The Question

“Run, run, keep running, don’t you dare stop, we’re almost there, just a bit more.”

She kept gulping in each breath as though they were the last she would take. She had been running for hours. The fear that kept tugging at her legs didn’t want to let go and for that she ran faster and faster, hoping that with the appropriate time and distance she would be able to run it off.

Nothing had been scarier than what she had seen in her father’s room that afternoon, nothing could take away the red blood on the caramel-colored couch, so bright and alive as that of fresh tomatoes.

And why the hell am I thinking of fresh tomatoes?! I gotta stay focused. She blinked the sweat that was pouring into her eyes and opened her eyes in shock.

The momentary loss of focus had her crashing into a tree she had not seen; the force was enough to push her backward, making her roll on the floor. Wounded, and gasping for breath. She felt a sting at her temple which made her wince. This wasn’t the time to have a picnic in the backyard, she couldn’t afford to waste more time. Rolling to her feet, she pushed her legs forward, her hands flapping by her side as she ran with the little strength she had. The drip of a sticky substance on her eyelashes made her wonder if it was raining, but it was not raining. The drop had come from the cut. This was bad, she didn’t need this at the moment. That was the last thing she could afford. It was blood, she felt for it and saw that it was very red, just like mom’s lipsti… she fainted.

“Let go of her! All she did was answer the pastor’s question in your stead. She did nothing to deserve these beatings. Leave her alone!” Clara shouted and shouted to no avail. If anything the beatings only increased.

“So you mean to tell me that I shouldn’t correct your mother when she makes a stupid mistake like the one she did today?! She embarrassed me in front of all the men in the luncheon. Every other wife stayed quiet but your stupid mother had to prove to everyone that she was smart, thereby relegating me to the shadows. Do you know how little, how degraded, how small I felt?! Do you??? Well no, because you’re a woman. Only a man can understand something like this.”

The sound of someone apologizing permeated Clara’s foggy brain, as she wondered what was going on and who had thankfully woken her up from the dreadful dream she was having. Squinting her eyes against the sun that poured in through the window, she felt a throbbing headache that made her wince and turn away from the bright light. “Where the hell am I?” She asked herself, as her mind slowly caught up with her body. It was only when things were clear that the fear she had felt before overcame her once again.

She turned to look at him but turned away sharply after remembering the vivid, bloody images she last saw of her mom because of him. She mumbled a “good afternoon sir” and was

about to pretend to be feeling sleepy when she remembered her mom again. She sharply turned to her father to ask him about her when she felt a very strong feeling of light-headedness and

had to get herself back before questioning him.

“Where is she? How is she doing? What did the doctor say?!” With each question, the tone of her voice kept increasing, as did her volume, “Talk to me dad!!”.

At that point Mr. Austin could no longer take it, rivers started streaming down his eyes and he kept shaking as he didn’t know how to explain to his fifteen-year-old daughter that she had just lost her mother right when she needed her the most because he was an egoistic bastard, an excuse for a man, a disgrace for a father.

No. I cannot allow her to see me all weak and emotional like this. I need to man up and answer her questions level headed. And he replied to her point-blank, “She’s dead”.

Clara fainted again.

Growing up Clara always thought and felt that a female could never be better than a male at anything because it was what her father recited to her mom everyday and she believed him. As

a child, she watched her mom who was a successful doctor resign from work right before she got promoted to being a consultant and she had believed her mom quit because the job was too

difficult for a “weak” being like a woman to handle. Her father was very good with his daily sexist lecture sessions (as she later liked to call them) and she, the ever-brilliant student that she was, learned quite well.

At school, she didn’t bother competing with the boys. Whenever a competition was staged between both sexes she would gently back out because she believed no matter how good she was (and she knew she was smart) she could never beat them, but whenever there was a competition among girls she would shine ever so brightly.

Denise noticed this and called her daughter for a talk. Denise was vibrant and very intuitive. She could sense things that mere men couldn’t and she was incredibly smart. She wasn’t particularly beautiful facially but there was this quiet, intelligent aura she naturally gave off that attracted people to her, in addition to the fact that she had the perfect shape of an African woman; from the full bust to the wide, curvy hips that were linked by a slim waist, flat tummy and finished off with a beautiful behind. Nothing spells out Africa like Afro hair and she had full, soft, dark, curly hair to finish her African woman look.

“Clara dear, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about; something I’ve noticed over the years. You have never invited me to any school competition that you went against a boy, they’ve always been girls, love. You do know that you can also compete with boys right? You also know that you’re smarter than all the boys I’ve seen in your class and if you go against them you’d beat them hands down yeah?”

Clara was in her room remembering her last talk with her mom, the Saturday before the Sunday her parents went to the church’s couples luncheon and her mother had been killed by her father because she “disgraced” him in public by answering the question the pastor directed at the both of them.

