Hello everyone! Happy Valentine’s day. We hope you are spreading love wherever you are. No matter how little, no matter how small. Spread love. This love doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship. Cherish the people around you and do good. You might be a blessing to someone somewhere. Enjoy this beautiful story by Enyo Akor and don’t forget to comment and share.
Ayo and Esther
The early rays of sunlight streaming in from the window tease his eyelids and he awakes, albeit sluggishly. He rubs his eyes squinting at the clock to ascertain what time it is. 7:30. He nods to himself and lets his eyes drift to the figure on the bed. A limp limb hangs from the side of the bed, twitching and he rises from the mattress to address the patient on the bed. Setting himself on the mattress, he grasps the frail hand in both of his. Large, bright eyes gaze back at him from the pale, drawn face and he leans forward to place a kiss on her forehead.
“You’re up early”, he muses quietly.
She squints. You have morning breath.
He laughs quietly and he can see in the twinkling of her eyes that she’s laughing too.
He says nothing after that, content with the silence and with staring outside the window, thinking. It is the third month now- the third month since she has been here, in this bed like this; the third month since the makeshift bedroom, made up of a mattress and clothes and books had become his home; the third month since she had her stroke. The doctors say that it is uncertain if she will recover or if she will not and he stays here, day in day out, holding her hand, willing her to get through this, willing her to survive. He can see in her eyes that she is willing herself to survive too, not for herself, but for him. Because he needs her, and she knows he does.
Her hands twitch slightly in his, to catch his attention, and he turns to face her, his brow arching slightly in question. Her eyes narrow as her lips struggle to form a syllable.
“S…” she manages to emit and her fingers twitch sporadically.
He sighs. She insists on revisiting the school issue, despite the numerous times that he has told her that he will not leave her side until she’s better. He has already missed a whole term anyway; there would be no point now. They had tried, in the beginning- his brothers and sisters- to coerce him from her side. One by one, they had come- all five of them- to try make him see reason and convince him to not waste months at her bedside, but his resolve had only become stronger and he fixed them with that cold glare, one by one, until they gave up and let him be. His father had come too, with threats and warnings, but he had kept his back to the offending man and his offending presence, ignoring him until he left as well.
Her fingers twitch in his hands again, to bring him back to the present and her narrowed eyes glare at him, demanding an answer to her question.
He lifts his free hand to trace a scar on her forehead, left there by his father.
“We’ve talked about this. No school for me until you are better.”
He wants to monitor every minute of her progress. He wants to be the first to know, apart from the nurses and doctors of course, the new things she can do, the new things her body can take.
Her fingers twitch again and her eyes narrow and widen in various degrees. He laughs. She is, in her voiceless, unique way, warning him and he wonders just how much trouble he will be in when she gets better and will be actually able to speak. The fire in her eyes dulls and she gazes at him for a long moment. He forces his head to turn to the window- he does not want to answer the question her eyes ask.
What if I don’t get better?
He has asked himself the same question hundreds of times. But there is never any answer- only a fear that grips his heart and squeezes and squeezes until he starts to hyperventilate and has to find his inhaler.
When he comes back from dinner – a tasteless meal of rice and stew in the hospital cafeteria – a banana in hand, her bed is up and her eyes are gazing straight into his. He smiles.
“I brought you a banana”, he mutters and her eyes dance. They both know she cannot eat it, but it is their daily routine, to preserve the normalcy that has slowly leaked out of their lives. He will eat it the next morning, while the fluids that keep her nourished seep into her veins from the drip-attached needle.
Striding over to the bed, he picks up the progress sheet – the doctors’ subtle way of telling him how she’s doing – and flips through it, his eyes not comprehending, and mind unwilling to comprehend the words on them. He has studiously avoided the doctors’ rounds after their first week of being there. It irked him, as he quickly discovered, to stand quietly in a corner, while the poked and prodded and spoke of her as if she were not a living, breathing human being- one who could hear them at that! He sits on the side of the bed and grasps her hand in both of his, staring into her eyes. Her eyes are dim, he notices, despite the fact that she is making the conscious effort to avoid his gaze and he wonders what the doctors said. The fear grips his heart again and he looks to the pile of books on the floor, letting the thoughts of what he is going to read to her tonight overshadow the more serious and more foreboding ones.
He has just picked up a book, and her eyes have lit up just a fraction when the door creaks open and a doctor pokes her head in. She smiles- a fake stretching of lips over her teeth that doesn’t quite reach her eyes- and asks if she can speak to him outside. When he steps out, he woman’s smile has disappeared and she speaks to him briskly- in the tone of an adult addressing a child who does not seem to know his place.
“Call your father”, she is saying and he can only stare.
