THE TATTOO

CHAPTER NINE 

THE EXCHANGE

“It seems it was not only your love for flowers that died after I left Nne, everything about you has changed.” They were standing right outside the ICU waiting for the doctor to finish with rounds. Ijeego was staring at the wall looking lost. Uju touched her lightly on her shoulder to call her attention, “Mummy?” She said

“How’s your daughter, Ujunwa?” Uju was startled by the question and how cold her mother sounded.

“She…she is well” she stuttered, still confused about the question.

Ijeego turned towards her and said with a stern look on her face, “You get to see your daughter anytime you wish right?” And before Uju could answer, she continued, “You are a part of her life? You go to bed every time knowing you have full access to your daughter. She did not leave your home; she listens to you and does everything you want. These alone are enough to make any mother happy, to make you flourish as a mother, Ujunwa.”

“Mummy, I am seriously trying not to comprehend what you are driving at but if it is what I think, it is definitely not the same, Nne. I did not…” Uju was saying and she cut her short. “Ujunwa you left home, you had the option to stay. Nna gi was ready to take you back if only you had listened mana you were so selfish, didn’t think about how your own mother felt, how it broke me to see my only daughter, so otu nwa mu nwere leave home for what exactly? Maka gini?”

Uju had the most bamboozled look on her face, as she stared at Ijeego. “How do you mean selfish Mummy? I didn’t leave home on my own free will. Di gi, my father threw me out and you did nothing” her voice was raised. 

Ijeego scoffed, “You have so much audacity to say this to my face you inconsiderate child. Your father gave you an option that was favorable to you and to us but you did things your own way due to your stubbornness. You left home for over sixteen years, making me childless again, Ujunwa. Eighteen years! Eighteen awful years I looked for a child, my body could not sustain a child until you finally came and stayed; you accepted my body and brought light to our home.” She paused and stared into space for a moment and continued, “I could not conceive again after you came but I was happy I was finally called a mother. The joy your father and I had then but what did you do? You ran off at the slightest inconvenience.” She sounded so cold and bitter that her voice would have never been matched to her form. 

Uju was filled with rage as she blurted out, “inconvenience Mummy? Did you just call what happened to me the slightest inconvenience?” She let out a very bitter laugh laced with the right amount of pain. “I was raped at sixteen, Mummy. I got pregnant and your husband sent me out because I refused to terminate it. That was not what you would call the slightest inconvenience. It was appalling, it was wickedness!”

Ijeego folded her arms in the most dramatic way, “if it was wickedness like you said, why did you come here then? You shouldn’t have come to see the man that hurt you so much” she said with a scornful look on her face. “You did this Uju, you caused this change you see on me, you snuffed light out of my life and left me with this palpable darkness you see looming all over me the day you ignored my pleas and left home. Do not ever ask me ubochi ozo why I look the way I do, inuru ihe mu kwuru?”

“Mrs Chukwu?” The doctor called from behind, he had been standing there for a while and neither of them noticed. Ijeego heaved, turned and started walking to him. Uju stood where her mother left her and cried, struggling to stifle the slightest sound. When she was done crying, it was already dark, she was overtly drained and left with no energy.  She saw a bench on the hospital hallway and dozed off immediately she laid on it, not minding that the place was teeming with mosquitoes.

Uju’s phone alarm woke her up the next morning. She grumpily opened her eyes and sat up on the bench when she noticed she had a wrapper over her. She turned to her side and saw her mother sitting on a plastic chair staring at her with a faint smile on her face. “Mummy, good morning. Kedu?” She held her head as she felt a sharp pain.

“Your father is awake. He woke up around 3a.m today; your presence brought good fortune Nwam.”

                                                                                                                                       CHAPTER TEN