"You have to recount it," that was what my elder sister said, while her voice was already low, with her eyes filled with benefit of a doubt, watching Pamela, our house help, hands shaking slightly as she poured the money and some coins from the big mug jar our parents had kept for years on the white freezer in the dining room for some quick house expenses like little errands for transport, buying of bread, pure water, snacks, and change for the service people.
Two thousand five hundred naira had already gone missing. That was not a small amount of money, especially in our house where every note and coin in the jar is being accounted for like a bank manager giving accounts of all the money in his vault.
Pamela had already been in our house for a year by that time, gentle, hardworking, and hardly talking unless we talked to her even though we had taken her as one of us. She was standing by the entrance of the kitchen near the dining room that evening with her hands clasped in front of her, not trying to defend herself, not giving a way out, just taking in all my sisters' questions with a non-repulsive attitude that made me misjudge her that time.
What kept coming from her mouth was, "I don't know, Aunty," and each time she voiced that out, it was as if my sister's face became more angry.
"Why won't you know? Everyone who has ever taken money from this jar without it being accounted for has always been unknown," my sister responded, and told her she only had just two days to return the money before our parents come back from the place they travel to, or else she will tell them and they will have to tell those people who brought her in, her agents.
I was watching her closely from where I was, without saying anything because in my mind, I had already misjudged her as the one who took it. A small amount had also gone missing like that in the past; no one was held accountable for it, no one was blamed or challenged, and it was let go.
Just before my parents came back, my sister sent me to Pamela's room downstairs to call her for dinner because she made dinner that very night. Opening her room door, I found her at the edge of her bed while counting the exact same crumpled notes onto a brown envelope paper with some numbers on it that I don't even know what they are. When I entered, she didn't flinch or hide.
She looked at me and said, "I want to send it to my mother; she has been on dialysis for some months now, and I don't want to ask anyone for help again. I have asked for help from your family so many times already."
Right before anyone could notice, and after my sister finally noticed, she had been removing small amounts from the jar, always meaning to replace it before anyone could discover, and always calculating when her salary would be paid for her to cover up her tracks, but my sister's caught up with her arithmetic this time. This time, the numbers simply hadn't tallied in time.
I kept it to myself and refused to relay what I saw Tommy's sister do that evening. I thought about it for a day, ashamed of how fast I had assumed the worst about Pamela, who had done a lot of things for me within her year with us without complaining and never once been angry or mistreated us.
Eventually, the truth was revealed, and my family covered the cost of her mother's hospital bills and never mentioned what she did again. Pamela is still in our house and doing her things.
Even though I was right, what I kept on thinking about was how I noticed how easily I was right in my mind when my sister was asking her without any evidence; I felt the guilt of my own assumption and how much she must have taken in, especially since no one ever brought up the topic about her family to even get to know that her mother was sick.
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