It had been years since her mother’s death but the first fifteen years of her life with her mom were still very clear in her head. She had gone past crying, past denial, and had come to accept that she was all alone in the world. Growing up she didn’t bother having friends, her mom was enough and even though her work didn’t allow her free time, she counted the seconds till whenever she returned and kept herself busy with books.

It is probably why I turned out a Mel-phleg. I have the worst temperament blend ever.

She sighed and continued her monologue, I’m twenty-five and I still don’t have a decent job, I am married but unhappy. John won’t let me take the job Shell is offering me because he knows I’ll be making five times his salary every month and believes a woman should never earn higher than her husband, but I’m tired. I’m tired of paying rents, commuting on commercial buses that have screaming conductors, and not being able to provide my daughter with everything she needs. I can bear everything else but being an incompetent mom? No, that I can’t handle. I need to talk to John again. I still have two weeks to convince him to let me take the job. I don’t just want this job, I need this job.

John came back early from work that evening and she inwardly thanked him for it. The only job John had permitted her to take was that of a secretary in a law firm. The pay was ok if she was a spinster with a B.A degree but she was a mom with a Masters degree in Law and she couldn’t continue belittling herself the way she was doing now.

She allowed him to have his bath and dinner, then she waited for her daughter to go to bed. Just in case he flips again. I don’t want her crying to bed tonight, thinking we’re quarreling again, She sighed as she went over the entire scenario she had formulated in her mind for the thousandth time, covering all corners so she’ll be able to get him to at least listen to her, so she can convince him to permit her to take the job without raising his voice and waking her baby.

“John dear, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. It’s a topic we’ve discussed and you dismissed before but we really need to discuss it now”.

John shifted his focus from the news he was watching and looked her square in the face, “if I dismissed it, I dismissed it. Why are you bringing it up now? Why do you like to vex me so? Why do you always like to question my authority?”.

She wasn’t surprised at his outburst, she was used to it now so she went on ahead as though he had not shouted her down. She decided to tread more cautiously since he was already riled up.

“My love, I could never question your authority and stand as the man of this house but I really need to discuss this issue with you.”

Looking irritated but calmer, “And what could be so important that you had to interrupt my news time?”.

Thankful that he had calmed down and was ready to hear her out, she calmly tried to explain herself. “My crown, while I was arranging the rooms this evening I did a lot of thinking and realized that we have a lot of needs to take care of and not enough resources”.

Eyeing her, he asked her in a calmer voice, ” And what might those needs be that I am not taking care of?”

She had gotten him right where she wanted him. She knew he would calm down when he heard that fulfilling his duties as a man.

“My husband, I got the mails today and I saw that we’re six months behind in rent and haven’t paid Lulu’s school fees. I also thought that persons of our caliber ought not to commute to work via public transport the way we do and I thought that if I took the job Shell offered me, we could pay Lulu’s school fees and the rent with my first salary, get a small car with the second salary, luckily for us my workplace, yours and Lulu’s school are on the same route so we can all go out together in the mornings, then you can pick Lulu on your way back. I’ll commute back since there’s less traffic on the road when I close.”

John could not believe his ears. His wife was literally telling him how to run his house, his own house. He wasn’t going to allow a woman to tell him how to run his home.

“Clara, I appreciate the fact that you worry about the wellbeing of everyone in the family but let me make you understand that it is not your job to do the thinking in this family, leave that to me OK? I’ll sort out the rent and Oluchi’s school fees within the next three months, as for commuting, we’ll just have to continue that way until God does a miracle in our lives.”

Clara couldn’t take it anymore. Her daughter was about to be sent back home from the nonsense school that wasn’t even up to standard but she had to manage because of the condition and they were gonna get a quit notice from the landlord soon if they didn’t pay up their debt, not to mention the headache she had to deal with from commuting to and from work every day. She sighed, she couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Tight-fisted and teary-eyed she did something she had never done before; she shouted at her husband. It was the first time she ever stood up to a male in her entire life, but she regretted her actions as quickly as she enjoyed it as she got two simultaneous slaps across her face that made her forget where she was for a few seconds.

He shouted back at her, “Who the hell do you think you are to shout at? Me?!”

It was the shock from the fact that her husband had hit her, rather than the slap itself that weakened her. Her marriage wasn’t what anyone would refer to as “goals” but she was eternally grateful that he wasn’t physically abusive like her father was to her mom.

For her, that was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. She walked into her room and took a long look at herself in the mirror. The person looking back at her looked defeated and worn out from many years of verbal and mental abuse. Still looking at her reflection her mother’s image formed behind hers and put its hands on her shoulders. She suddenly felt a calming sensation all over her body and she found herself remembering the question her mom had asked her a decade before. She was too timid to answer then because of the inferiority complex she felt, but surprisingly that feeling was no longer felt now.

She looked at herself and asked the question “Who are you?”

All images are gotten from unsplash.com, free for commercial use.