My mother would have been happier if she were a widow. But a woman with a husband, who was not there, she looked more like a bat surprised by sunlight.


* * * *


When you're fifteen and in the full grip of adolescence, your mother's nakedness is not the best thing to behold.

So, when my mother ran out of her room stark naked and screaming at the top of her lungs I'd felt a stirring that leaves me flush with shame when I recollect it.

I found her a wrapper then Meze and I tip-toed into her bedroom. Uncle John lay naked, his bulk filling up the bed.

He was naked save for the condom that covered his erection like a shroud. Meze had covered him up while I stood there shivering and sobbing.

And today, years later when I think of that scene I remember two things - his condom-ed manhood and the thought that occurred to me before grief settled over me - his erection looked really small.


* * * *


We left No 56 soon after.

There were too many sniggers tugging at our sleeves as we walked past and many eyes that suddenly began to look every where else but at us.

And then Uncle John's wife came to see the woman who had fucked her husband to death. "Where's your mother?" she asked.

"She's not at home."

"So, your mother is the ashewo who killed my husband?" she asked before I shut the door on her and the neighbours that had gathered.

We left No 56 soon after.


* * * *


Today, Meze is married and my mother is dead. When her bed stopped to creak, her heart began to slow.

I am not married but once a week I visit a widow and act as father to her only son.

I wear a bushy beard, I nurse a small paunch and I carry an old and bulging briefcase in memory of the only father I knew.