He wants to tell her he doesn’t have a father. That one does not call a man who has beaten his mother before his very own eyes, time and again, a father. That one does not call a man whose only acknowledgement of one’s existence is grunts and looks of disdain, a father. That one cannot possibly hate one who he is supposed to call father. But he says nothing. He has never been good with words, and he doubts this woman, whose eyes are hidden behind glasses as thick as window louvers, would understand the method of communication he prefers. And when she sighs at his obvious distraction and asks for his father’s number, he gives her his sister’s number instead and turns and walks into the room, wondering why she is still talking to him.
She gazes at him enquiringly when he steps back in, and he mutters quietly that it was nothing serious.
Her eyes narrow. You’re lying.
He ignores her, picks up Jane Eyre and begins to read aloud from where they left off the night before. He doesn’t like classics- he prefers the drama and action of Sidney Sheldon and John Grisham to old English romance- but it’s her favourite, and he intends to keep her occupied. He has just gotten to the part when Jane’s wedding to Mr. Rochester is interrupted when he notices that her eyes are closed and her breathing has slowed. He stares at her for a long moment, reveling in the peaceful slope of her brow, the tiny lift of both sides of her lips and tells himself valiantly that the woman with the glasses was wrong.
When he lies on his make shift bed, tossing and turning, the woman’s voice echoes in his head.
She doesn’t have much longer. Call your father.
He awakens to the feeling of someone stroking his arm. He knows, without opening his eyes, that it is her. The methodic pattern bespeaks her precise manner, her perfectionist personality. When he opens his eyes, the moonlight is streaming through the window, making her glow in an ethereal manner, and she is smiling at him, not with her eyes, but with her mouth and he thinks immediately that something is wrong. He starts to ask why she is out of bed when she silences him with a finger to his lips and stares deep into his eyes.
I’m leaving.
Don’t be silly. You can’t go anywhere.
I love you.
It’s not funny.
Take care of yourself.
His eyes droop as she leans forward to place a kiss on his forehead, and his last thought before the realm of unconsciousness claims him, is that she hasn’t smelt like flowers he cannot name in a long, long time.
The early rays of sunlight streaming in from the window tease his eyelids and he awakes, albeit sluggishly. He rubs his eyes squinting at the clock to ascertain what time it is. 10:30. He nods. There is a loud, rasping sound in the room, and it takes a moment for him to process that someone is crying. He lifts his head and notices that he is not alone. There are five other people in the room; four staring at the bed with blank expressions and one sprawled across the figure on it, sobbing profusely. He stares at his siblings in consternation, wondering why they are here. It is a weekday, if his memory of the time he has not been keeping track of serves him correctly. They never visit on weekdays. He starts to ask what the matter is when his eldest brother notices him and beckons him outside.
The words tumble out of his brother’s mouth- her vitals had dropped suddenly; she was gone before the doctors could do anything about it; how it was okay if he wanted to cry. He only stares, waiting for his brother’s rambling to cease, waiting for him to say it in plain words.
“She’s gone. Mummy is gone’, his brother says quietly, at last.
He nods and turns around and goes back into the room, leaving a confused man in his wake.
He does not cry.
He simply walks into the room, picks up a banana that had been on the table beside the bed and begins to eat it slowly, methodically.
They misunderstand and explain to him slowly, that his mother is dead; he will never see her again; feel her warmth again; hear her voice again.
But he does not cry. He only turns to them and explains, in a voice that is almost amused, that he understands what it means for someone to be dead.
They misunderstand. His sister draws him to her chest, squishing his head between her breasts, ordering him to “let his emotions out”.
But he does not cry. He only points out, his voice muffled, that he would do a better job of letting his emotions out if he is alive and not suffocated to death.
They misunderstand and mutter to each other that he must be in shock, that he will come around eventually, and resort to telling him stories of his mother that they are sure will let out his “pent-up emotions”.
But he does not cry.
He only listens quietly, waiting to explain to them, that one cries when they feel pain. And he does not feel pain. But a fear has gripped his heart and it squeezes and squeezes until he starts to hyperventilate and he reaches for his inhaler.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
He meets her years later, at the party of a friend. She is leaning against the counter in the kitchen, eyes fixed on a spot on the floor. He gazes at her until she looks up and, while her face remains perfectly blank, her eyes question his perusal. It is those eyes- large, brown and captivating- that draw him to her side and cajole him to do something he is not fond of doing.
‘I’m Muyi”, he mutters, holding out his hand.
Her eyes- he cannot bring himself to gaze away- smile and she says “I’m Toro.”
She takes his hand and the world around him fades, save her eyes- her eyes that speak a language he has almost forgotten.
That night, for the first time in years, he does not have the nightmare where his mother’s ghost strokes his hand methodically and smells like flowers he cannot name.
