Potential

“What do you mean we can’t go to school today mom?” I shouted from my room as I picked up my pink backpack and headed downstairs again hoping I had not forgotten any other thing. This morning was something else,felt a lot like I had woken up in an alternate universe,everything was going sideways. For starters mom woke up by few minutes past 7. Though I noticed last night that she seemed to be having a meltdown,I didn’t think it was that big a deal, well turns out it was.She got fired. “Fired???!”I had asked when she told us after she came down to find I and Humble on the dining table ready to eat an unprepared breakfast. The funny thing about the situation was that she didn’t seem to notice us or the fact that we were already both set for school but we had nothing to eat yet. She looked devastated.She opened the refrigerator and reached for the vodka she normally kept for visitors,opened it and poured herself a nice cup. I and humble looked at each other in astonishment knowing fully well that mom does not drink,she hates the taste and she’d never drink in our presence and we knew for a fact that something was wrong.

“What’s the problem mommy?” Humble asked as she took the last gulp from her cup. Humble has always been more out spoken than I am,I would have never asked.She gave him a stern look laced with a confused one as though the question just jolted her back to reality. “Uuhm uuhm baby...”she stammered and bit down on her lip like she was trying to arrange the words that would come out of her mouth. “I got fired” she finally let it out like she decided there was no need trying to sugar coat the words. She took in our verbal and in-verbal expressions of confusion and surprise by just nodding her head.

A lot of thoughts ran through my head at that moment, I mean what are we supposed to do now, what about school? Are we poor now? Will we keep getting snacks or are we going to be like Angelica in my class now who never comes to school with snacks and is always late....Will mom have to sell her car now? Will we walk to school? Oh my God I was having a mental breakdown. At that point I looked at the wall clock and saw that it was already almost 7:30. As though he read my mind Humble said “mom we are late for school, will you drop us off?” Unreasonable as that sounded, it was the thought on both our minds and we both looked at mom expecting a response. She waved her hand motioning us to go do our final preparations. I could see tears forming in her eyes. I knew she just remembered my dad but I felt helpless towards the situation.I wanted to go hug her and to tell her everything was gonna be alright the way she normally does for me when I am not okay but there was something holding me back , there is always something holding me back.

I started moving upstairs slowly and eventually hastened up. We’d all forgotten that we were supposed to eat. On my way to my room to get my socks and shoes I stopped as I heard mom finally pick up her phone that started ringing the moment I turned my back on her.

“Hello nne” I instantly knew she was talking to Aunty Nneka, her best friend. She waited a while before she spoke again probably listening to Aunty Nne’s Advice. Then I heard her speak again though quite incoherently. I found it hard to make out the words because she was switching between the Igbo language and the English language but I could tell it was about her boss and his sexual advances towards her “he is a big, fat, old fool!!!” She yelled in between tears then started releasing curses. “It will never be well for him

Because of the tears of a widow which he was the cause of, there is nothing he will put his hands in that will prosper

A man my husband called friend

A man that will come to my house with his entire family when I had just my daughter and I’d feed them on a Sunday morning

Him, his wife and their seven dwarfs

I’d package more food for them to take home

God will punish him

This man almost raped me and when I was able to run away from him he fired me

Took food from the mouths of I and my children

He will suffer

His daughters will experience the assault he wanted to give me

Nothing and nobody from his household will prosper”

I could hear and feel all her emotions at that moment as she was hit the tiled floor with her bare palms at the end of every curse. I could imagine she was already sitting on the bare floor in reckless abandon.

My mother wailed for the world to hear her voice. I knew she was bittered from this experience and she hated her boss and hated herself for ever caring for him and his family.

My mother’s boss was my father’s best friend from primary school. They did everything together and even got married at the same time. The only difference was that my parents were into family planning and what not while Mr. Uwa and his wife could care less. Though seven wasn’t really what they’d planned but their first set of triplets though unplanned,they accepted them as Gods gift and since they planned on having five children, they just thanked God for three at once. What they did not know was that God had a lot more in stock for them when Mrs. Uwa or Aunty U as we fondly called her took in again and produced 4 children at once.

You’d think they must have learnt their lessons by now but Last time I saw Aunty U she was pregnant again.

The triplets though are older than I am while I am the same age with the quadruplets.

“Oh God” I said in a whisper when I heard Humble’s room door close. I ran into my room put on my socks and shoes packed my bag, ran downstairs again to find my locker key forgetting my bag upstairs and I had to go back to get it. On my way up Humble shouted toward me “ Mom said we can’t go to school today” And to me, that was just wrong. “My Daniel” I whispered under my breath.