Finally, a story after so long. I wasn't sure my writing would come back. I believed I had grown so rusty and may never find my way back to words again. But I was wrong!
When I saw the Inkwell Prompt for this week, it all started rushing back.
The prompt is season of light. I love that this came especially now that I'm learning to write happy stories.
This is what I came up with.
I awoke in stages. First, to the warmth on my face. The feeling was unfamiliar and my mind couldn't quite process it as I turned and fell into a lighter sleep. Second, to voices. That was what jolted me fully awake. I opened one eye and the brightness of the sun made me close it back. The voices were getting familiar. I could recognise Nnenna's voice. Who didn't know Nnenna? She was the prettiest. But one voice made me smile. I opened both eyes, got up from the bed and staggered to the window. There she was. Jessica, my best friend.
The smile died as quickly as it came when I remembered that this was my final day here. Jessica was folding some clothes that were spread on the line just below the window while chatting with the other girls. The clock on the wall said 11:32AM. I never slept this late. They never allowed me to, neither have they let me have a room all by myself. But it was my last day after all.
My first day was still vivid in my memory. I was six and in my school uniform when they brought me. No one would tell me what happened. A woman I didn't know was accompanied by two police officers as they drove me without saying a word. She had introduced herself as Maggie. I would later find out that she was a social worker. They said my parents went away and wouldn't be coming back. It wasn't until four years later, when I turned ten, that I learned my parents had died that day. Big Mummy told me herself. She felt I was old enough to know the truth. Car crash, she had said. And that was it. She wasn't a talker.
Over the years, many girls had joined us. Some as infants, others a little grown like me. Jessica came before me as an infant. She was six months old when they found her close to the property. They said people did that all the time – leave their babies there, sometimes uncovered, before taking off. No one knew her name so Big Mummy named her Jessica. As if on cue, she looked up. “Come down,” she shouted and waved at me. I smiled and grudgingly left the window. I had to get ready. My real family would be coming later today.
--
The road was dusty and the air balmy when we left the city. It was harmattan, and that meant Christmas. I always had this theory that it was the population in Lagos that made harmattan mild. Millions of noses and thousands of houses always had a role to play. They suck up the air real fast. But here in Oraifite, my hometown, things were different. The air was chillier, the streets quieter.
Hometown sounded strange in my ears. I had never known any. The woman sitting besides me at the back of the car said she was my aunt. Somehow, I believed her. Her eyes had grown huge first, then soft when she saw me. She then turned to Big Mummy, “She's my niece?” she asked. Big Mother nodded. For the first time in my life, I felt shy and warm at the same time.
It was late in the evening when the car came to a stop in front of a small house. It was painted a dull yellow. The front walls were fake bricks. I knew this because one of the classrooms back at the orphanage had the same design. The familiarity made me smile. Flowers of different colours were planted from one end to the other. They looked more like protection than design. On the flowers, Christmas lights were blinking. A boy of about eight ran out before the driver could finish parking. On his head was a Santa Claus red and white hat.
“Mummy,” he screamed and ran to my aunt.
A man and an older woman came out next. I saw the man first. Body language told me that he was my aunt's husband. Then my eyes flickered over to the older woman and I froze. She was a spitting image of me, or was it the other way round? I watched her smile spread slowly on her lips. What happened next was a flash. I was in her arms sobbing my eyes out. She smelled of talcum powder. No one needed to tell me that she was my grandma.
--
“Merry Christmas, Adanna. Big Mummy said I can't visit till I'm eighteen,” Jessica was saying on the other side of the phone.
“Merry Christmas to you too. Yes, my aunt told me.”
“How's Christmas over there?”
“It's the best, Jess. The very best.”
“I knew it,” she sulked.
I laughed.
I looked at my dusty feet and sticky hands and laughed harder. My cousin and I had managed to open all the gifts. We almost spoiled the decoration on the tree in the process. The first days were sad. Grandma had told me how my mother had ran off with a boy when she turned twenty-one. She had known the boy all her life. When she got pregnant with me, grandpa still wouldn't give her hand in marriage. They woke up one morning only to discover that she was gone, so was the boy. Seventeen years later, they managed to trace me to the orphanage. My mother used write to my aunt twice a year. When she stopped writing, she knew something was wrong.
I still felt that there were some details grandma was keeping from me, but I didn't ask. I learned a long time ago to not ask too many questions. People would tell you at their own time. My goal now was to convince my aunt to take me to see Jessica since she couldn't come. She was the only person I could tell how happy I'd become. Also about the boy who lived in a house down my street and how my stomach had tightened the first time he smiled at me.
