The Girl with the Louding Voice(62)

Then she teach me the different in her own different and my own differenting.

That is how we are doing. We will start talking, then I will say something, she will twist her nose, begin to teach me, and then we just forget the thing we are talking about before.

But this evening, before we start our English lesson, I sit down on the floor beside her, say, “Ms. Tia? Mind I ask you something?”

“Yep,” Ms. Tia say. “Ask me anything.”

“Mind I ask you again why you change your mind about wanting childrens?” I say.

She sigh, pick a stone by her feets, throw it into the grass, then pinch her bottom lip with her teeths, bite it hard, and blink, blink, blink. “I told you how my mother was a tough woman,” she say. “She still is, but the sickness has softened her a bit, made her weak. My mother demanded perfection in every way. Over everything. As a child, I didn’t have friends. Every moment was spent studying. She wanted me to be an accountant. I hate numbers. She also wanted me to get married at twenty-two and have children immediately because she wanted to be a grandmother before a certain age. She insisted I move back to Port Harcourt after my studies, but I met Ken and moved to Lagos instead. My mother had a manual for how my life would go and I rebelled—got stubborn—at every decision she made for me. She made me so unhappy that I couldn’t imagine having a child and doing what she did to me to my own child. I didn’t think I would be a good mother. I didn’t even want to bring children into this world. I mean, look at the state of things! I was happy to voluntarily reduce our population to save our planet, so I spent a year traveling—before I met Ken—campaigning against population growth.”

She pause a little, steady her voice. “But when my mother got sick last year and was diagnosed as terminal, meaning she would not ever get better, I started to see her, to see things, in a slightly different light. Maybe the sickness softened her, but many times, she would cry and hold my hands, as if trying to say sorry for how things were with us. As I went back and forth to see her in Port Harcourt, especially over the last few months, I began to wish I had a baby to take along with me, to give my mother a reason to fight to live. I’ll be honest and say that it was always just a quick thought, never a strong enough urge to make me discuss with Ken or to change my mind. But the day we met”—she peep me, smile—“you said something about your father being a bit mean, but that did not stop you from loving him. You said you’d take your time to find a good man at the right time so that your children will enjoy what you didn’t. You made me realize that I could be a good mother. That I could choose not to be like my mother. You don’t know this, but what you said that day, it struck a chord inside of me. Made me dig up a long-buried desire.”

She face me, tears shining in her eyes. “And now, I know it is what I want. I cannot stop thinking about it, about having a little boy or girl, just one, because I still believe in my environmental causes.” She laugh soft. “I will raise my child in a loving, balanced home, and hope she can become as smart, intelligent, and amusing as you are.”

“You will be a good mama someday,” I say, blinking back my own tears, “like my own mama was. Ms. Tia, you are not like your mama. You are a good person.”

She take my hand, hold it tight, say nothing.

“What did the doctor think?” I ask. “About you changing your mind?” I take to calling her husband “the doctor” since she tell me about him. She doesn’t mind it.

“At first he wasn’t keen,” she say. “He got upset, said I was backing out of the plan. But we didn’t have an agreement as such. When we met, he said he didn’t want kids and I was cool with it, so we got married.” She smile a shy one, then say, “He’s come round now, we’re trying. I know it will happen.”

“Very soon,” I say.

She nod, give me my exercise book and biro. “Can we now get on with our work for today?”



* * *





Six nights have passed, and now I am in my room, reading the paper Ms. Tia give me.

She write ten sentences in the paper, and tell me to pick which one is correct English and which one is not correct English. I am sitting up on my bed, pencil in my hand, looking the paper, when I hear a noise in the back of the cupboard. Like a rat scratching his nails on the door.

I climb down from the bed, pick up one leg of my shoe, hold it. If that rat peep his head, I will smash it. I wait, breathing fast, quiet. The noise come again, a creak. It is coming from outside, behind my door. I turn to the door, pull it open.

Big Daddy is standing there, looking shock. He is wearing trousers, white singlet on top, slippers on his feets. His body have a smell, of too much drink.

What is he doing on this side? In the boys’ quarters?

“Adunni.” He keep his eye on the chest area of my nightgown. “How are you?”

“Sah?” I say, kneel and greet him, hold my nightgown with my hand, pull it close, covering my chest. “I am fine, sah. Good evening.” I remember what Big Madam say, her warning not to answer Big Daddy, so I stand to my feets, make to enter my room.

“Come back,” Big Daddy say, licking his top lip, and something full of hope die inside of me.

“Come here,” he say. “Don’t be afraid.”

I look to my left, my right. By now Kofi is sleeping deep, snoring.