MY SILENCE CAUSED PAIN

The aroma of the usual spaghetti sauce my aunty prepares for lunch filled the room as we entered the house. Getting home, I was filled with so much happiness. I was just in primary 4, but I hated school, maybe it’s because I had little or no friends. I only stare at the wall clock, praying for 1:00PM and the sound of the bell signaling time to go home. Entering the house was satisfyingly  until I was called to deliver a bottle of coca cola to our neighbor.

You see, my aunty was a house wife with side hustles. She loved to live the life, buy fancy wrappers, dresses, and her light skin maintaining creams but since her husband never indulges her, and the daily money he drops for food not being enough, she began to sell drinks and snacks. I hawk the snacks at the market close to the house after school, while she sold drinks to the neighbors.

           

That afternoon was going like every other afternoon, until the call to deliver a bottle of coca cola to Daddy Adaobi. Daddy Adaobi lived across the house with his family, a wife and four children, with Adaobi being the youngest and only girl. A very strange family who stayed on their own. Daddy Adaobi was the strangest of them, as he stays at a corner in the compound watching everyone in a scary way, with his dark eyes. Obviously his dark eyes were sending a message everyone ignored. I hated him but couldn’t voice my emotions to the adults around. He was almost always at home, while his family goes to their shop.

I rather get beaten mercilessly than go on that errand. I never disobeyed my guardians and would readily attend to any request to get things done, not because I was a good child but I wanted to be left alone and hated complains. However this particular errand left me cold and filled with fear, especially with the knowledge of his family absence but my aunty never noticed my discomfort. I quickly thought of using the toilet as an excuse and rushed in. I expected my aunty to deliver the drink herself, but she sent her 4 year old daughter instead and I resolved to remain in the toilet until she returns, I knew I would be sent after her once I leave the rest room.

15 minutes and Chigo wasn’t back. I was tired of staying in the toilet and my aunty kept asking why her daughter was still with Daddy Adaobi, assuming she got carried away watching television and also wondering why I was still locked up in the toilet. She kept talking nonstop when Chigo hobbled in crying. I came out to see her looking red, in pain, crying and pointing at her private part. My aunty looked alarmed, carried her to the bathroom, and screamed from the bathroom.

           

 

Within an hour, my aunt’s husband and some policemen came around, Chigo was rushed to the hospital and Daddy Adaobi, handcuffed and taken away with the neighbors pointing and whispering. In all these, I kept blaming myself for not speaking up, for not confiding in anyone how wicked and dirty the evil quiet man is. I had gone to buy sugar one evening a week ago, when he caught me in the compound, blocked my way after greeting him and grabbed my flat breast. I felt blinding pain as he squeezed me like he was rumpling a wet cloth, I was flat and he was dragging my flesh. With a hard bite he would never forget, he left me and I ran because I understood my life depended on how fast I got to the door. At just 11 years, I knew he was dangerous but I couldn’t communicate my fears. I was filled with shame, I was scared of not being listened to, of being blamed, of thinking I cooked it up or saying I was spoilt. In my fears and silence, I tried to understand why a father could be evil.

In all these, I never thought he could touch a 4 year old child and in my silence, she got hurt. It became series of hospital visitation, police station visitation and eventually court. The neighbors heard different versions of the story, his family disappeared and I still never mentioned my experience. 

Only if I had spoken out, Chigo would have been spared from this experience that ended up leaving a scar, and whispers of incomplete tales of stories never truly confirmed from the right sources.