===== FATHER AT 17 (Episode 1)==
The marks on my mother's face were installed by my father's hands, and they could have been mistaken for tribal marks if not because they were a little bit bigger than tribal marks. Blood gathered on my mother's right cheek like Congressmen attending an impromptu meeting, and that instant, I felt the world coming to an end, again.
In my house, the world comes to an end almost everyday, and I would be lucky if for three straight days, my parents did not fight. Or better put, if my dad did not beat my mum. I could even go ahead to share testimonies in church, if Mama Funke did not come to beg my mother from not parking out of the house.
“Ero ta'won omo yi o” (consider these children) Mama Funke said on one occasion, as she points to my siblings and I.
“Mama Funke! Nitori omo abi? Nitori omo.” (for the sake of my children, right?) My mum replied, as sarcastically as possible, with tears racing down her cheeks like sprinters at an Olympic race.
“So, make I wait make him kill me because of children?” My mum asked, rhetorically, switching to Pidgin English, rendering the illiterate Mama Funke speechless.
“Yes. Children” Mama Funke struggled to say.
If for three straight days, Uncle Jide did not come to restrain my dad from using his belt and fist upon my mum, I would celebrate.
“Baba Fiyin, e don do.”
Uncle Jide grabbed my father from the back, trying to restrain him, as my father tossed him here and there as he tried to free himself so as to be unleashed upon my innocent mother.
“Leave me. I need to teach this woman a good lesson”
“But, since I moved into this house, you have been teaching her a lesson. Is she a slow learner or you are the bad teacher?”
Silence triumphed in the room, as every word bowed to what Uncle Jide just said, and my father somehow lost his appetite to beat up my mum that night. He moved to sit on the single sitter chair closet to him, which co-incidentally happened to be the same chair my buttocks decided to dominate. I was carried away by the whole event that I forgot to get up from the chair early enough for my dad to sit. But, a little knock on my head put my brain in good condition, as I raced off the chair.
“You see? She has turned even my children against me.”
“Abi, how will my son wait for me to tell him to stand up for me to sit in my own house?”
“My last born for that matter”
His rage resurrected, as every eyes gave me a why-did-you-wake-up-the-sleeping-lion look.
“Joshua! Joshua!! Joshua!!!” He called me with a tone that suggested I had decided to eat the forbidden fruit. Eyes paid homage to me once again. Deep in my heart, I wished I got up from the chair early enough. I wished I had not even sat on the chair in the first place. In fact, I wished I was not even given birth to at all.
“Don't blame me for anything ooooo”
My mum jeered up to emphasis her point well enough. Just the way Undertaker would jump up before finishing his opponent with an effortless pin-down.
“Na me you dey talk to like that?” My dad asked. His question caught us all off guard, especially Uncle Jide who was already sitted on the chair opposite my dad. It was not the question that really caught us off guard, but the action that followed the question. Like a leopard, my dad had taken just a single step to cover the wide distance between him and my mum, and had given her another slap on her left cheek.
Uncle Jide got up almost immediately, but it was too late. My mum already had a new set of tribal marks on her face. Uncle Jide held my dad, but this time, he did not struggle with him. It was as if he had accomplished a mission. My mum got up and placed her left palm on the left cheek, rubbing it gentle, as if trying to confirm if she was truly slapped, again. Immediately, the words of the preacher on TV the Sunday before raced through my mind.
“If they slap you on the right cheek, turn the left cheek”
Mama Funke was already on her feet too. She kept sliding her right hand down her chest, as a way of begging my mum to be calm. My mum was calm. She didn't say a word. Well, I guess she was too busy trying to decipher the mystery behind the recent slap as she kept rubbing her left hand on her left cheek. All of a sudden, she stopped. It was as if the mystery had been unraveled, or so we thought. What happened next rendered me speechless, and almost lifeless. My mum, with her left hand, equalized my father's slap. It was an equalizer that would have been well celebrated if it were to be a football match, especially a Champions League final last minute equalizer. The crowd would go crazy, and the player who scored the goal would pull off his shirt, and run round the opponent's goal post. He would pull his shirt, even though that would fetch him a yellow card. But it was not a football match. It was my family, and my mum just slapped my dad.
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Did you happen to grow up in a home where your parents fight, while you and your siblings take up the role of spectators and referees. It is never a beautiful scene at all. Let me use this opportunity to welcome you on board. The story is FATHER AT 17, and you are about to have a wonderful read. Join me again tomorrow as I feed your eyes. Thanks for visiting am