Annie,
“You’re everything that spells divine. I wanted you to have the world, reach into the heavens, pull down the stars just to see they could shine on you.”
My wife,
“Not just to read about a happy ever after, I wanted to be the one to give it to you.”
* * * * * * * *
Your parents tied the nuptial knot seventeen years ago. You’re the first and only evidence of their love, Annabella. You’re fifteen and the bond between you and your father is something magical, something even your mother is envious of. Your father works as an officer in the Nigerian Army and has received a letter of transfer to Kanko due to the emerging terrorist group, seeking to subdue the state. You seem to disguise your fear under a weak smile, just like your mother.
You stand by the door watching your father pack his clothing into an old box. Your eyes have surrendered themselves to the flood of emotion. He sees you and tries to hold back the agony of leaving you and his darling wife behind to defend a state he barely knows. You sit pitifully on his lap, his hands around your waist as he tries to calm the storm gathering in you.
“Everything will be alright.” The exact words he said to your mother.
On the night before he departs, you see him hide two letters beneath his bed. You could never have the audacity to sneak up on your dad; you only wanted to have a glimpse of him for the umpteenth time before he finally leaves. After a while, you’re finally seeing his back as you squeeze your weeping mother’s palm holding onto you, so tight her blood stopped flowing for a minute as tomorrow’s uncertainty set in your head.
A year later, even while away, letters keep rolling in. You’re happy and one could tell by the blushes on your face each time you read them. You’ve known letters come in bi-monthly, and towards month-end.
It’s been a year and eight months; your father’s absence lasted longer than you and your mother anticipated. Four months earlier, the letters stopped coming in. Fear grows in your chest, and you’re imagining the sun setting in his life. You wouldn’t let your mother find out about your fears. She is nursing her own too, shielding you from its waves.
You and your mother visit the Nigerian Army office, but no one seems to pay any attention. You no longer receive credit alerts from him. You, a typical foodie, begin to live hand to mouth. Labaran, Aunty Shalewa’s husband, a renowned drunk, is now back with his family. He bears the bad news that the terrorist group ambushed the army’s camp and there was a massacre, many soldiers deformed like Uncle Labaran a few months earlier, the reason he was dropped from service.
Your life is a flipped coin that has landed on a wrong side, and your mother, the definition of emptiness. You go to the Nigerian Army office once more, but alone, to give them a piece of your mind on how they made a girl fatherless and her mother a widow. Earlier, your mother in tears, lamented about the sudden halt of your father’s heart. This too, you took to the Nigerian Army Office.
You were told there’s a signal that some soldiers aren’t dead but missing. Unsure of your father’s status—injured, dead, kidnapped, or missing—there’s a quick growth of butterflies in your belly. You go home to tell your mother the news. She has gone too deep into the terrain of grief to be consoled by such news.
After two months of waiting, you’re told he’s dead, that he died at the battlefront, a hero. You couldn’t accept the truth staring at you, his death. Your family receives his salary for three months, and your mother, the primary next of kin, is advised by the Nigerian Army Authorities to start processing her husband’s gratuity. She has done it and still waiting for the dawn of payment. You’re allowed to occupy the accommodation in the barracks.
Today, you gather his letters. You could make a book out of them, his promises to come back, the promises he couldn’t keep. And you remember what your father slipped under his bed the night before he left; you quickly run into his room and pick the parcels bearing your name and that of your mother, and give one to her.
Annie,
“You’re everything that spells divine. I wanted you to have the world, reach into the heavens, pull down the stars just to see they could shine on you. I’ll really want to watch you morph into a grown woman. Annie, words can’t explain how much love I have for you in my heart. Dark days only exist in your thoughts; they take flight once you’re done harbouring them. I’ll always be here to correct your naughty mistakes. Love you to the earth, my brown sugar.”
My wife,
“Not just to read about a happy ever after, I wanted to be the one to give it to you. I would take an arrow to the heart for you, cuddle you on cold lonely nights, dance under the rain with my lips on yours. Honestly, I never thought I could love this way, and I never want it to stop. I want to love and raise our daughter together with you, my lovely queen.”
* * * * * * * *
You both cry for days uncontrollably. Today, your father is a pile of history shoved at the corner of your house, a house devoid of happiness. Your father has sacrificed himself in the sanctuary of his nation’s service. You know, it’s funny how you laugh at silly jokes when the only thing that speaks meaning in your life is no more. One minute, you sit down and talk, the next minute everything you’ve ever shared becomes memories. You’re in Christ and yet suffered a crisis. You finally say you’re done believing the Bible; you tag it a book of lies because God, you imagined watching your father die, perhaps doing the sign of the cross.
This story emerged as the first-place winner in the 2nd edition of the African Teen Writers Awards for Prose.
