As I grab my bag and start to leave I turn back and spit on my father's grave.
I am 11 and just about to finish primary school
It is 5 pm and I finally ascend the stairs that lead to flat 13
I am eager to remove the sand from my cortina shoes
and the Ugo C. Ugo textbooks
Threatening to tear my bag and hunch my back
I hear it...
A constant thudding...
Small whimpers
Cries of please stop...I hear stupid…I hear useless...I
hear you and your stupid children always needing
money for something
I am fifteen and have just kissed my first boy
Even let him touch my breasts
I am coming back from my little rendezvous with Tade
Trying desperately to be as silent as possible
Willing the gate not to make a sound…I am sure no
one will be around though
She travelled and he is never home
It is then that I hear it
Eerie sounds like that of a child
Sounds not unlike those I made when Tade's mouth
Enclosed around my left nipple
I peep and see that he is moving on top of a woman
Whose skin, burnt clay, is nothing like her perfect
yellow
And just as I walk in
My father climaxes
But it is shocking that I am 19 when I notice the
alcoholism
The constant smell of cheap bear…
The hidden bottles at different spots in the house
It is while searching for the bottles
That I see the documents
The arrest for drunk driving
The picture of the boy who was hit
The money paid to the family
The quick cover up
The efficient bribing
I am 21 the first time that I speak out
I am fresh out of Unilag
Second class upper in political science
Head filled with feminist theories and gender equality
And I speak out
After twenty years of silence
Of cruelty and wickedness
Of insensitivity
Of his total disregard for her
Of his failure as a father
And pathetic excuse as a husband
I don't see him when he comes
I only hear the slap
I hear ungrateful...sorry excuse for a daughter
And he is kicking me...pushing me through the
gate…throwing out my things
She doesn't say anything, my mother
Just pretends nothing happened
And brushes lint from her skirt
I am 34 and a junior lecturer in a University
With 2 failed marriages and a cynicism and deep
distrust for men
I get a letter and the spidery penmanship tells me it is
my mother…
My father is dead she says...heart attack…knows I
won’t come…just letting me know
I don't know if it’s her words that trigger it
Or if it's the memory of the man that abused her
But I am crying...loud throaty sounds unlike me
I am crying but not for the man
I am crying for her
For her frightening silence…
Her love for a man who never loved her
I am 43 when I can stomach a visit to the old house
I am shocked at how unchanged it looks
Apart from the yellow paint peeling from the walls
Then the obvious look of abandonment since she
relocated
The memories come and suffocate me
I can feel the tears forming deep in my throat
A vision of him naked...of hitting my mother...coming
back drunk…throwing me out
I buy no flowers on my way to the cemetery
I am staring for what seems like hours on the plaque
Beautiful father...loving husband...missed forever
The people beside me are shocked when I start to
laugh at the irony
As I grab my bag and start to leave
I turn back and spit on my father's grave
Chinelo Nwangwu is a 500-level student of the Department of Petroleum Engineering, Faculty of Technology University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State.
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