TÓDÙN

39

TÓDÙN

"Your Dad is dead." My Mum replied calmly and tried to take the pictures from me but I stepped away from her.

"Morountodun." She called my name in full and in the indigenous accent. "Give me that." She stepped closer to me, using her leg to kick the box aside in the process and the content fell on the ground. I couldn't believe she was acting so wild so that she could take a picture away from me. Surely there must be something hidden about them.

"Mum, who is this?"

"He is no one, just give it me. Moni ko funmi." She stretched her hands forward expecting me to give the pictures to her but I shifted to another corner of the room. Even though the room was small, the bed gave me the opportunity to stay away from her since she couldn't manoeuvre herself, like I could. No one has to tell me that it is quiet disrespectful and disturbing to be in a hide and seek game with ones parent but ever since I and Kunle had the conversation about my Dad, something didn't feel right and the only way to find out about it is to play hide and seek.

"I suddenly feel as if I know this face, The face looks familiar." I pointed to the picture of a toddler boy seated on his mother's lap. It was a family of five in the picture, the parents and their three little children.

"You don't know him, you haven't seen him before." She said gasping for air. She sat on the bed all of a sudden and took her inhaler from her hand bag while I moved closer to her forgetting I was supposed to be running away from her.

"Are you okay Mum?" I asked her, while she breath in and out and nodded her head as well. I sat beside her and rubbed her back while she reached out and took the pictures that I already dropped on the floor. She traced the picture with her fingers and looked at me with tears gathering in her eyes.

"Joining this picture together." She paused and looked back at the picture then at me. "Was just a result of lust and ojukokoro."(Not been contented.)

"What do you mean Mum?" I asked her confused at what she meant. Couldn't she just tell me who the man was already. if he isn't my father as she claimed, then who is he?

"This." She took the picture that captured the family. "Is the picture of the family I used to work for before I gave birth to you." She added and I looked at her expecting to hear more and hear something that was going to be useful.

"I left the place when they travelled out of the country." She concluded while I stared at her because there was nothing she said that helped solve the riddle in my mind.

"So... Why do you have your pictures and his sellotaped?"

"You won't laugh o." She said with her face suddenly dissolving into a smile that used to melt my heart, but at that moment it didn't make any difference. I looked at her expecting what she wanted to say and took my hand off her back.

"I used to like him, that was why I did this." She took the picture and shook it. "I had to hide it from oga's wife and the other maids." She explained further and I stared at her not convinced.

"Hmmm and you didn't tell me all those before?" I thought aloud.

"That's because you never asked me." She answered picking the pictures together.

"I never heard of that from you."

"Now you have heard." She answered in the same vein. I sat down on the bed in doubt. Something was definitely amiss, she told me everything about where she used to work before giving birth to me but how come she missed out the part of having a strong crush on her employer. I felt like asking her if he was my Dad again, but didn't she already say he wasn't? And she already told me my father died but why do I suddenly have a strange feeling about it.