If Tomorrow Never Comes, by Nneamaka Onochie
As a writer, Nneamaka advocates on issues concerning women with plethora of emotions, experiences, opinions and information.
Author Foreword:
As a girl child and gender-based violence activist, I have come in contact with various beautiful little humans embedded in pang of abuse and can only confide in an adult female who educates them on abuse and speaking up. This piece of fiction is an avenue to amplify my voice for the beautiful little humans and for women who don't have the courage to leave their abusers.
The story is about a beautiful girl known as Olaedo, a teenage girl who is caught in the web of being a sacrificial lamb for her mother as a form of protecting her from her husband. He happens to be a man of bad temper and on whom their survival and fate solely depends on. In many African homes, men tend to clip the wings of their wives due to ego, insecurity and it is common that most African men want their wives to solely depend on them. Olaedo's mother happens to be a woman who lost her essence and taste in life due to abuse.
She soaked me in a hot bath, strengthened my legs, and held down my thighs so that the hot water burned through my skin and inside my privates. I neither winced nor objected — I was used to the ritual of pain. It had left its trademark in my heart; its imprint in my soul. I let mama do what she knows best — make up for the nightmare of dusk which had become my reality. She used an iron sponge and scrubbed my back with ferocity. She scrubbed each breast like she scrubbed the mortar after pounding cassava to eradicate any remnants and wrung me like she did her kitchen rag. Flagrantly she spread my legs and scrubbed my privates for what seemed like ten minutes. She would scrub for a whole day if she could. She scrubbed away my sins; our sins.
"Did it hurt much?" She inquired and I nodded in affirmative. My everyday reality, excluding the days I welcomed my monthly flow. Like a bird out of its cage, I would have a flimsy savor of freedom ‘till I become dry. Last night — like every other — he stalked into my room as I lay still on the bed, pretending to be fast asleep. His weight compressed the bed as he sat, stinking of beer and tobacco. He dipped his hand into my gown and squeezed my breast like an orange. His breath, fast and eager. He turned me over and unzipped his pants with one hand he tore my underwear and rummaged through me, moaning.
"Be a good girl and bear it all," mama's voice echoed in my ears. I kept my eyes squeezed shut until he left.
"I'm sorry," mama muttered after she was done bathing me. I didn't reply — she apologized the same, day after day. I wondered what she apologized for, maybe that she wasn't able to save me from her husband my stepfather or that she was always outside my door while he lavished me and run his bath afterward or that she willed the intricacies of our lives to the man who battered her.
"You are our salvation Olaedo." Those were Mama's words at night, as she combed my soft, kinky hair with a hot comb, rubbed flower-scented ointment on my body, appareled me in her red gown, and handed me a glass of a clear drink that burned through my throat. “All at once,” she coerced. I threw the remains in my mouth and swallowed hard.
"Mama why can't we leave." I had once asked exasperated.
"We need him."
"For what exactly. For the crumbs he brings home or the meager sums he gives you till my monthly visitor comes. He is foul-tempered and tight-fisted. I fumed.
"He is not that bad Olaedo, he shelters us, protects us and feeds us."
So much for the necessities of life, I wanted to say but instead I rolled my eyes and blinked away the tears lingering at the corner of my eyes. I wondered if she believed her own lies, the ones she had so intricately woven its fabrics and concealed every hole.
Mama had closed down her beer parlour, because her husband complained he detest the bile of lust in the eyes of men who stare at her buttocks and fucked her in their minds. He said he would open a suitable business for her, that compliments his status as a police officer.
He never did.
Each time she reminded him, he would hit her. We had her head stitched in different clinics so the other doctors wouldn't ask us questions or raise a brow. He accused Mama of having the cacoethes for prostitution in the disguise of an apt for business. The day her requests stopped was one early harmattan morning. He had filed out a sharp-looking dagger, brandishing it on her face, daring her to say one more word on the matter.
I stood wobbly beside her, my heart in my mouth. Struck dumb with fear. Anxious bile boiling in the pit of my stomach. She looked at me, in my terror-filled eyes, and she dropped her gaze to the floor, wordlessly admitting submission.
"Ashewo" he muttered. Abruptly, he turned and walked out the door, slamming it behind him.
That night he stalked into my room and fitted his weight at the edge of my bed. He smelled of tobacco, suya, and onion. He raised my gown, and inserted a crooked finger inside my privates. He hung my legs on his shoulders, kneading my buttocks with his hands, and rode me like a maniac each thrust more painful than the other. Like always, I pretended to be dead. He finished with a scream his body jerking and he slumped on me. A few minutes later he rose and meandered out of my room.
I sat numb, in the boiling tub while Mama scrubbed me with her iron sponge. How do I tell mama that the pain she is trying to wash away wasn't in the swell of my breast or down my thighs? The pain nestled deep in my soul and fettered in my heart.
“Open your mouth,” she whispered, pausing her work. I heeded. She placed two tablets in my mouth and handed me a glass of warm water. She continued, raising my legs and scrubbing the sole of my feet, vigorously at first, then gently, massaging my feet and strengthening each toe. I closed my eyes, and rested my head back as tears cascaded down my cheeks betraying my callous strength.
"Here." She placed a towel over my shoulders.
I wrapped my bosom and lumbered to my room, my feet leaving a trail of water droplets. I entered my room, closed my door securely, sat on my bed, and dipped my finger inside my privates where there the bright red blood trickled. My momentary freedom and the commencement of Mama's miseries.
I walked to the kitchen, and stood by the brown wooden door, my arms folded. I watched her dice onion in a stainless plate busy in her state yet aware of my presence.
"My visitor has come," I announced.
She paused, nodded, and continued dicing. We both understand the implications of my monthly flow. At dusk he snuck into my room like a thief in the night, fondled my breast, and inserted his hands into my privates, where he felt the tampon. He heaved, cursed, and kicked the foot of my bed, storming out of my room and slamming the door as he left. I opened my eyes and sat on the bed.
The bickering in their room echoed through the night. He threw things in anger. I heard Mama's sobs. At an unknown hour of the night, I tiptoed to their room, and peeked through the hole in the bedroom door. The room was poorly lit but I saw it nonetheless. He was raping Mama, his hands clutching her neck. I drug my feet back to my room and lay in my bed, my heart pounding heavily I thought it would tear through my chest.
I closed my eyes and prayed tomorrow never comes, eventually dozing off with Mama's sobs lurking in my dreams.
