Omo Ale

“Yéèèè!”

She clutched her cheeks like the shoe had landed on her face. It hadn’t. The scream that reverberated through the living room, however, had come from her.

The living room looked like a battleground, three kids behind the mother, one behind the father. She wished they didn’t have to pick sides but they did what had to be done. She darted her eyes towards the phone that pew pew sounds were coming from and at the boy holding it while crouching behind his father.

This boy, what was he thinking?

Well, she knew what he was thinking. He thought he was securing his future, one of limitless freedom and zero discipline, by picking his father. He would soon find out why they all stayed behind their mother, she just hoped it wouldn’t be too late.

“Bọ́ s’íta, ìwọ àti àwọn ọmọ àlè játijàti tí o k’ójọ yẹn.”

“Get out, you and those bastard kids behind you.”

She was so used to speaking English at home, she almost didn’t register what he had just called them. Almost. It was figurative but she knew none of them looked like their father. He was light and of average height while they were all black, beautiful, and tall like their mother. She couldn’t pick a part of her that resembled her father. She had done genetics in Biology, maybe her mother had all the dominant genes.

He threw the second shoe. She knew him to always try to suppress his violence and simply hurl hurtful words that could bring down anyone’s self-esteem instead. So, today she was surprised, and she found it a little funny. Maybe they would eventually get a divorce, it was best for everyone. Except for this boy, she sighed and tried to signal him with her eyes. She wished he could decipher her look which was supposed to mean,

“Don’t be stupid, you know he won’t take care of you. Come over to the other side”.

He looked at her and looked away. Everyone told her that her eyes were powerful, that they spoke volumes, that they were mysterious, and that they could read things in them. Everyone but her brother, of course. She sighed again. He was never the brightest bulb in the box.

She didn’t want her mother to apologize today, not for leaving the house without telling him. She hated it when she succumbed to his words, his dehumanizing act, his degrading actions. Her inability to explain tore at her heart and made her avow over and over that she would never get married. Everyone thought one form of abuse was greater than the other but she knew that it didn’t matter.

She knew the kinds of insecurities and low self-esteem that she and her sisters lived with. She knew how hard they found it to trust, how paranoid they were around men. To think she once respected this man, that she once loved him. At least, that was what they told her. She had locked up that part of her memory. Alongside many other hurtful ones.

Finally, her mother looked up and she held her breath and she prayed with all her heart. Please don’t let her apologize. Please don’t let her apologize.

Her mother lowered herself to the ground, brought them all down with her, to their knees.

“I’m sorry. We are all sorry”

And the nightmare started all over again.

-Yéèè (yoruba)- Well, a scream..?

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