I looked out the window, as the rain came down hard upon the roof. It appeared as though God was weeping. I wondered if it was for my dead parents, or my dark, lost soul.
“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Nneoma?”. I looked again at my uncle Thaddeus, cold hearted as always. It was beyond me how a doctor could be so unfeeling, but I guessed maybe it made his job easier.
“Yes. You are saying my mother and father are dead, are you not?” He looked away now, my bluntness breaking his piercing gaze. His eyes darted towards the door and back to the floor, as if he willed to draw it closer and jump through it to freedom.
Tony opened the door then, eyes still red from crying. I looked at him and made only a slight attempt to hide my disgust at his weakness. Though he surpassed me in years, he was living proof that age is indeed just a number.
My phone rang, the mechanic again, and Uncle jumped at the opportunity. “Let’s give you some privacy. Tony, come away”. His sobbing started again as he was led out by Thaddeus and the door closed behind them. Weaklings.
My eyes were dry. Dry as the ashes of my parents in the smoldering wreckage of their car.
But who was I to cry for? My paralyzed father, who turned a blind eye so his “loving wife” wouldn’t leave him? Or for Mother, whose favorite pastime was abusing me and my brother in different, albeit always disgusting ways? I would waste no tears, even if I had any left after a lifetime of crying.
“Jimoh, thank you for your assistance and discretion. You’ll receive your money shortly. Never speak to me again”.
I tried to imagine their faces; the surprise and fear on my bitch of a mother’s face, and the plain look of utter boredom my father must have had through the ordeal, a look he’d had for many years now.
Only then did a single tear of joy find its way from my eye.