WE LOST PAPA TO THE COLD HANDS OF DEATH TODAY!

Neighbours rushed in when they heard my mother sobbing. Our landlord, Mama Ejima, was the first to arrive. No surprise there; that one was always the first to know what was going on in the compound. Sometimes I wonder if she always slips on her slippers and dashes to the scene of the current drama. Maybe it was in her job description. Uncle Caleb, a young medical student, soon arrived, followed by two other women. I didn’t recognise them, but one of them attempted to block my view of Papa’s lifeless corpse.

I had been staring at the body because I couldn’t figure out how someone who had been agile and lively seconds before lay unmoving in the midst of all the noise and turmoil.Someone (I can’t remember who) led me to my parents’ room and told me to stay there. My little brother was fast asleep on the bed, completely unaware that he had just lost his father. After all, he was only a child. I took a look around the room, which I’d been in a thousand times before. It was cold and unfamiliar today.”My enemies have finally succeeded!” “Ugochukwu, it’ll never be well with whoever did this to you,” Mama yelled from time to time. I could tell we had more visitors since there was a lot of shuffling of feet.

As I sat on the bed, my gaze was drawn to a photograph of my parents taken the same year they had me. They appeared delighted, and Mama appeared much younger—like a child bride. I remembered how many times Papa had accused her of tying him down with pregnancy whenever they fought. The battles had gotten more regular recently, and I think I saw a bruise on Mama’s jaw once. I never inquired because I did not wish to know. All that mattered to me was that Papa was a decent father.

I’m not sure when they moved his body, but when I glanced through the curtains, Papa was no longer there. Mama was still on the floor, rolling and lamenting that God had abandoned her. The women were struggling to keep her still.

“You must be strong for your children now; they are all you have.” It was the landlady who was trying to console her. I locked my gaze on Mama for a long time. I was curious as to what was going through her head. Seventeen years of marriage had ended. How did she intend to raise two children on her own in the absence of a relevant business or job?

“Nna m come,” Mama said when she turned around and spotted me. When I got close enough to her, she grabbed my hand and pulled me into her embrace. Her shrieks had been reduced to sad sobbing. I clutched her hand tightly, hoping to sense some form of connection, but all I felt was hatred. I wondered if she had ever been happy in her fifteen years of marriage. I pondered what was going through her head once more, and for the umpteenth time, I wondered whether she knew I had watched her poison him.