Remember me (XIII)- Short story

Chapter 13

The Ghost Dad

1977

Christiana lived in her head, to a large degree most people do. But it was most pronounced with her. She wanted to be as successful as her only sibling, her brother. He excelled in virtually everything he started. His term results in secondary school were stellar on a regular basis and yet he was the toast of Methodist high school Lagos where he reigned supreme as the head boy.

Everyone loved him. The girls: his classmates, lapped every word he spoke like lost kittens, his teachers, especially the female ones found curiosity in his athleticism and couldn’t hide their admiration for his youthfulness. Their male counterparts imagined a younger version of themselves that yearned for his perfect masculinity. He behaved far older than his age and so earned respect with all and sundry.

But he had his flaws, after all no one is exactly perfect. No one saw the glint in his eyes whenever he looked at the girls walking around him. No one saw the struggles he had with keeping his raging sexual energy in check. No one saw the pain he endured when the girls touched him inappropriately during their brief conversations after school. He was imperfect after all.

Christiana loved her brother; he meant the world to her. Perfection was a word that exemplified everything about him. She adored him way beyond a sibling should, almost to the point of fantasy. He was all she had.

She wasn’t the best academically in her class and she didn’t earn as much attention as he did, but she was content being by herself.

She read books like they were going out of fashion. Outside school she learned everything about the world from scores of books she read while sitting on broken wooden benches in the school library. She had to contend with stubborn houseflies, army ants that fed on the wooden bench she sat on and the unforgiving heat that squeezed sweat out of her pores till evening.

Notwithstanding, she immersed herself in the pages of books on alien life forms, metaphysics, planetary bodies, Karl Marx theories, Ku Klux Klan, the Koran and others sacred books. Nothing was out of line for her since she had no one to guide her. She found her love for science and poetry within the walls of the library, and she spent more time on books around these subjects.

She became quite knowledgeable about a wide range of subjects and could speak intelligently with anyone for hours. But she was socially awkward and barely had friends. Her social skills were practically non-existent and she did not think anything of it during those early years. She spent most of her time by herself.

Inside that head of hers, thoughts bounced back and forth every day eliciting a grin on her face sometimes or even a subtle chuckle.

Only her brother paid heed to her nuances. Christiana therefore had a perfect friend and companion in her brother. They spent an awful lot of time together after school time. He was her only and best friend. He listened to her, he loved her, he protected her, and she owed everything to him.

Her brother’s name was Adetokunbo Dosunmu-Coker.

*******

1992

Christiana lived with her brother after she had completed her first degree from the university of Lagos. She had grown into a beautiful woman with the curves of sexiness in all the right places. Although she didn’t lack suitors during her years on campus, she found many of the bachelors that approached her lacking what she referred to as “depth” and unable to hold a meaningful conversation with her. It appeared all they wanted was sex and no matter how hard she stirred the conversation to her subject of interests, these cunning men always found a way to redirect the conversation to the subtlety of their sexual interest.

Her brother had inherited the grand mansion in Yaba after the demise of the University of London trained politician and nationalist, the colossus of the Coker dynasty, her father. The property was the finest in the neighborhood and the cynosure of all eyes. It stood tall at the time and was the popular landmark for locating other adjacent streets within Yaba.

“Turn to your left, you would see a big white house, count two street afterwards to your right and you are on Majekodunmi street.”

“Alight from the bus as soon as you see the big white mansion, then cross to the opposite side of the road, you would see my shop right ahead of you.”

“When you get on the street with the big house with a swing in front, ask for mama Ibeji.”

He lived there with his wife, Esther and their little daughter Ann, while she occupied the same small green room she had stayed all through her teenage years.

Adetokunbo had married his high school sweetheart, Esther and they lived a rather solitary life in the big house. Her brother spent most of his time sailing on the Yacht he inherited from their father. His boyhood fantasy was to ride on the Yacht with his father, but he never let him. Instead, his father held countless political meetings on the boat with his contemporaries while it sailed far into the Atlantic where the walls had no ears and the wind held no secrets.

In his increasing absence, Esther and Christiana became rather close friends. One could hardly tell that there was a three-year difference in age between them. They shopped together, cooked together while catching up on everything and nothing. They watched the television fashion shows together and spent a lot of time with Ann, the first grandchild of the Dosumu-Coker dynasty.

Esther was the sister she never had.

Adetokunbo spent more time on the boat than he did with his wife and their little daughter. He held raunchy parties on the boat with naked women of easy virtue. He made the wrong headlines in the gossip tabloids and held meaningless meetings with business associates trying to kill the chatter.

He often got back home very late, utterly drunk and out of control. It was usual to hear him saunter into the house in the dead of the night, reeking of alcohol and cigarette, sometimes he returned home almost naked and at other times he was found the next morning in deep snore and in contorted positions on the bare living room floor- the staircase was too much work for his tired body.

It was on one of those nights that all their lives changed forever.

*********

She was fast asleep when she felt his strong brawny hand touch her leg gently at first, before violently yanking her back into the moment with a strong tug. Even though the room was pitch dark, she knew it was him. In utter shock and in absolute terror, she tried to push him off her, but he was way too powerful for her. Her feeble efforts meant that she stood absolutely no chance of marshaling a resistance.

His eyes were glazed, and he reeked of alcohol so strong it hit her in the nostril faster than his body did.

She tried to scream, but his hand firmly clamped on her face did enough to turn them into weak squirms. There she laid in disbelieve as her virginity was taken away without the pleasure of love and its accompanying frills.

There was only one witness to the rape and she stood unmoved and in shock as she fought back tears that rolled down her face until she heard her daughter’s sudden cry from down the hallway.

It was indeed a sad night.

*******

The next morning Esther didn’t know what to believe. She spent the night crying, her eyes sore. It didn’t matter that her husband slept with women she knew nothing about, but it was not excusable that he slept with Christiana, his only sister. It was all just wrong.

While she hid behind the open crack of the door, It didn’t look like Christiana fought back enough, she imagined that they had probably been doing this for many years and she only just caught them while they were at it.

She had always wondered how the two siblings behaved like lovers when they were together. She saw the way they looked into each other’s eyes and how his sister adored her husband. They spent a lot of time together and talked for hours in that same room.

“What were they talking about for hours?” She just couldn’t fathom it.

“Now it all made sense.” She nodded her head repeatedly.

Christiana was secretly sleeping with her husband while she pretended to be her closest friend and ally. She knew what she was doing all along. The sly woman!

“She has to leave this house. There is no way I am going to allow this to continue.” Esther muttered under her breath.

Please continue the story here.