Episode 2

Dawn came swimmingly, flooding the entire flat at 6:00a.m. The lavender rays of dawn provided an impeccable atmosphere.

l heard a cry from the living room and l hauled myself out of bed and went straight into the living room. Crystal was answering a phone call and Blessing sat happily on the couch.

"Which hospital?" l heard crystal ask in a sober tone and then she ended the call. Her eyes hardened and darkened all the more.

"What is the matter?" I asked, looking directly into her eyes.

Her countenance gave nothing away. She bent down as a tear dripped down her cheeks.

My jaw clenched hard; I hated seeing her this way. It made me want to cry with her.

"Your parents had an accident on their way to the village," She said, looking at me.

Something lurched in my stomach and l felt my stomach tighten so hard. My mouth became watery, full of questions. "Where? What did you just say? What happened to Mother and Father?" I asked, bending towards her.

She kept mute, still crying.

"Ewo!" Blessing started shouting; it's like she didn't understand what crystal had said earlier.

"Oga is dead oh."

"It is your father who is dead," l shouted, moving towards her. I wanted to slap her as father would, perhaps to see if my slap would have the same sound as father's.

Crystal held my hand just immediately. "Your Mother is fine," she said still holding my hands.

I took off my hands, now looking at her like she was the enemy. "Are you trying to say that Father is.......," I felt a muscle twitch in my jaw and could not complete the question. Torturous thoughts harried in my brain. "I couldn't lose my father just like that, at least not now." I thought. I felt like I was being stabbed on the chest.

"Your Dad is on the brink of death; the doctor that called said he was in coma and his condition is critical," Crystal stated bitterly.

"I' m going to the hospital; which hospital is that?" I asked, throatily this time.

"Please, don't go, Oga child; do you want to have accident?" Blessing said, holding my trousers.

What kind of creature was this? I wondered.

My parents were involved in an accident and her advice was that l should stay here and look at her.

"You, Blessing; you would be the one to have accident; nonsense!" I lashed out at her and took her hands off my trousers.

"Eh, I don't want to bury anybody oh; Oga is dead and now you want to join him," Blessing continued.

"William, please leave her alone. I will take you to the hospital; just give me a minute," Crystal said calmly.

"You will hear from me by the time l come back," I said to Blessing, sitting down on the couch.

Seriously, l hated this girl, her stature, her shape which is more like an ape's. The way she reasoned and the way she talked convinced me that she was not of this generation. I kept thinking about Dad; I couldn't be referred to as fatherless, not at this age.

Crystal came out and we left for the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital; I never believed that doctors could be taken to a hospital for treatment until now. Father was in a hospital, not his own, but a teaching hospital. The ward was desperately busy. we were directed by one of the nurses to a room by the left-hand side when Crystal asked her if we could see Dad.

The room we entered had six beds; four were arranged along one length of the hall, and the other two along the adjoining width. The maps of decay on the ceiling indicated the poor state of the roof l peered through the room in search of Dad, but l wasn't seeing him or Mum.

"my head ooh!" Came the distressed shouts of one of the patients who had fallen off the bed. The bandage on his head was soaked red with blood.

My heart pounded hard. I could hear the rhythmic beating of my heart. Then l looked down the hall and l saw mother with the doctor. She was shouting and tears flooded her swollen eyes. As we came closer, I could hear her clearly, her voice cracked as she spoke. "This man is a pastor oh, he is supposed to be a pastor. How can he be looking lustfully at a young lady just because her sagging trouser revealed her bare buttocks, eh?" Mother's voice increased in pitch. She sobbed as she kept on talking. "How will l raise my only son without him, eh? He caused this accident; shouldn't he be even dead?" She then sat down on a stool helplessly.

My watery eyes gazed steadily at her; she hadn't noticed our presence yet. She was in pain; so much pain l could feel it.

l reflected on what she had said earlier. l remembered the first time father took me to fellowship on a Sunday evening. As we drove along, he saw a young lady whose dressing showed the top of her breasts. He told me that women like this lady were sent by the devil to destroy humans, but the way he kept staring at her was so suspicious. I didn't make any sense out of it until just now mum was saying a similar thing.

"William my son, you shouldn't have come,"

Mum said Immediately she saw Crystal and me. She hugged tightly, but she didn't say even a word to Crystal, even when Crystal had greeted her. She just hissed and sat down on her stool. I quickly said to myself that it was because of the pain she was currently going through. The bruises on her legs were minor but her right arm was bandaged.

I looked beside her and saw Dad lying feebly on the bed. He was lying on his his back motionless, as dry as a harmattan season corpse. I felt a dart of fear in my belly. The fear paralysed every breath of air around me; the fear of losing my Father. Father's face was crumpled and his eyelids sagged. His mouth was grim and his lips and cheeks looked as if they had frozen

I walked towards the bed on which he was lying, holding his hands gently. Tears poured down my cheeks and l cried uncontrollably. "Stay with me, Father," l said, looking at his eyes which were already closed, hoping he would open them and embrace me as he would when he came back from work every evening.

Mother hugged me tightly; her swollen eyes still had the black purple colour of an overripe avocado. "Go home, dear; l will come back as soon as possible," She said still hugging me, with tears dripping down her cheeks.

"Father would be fine," l said optimistically and then turned to leave with Crystal.

Crystal was beside father; she wasn't really crying but her countenance seemed she pitied Father's condition.

"Get away from my husband, you prostitute!" Mother shouted at Crystal. Her voice had become deep; it was not like the calm voice with which she spoke to me. "Ashawo! Leave my husband oh" she continued, coming towards Crystal.

Crystal quickly let father and headed for the exit.

l didn't really understand what Mother meant.

"Was she distressed at the moment or was there more to it than l anticipated?" l asked myself.

Crystal and l Left for the house few minutes later.

Three weeks later, Father came back from the hospital. Crystal was the first person father hugged, when he arrived home, and then me. Father looked strong like nothing had happened. He told me that it was God who had healed him and brought him back to life and l kept thinking how Father knew that it was God who healed him when he was unconscious. I didn't really believe there was God; Father didn't have time to tell is about the gospel.

He was usually engrossed in his work, and he loved keeping to himself. Sometimes, he would leave home for about two weeks and came back later to say he was on call. He cared less about the family; at least, that was my observation. But he provided us with money as much as mother and I demanded.

Mother's behavior had also changed. The way she addressed Father now was entirely different from the nice and respectable manner with which she conversed with him. She started keeping late nights, just like Father. We hardly prayed in the morning, unlike the way we did before.

"William, how have you been?" Father's voice was low, as that of a boy who was learning how to speak.

l smiled slightly, looking at him. "Father, l have something to tell you," l said to him, without bothering to answer his question. l thought that if there was anyone who needed to answer that question, it was definitely Father.

"Well, that should wait for now, l really need to get some rest," Father replied sharply, walking into his room. l watched him totter like a big man with the spindly legs of a child. He hadn't fully recovered, going by the way he talked like he was dying. perhaps, he needed time to recover and regain his strength fully.

To Be Continued...