ate well was when my father was working. The downside though was that he never utilised the money he had well. For instance it never occurred to him to improve our standard of living and so embarrassed of my habitation I could never invite my friends over. He also never invested in profitable ventures. The only responsibility he felt was towards our feeding and education. He never gave us money for clothes but he was generous with our daily allowances.

"Go and wash and iron your uniform now that the NEPA light is steady," my mother instructed, packing My brother's dirty uniforms from last term.

"Do I look like your son? How will I leave my uniform dirty for that long?" I asked sarcastically. "They're washed and ironed oh," I said, climbing up my sister's bed.

I missed her a lot despite the fact that we fought most of the time. She had gone off to university after ASUU had finally called off their nine months strike. Yes, nine months. My sister's course mate who got pregnant before ASUU strike gave birth to her child two weeks before the strike was called off. My sister has gone off to the university at the start of the tenth grade I never had. Due to the cost of her tuition and allowances and the backlog of debt accrued my mother had to stop our education briefly. By the second term, COVID-19 struck Nigeria so everyone I knew was at home. I resumed my old school with the rest of my classmates by third term and then physically in SS2 (11th grade).

My school life had not been the same since then.

∆*+*+*+*+*+*∆

On New Year's day, exactly four days before school's resumption my mother's friend sent her a hamper. She had come back from a trip to America and had brought back what any Nigerian would think of buying— cereal, chocolate (my favorite), thrift clothes (my second favorite) and some other snacks. Excited, we the children hid the hamper from my dad with plans to enjoy the content while he wasn't around. We thought he didn't know there was a hamper.

I'll answer your question.

My dad was a conspiracy theorist. No, he didn't have a YouTube or social media channel where he talked about Obama being the head of the illuminati but he turned his housemates into his audience. He would then rant about the devil using Obama to legalise homosexuality and abortion in America. My mother was a silent supporter of his unpopular ideologies but she was not in support of his distaste concerning my declaration to study artificial intelligence. My dad thought AI was the devil's instrument and it would be his greatest weapon during the great tribulation. By the way, I want to be a forensic scientist, an architect or maybe a computer programmer. Declaring for AI had just been a way to test my parents reaction at unpopular fields of study.

How did the hamper have anything to do with conspiracies?

Anytime my mother received edible gift items from friends, my dad would tell her to throw it away saying that they had invoked evil spirits into the food to initiate her into witchcraft or that they had used juju to take away her glory. He would then go on to talk about how he had countless spiritual battles at night because of her foolishness. I hated when he said such bullshit but there was nothing we could do. Sometimes I challenged some of his conspiracies but it always ended with a seventy two hour lecture on the true Christian experience and I mean literally. 

When my dad was asleep, my mother gave us a bar of chocolates each to spice up our new year. We wanted jollof rice and chicken for new year but my father said we were going to eat beans porridge and that was it. Moreover, there was no chicken at home to have jollof rice because he had refused to buy saying it was unhealthy and fish was a better option. I didn't eat the food though.

In the middle of eating the chocolate bar, my father suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started screaming. "You thought I was sleeping eh? Ojukokoro oshi! You cannot control yourself! You're so stupid!"

"How hard is it for you to make your children happy eh? They wanted rice, you said beans. You know they don't like it but you chose to spoil their happiness! You're the stupid one! Do you think just by giving them stipend money you make them happy? Where is their free will?"

I coughed at that statement.

My mother was the least person to talk about free will.

Anyways, my dad raised his hand to hit her as usual but didn't do it. He gave her a strong glare, collected the hamper package and walked away— only because we, the children were watching.

At night, he came into our room. I stayed up writing a poem for my English holiday assignment but I quickly shoved my school books away and turned off the screen of my phone. Closing my eyes tightly, I faced the wall with shaky breath. I knew what was going to happen next.

The consistent tapping on my mother's skin with his fingers made one of those irritable noises I couldn't stand but I had no choice but to endure it. I'm sure my mother opened her eyes at that point because she said, "kini?"

"Dide ni ibe yen!" He whispered harshly. I turned slightly, daring to open my eyes. He had her long relaxed hair in his hands and pulled her while she resisted silently.

"E fimile, e ma ji awon omo!" she whispered. "I'm working everyday to pay off the debt you refuse to pay yet all you can do is useless me at night and make me weak in the morning eh?"

He slapped her. "Gbenu so un! So because you paid a few bills you think you are the head of this home? I'm giving you one minute! If you're not in my room I will kill you today."

When they both left, I cried silently.

I know the curious part of you is asking questions like, "what happens in his room?" and so on and so forth.

The first time I knew it happened I was about nine years old. I was tender in age but I knew vividly what sex entailed. I knew what was consensual and what wasn't. I knew what rape was. Then, we lived in a one bedroom apartment. My father slept in the living room while the rest of us took the room.

At night, he called my mother to the living room which had poor soundproofing. I thought they had something important to discuss so I pretended to be asleep just to know the details of their conversation. At first they had a huge fight about her constant night vigils. Their conversation was in rushed and heated whispers of Yoruba so I couldn't understand much but a phrase I kept hearing from my dad was, "kilode ti mo ri egbo lori kòfẹ mi!"

During my teenage years, I came to understand what he meant that day. He was accusing her of going out to sleep with men and had caused him to have an infection.

After several arguments, he'd pushed her onto a chair. I had known because the sound was a very familiar one. A sound I heard often while playing rough with my sister. My mother sounded like she was choking as she had begged, "Please, I don't want to do this. I don't like it anymore. Just stop."

He told her to shut up and fulfill her duties as a wife.

Then, I was a little confused so I stood up from the bed and walked to the sitting room. There were no doors so sneaking out had been easy. Although, I wished I hadn't because even though it didn't change my opinion on sexual intercourse, what I saw scarred me for life.