One Black Monday (2)

She wanted to smash the bottle on my father’s head but she missed it by whiskers. The bottle came heavily down my younger brother’s head.

The shattered pieces fell onto the floor like confetti. That did it. He continued,  “Samson fell flat on his stomach and lay there motionless. Blood immediately began to drip down his head like ink from a broken biro. The world stood still for all of us as we stared blankly at my brother not knowing what to do.

The mother, now.conscious of her action, shamefully screamed,

“Hey! my God!”  exasperatedly with her palms covering her mouth. “I have killed my son. I have killed my son. God, I have killed him.”

As she wailed, my father quickly gathered Samson from the floor and off he went with him into the car. My brother’s uniform was soaked with blood. He was motionless. Helplessly, we all watched as my father drove madly out of the estate.

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Expectedly, there ended the plan to be in.school that day but the worst still loomed around the corner. ” We did not go to school that day and none of us had the appetite for food. We didn’t go the day after. The week went by with bitterness in our hearts.

My brother Samson was a very intelligent boy. He was always coming first in his class. Twice, he was given double promotion. And most of the things that I didn’t know in sciences, he already knew them. And he was only in primary four!

And of all the people in the world, it was my brother, Samson’s head that my mother’s bottle chose to smash that morning.

No one heard anything from my father until after two days. Even when my mother called him, he refused to disclose which hospital he’d taken my brother to. He said he was so angry that he could do something nasty if he set eyes on my mother.

When he returned three day later, he looked twenty years older.

“We are selling this house,” he declared rather coldly. “Samson needs six million naira to enable him do a brain surgery. I have two million. If we don’t sell this house, I can’t raise the balance.”

I felt as if a fire burned in my heart. A tear fell off my eye even though I tried hard to suppress the grief melting in my throat like a cube of ice.

We had only moved into the house about seven months before. Now, for one act of parental irresponsibility, we were just about losing it. This was not fair. It was not fair at all. But if it could save my brother, what was a property compared to life?

Three days later, some people came and bought our four-bedroom flat. The buyer gave us six months to move out. He was filled with compassion when my father told him what the money was going to be used for.

“I would have loved to take possession of the house immediately but with the issue on ground, let me give you more time.” The buyer told my father.”

However, there were more prices to pay.

According to Gideon, Samson was to be flown to India and there was more money required. ” My father couldn’t meet up with the travel documents. So, he quickly sold his car and my mother’s own,” he said.

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Shedding light on the reason behind the fight, Gideon said,

” I was to find out later that what had caused the fight between my mother and father that Monday morning was that my mother had requested for a new car. My father wanted her to wait until the end of the year but she said the time was too far because she wanted to use the car on the anniversary of her club.

Just for a car! My mother had never worked all her life but she had everything she needed. She travelled everywhere she wanted because she belonged to many associations. Twice, my father had tried to set her up in business but she could not manage it well. It was for this reason that my father vowed never again to invest any money on her project again.

My aunt once told me that my father loved my mother to a fault. According to her, my father could do anything to make her happy. But in spite of all the things he did for my mother, they were never at peace. It made me realize that indeed money wasn’t really the solution to our problems. With all the money in the world, if happiness and peace are eroded, then the money meant nothing. Whichever way anyone looked at it, my mother was at fault.

My mother had always lamented to my hearing that she could have married a better and richer person than my father.”

When the day finally came to fly Samson to India, the mother was not allowed to follow him since she was the.one who had put him in that condition.

Painfully, all efforts to bring Samson back to life proved abortive as the poor child whose future promised to be glorious than his siblings could not survive the operation. ” We lost Samson in spite of all the money that was sunk into trying to give him life. The pain was too much for my father who vowed never to take my mother back again.

Although I miss her so much, I am very much in support of the decision my father has taken. Let her remain there for now.

When Rita asked my father when my mother would return, he simply replied; “Until she is cured of her madness.”

That was hopeful. It made us to understand that someday, the two might come back together again. But no one knows when it would be. I believe they have both learnt their lessons even though it is quite painful that it had to cost Samson his life.

All that happened four months ago here in Lagos and a family who once lived a comfortable life has since been back to a life of struggling and penury. The big question here is, how much lesson have you learnt from this as a parent? Would you rather wait until something like this happen and you are made to live the rest of your life feeling miserable and guilty for being responsible for the death of your own child? Will you still engage in needless quarrel, nagging and discontented  as a wife? Would you also as a man sit shoulder to shoulder exchanging banter with your wife when you can actually save the day by taking a long walk away from where she is?

Your right response will go a long way in stemming the tide of violence in homes.