This evening, Maria watches her daughter like a hawk watching its prey. As Nene plays with other kids, fear tightens her chest like a rope, making it harder and harder to breathe. Despite the child’s joy-filled squeals and giggles, Maria can’t take her eyes off her even for a second.
Whenever Nene climbs up the slide and slides down, she clenches her teeth and grips the edge of the bench in worry. Now, the five-year-old throws her hands into the air, draws her head backward, spreads her arms, and starts turning around like a spinning top.
“Nene, you will fall,” this time around, Maria says suddenly, jumping up, ready to protect her child.
“She’ll be fine, you know,” she hears a voice beside her. Turning, she finds herself staring into the face of a familiar-looking elderly woman. She hadn’t heard when she sat down but she assumes she’s been lost in thought. She’s met someone who blinks several times while speaking and licks their bottom lip just like this woman. Well, they say in this life everyone has a double. Maria notices a baby stroller in front of the woman. As their eyes meet, she seems to be drawn deeper and deeper like a magnet and cannot look away.
Suddenly, she can’t hear anyone else, not even her daughter’s laughter, and that’s when she wants to scream even though her voice is gone.
“Don’t be afraid,” the elderly woman says, with a kind smile. “You have to let her be a child,” she says. What is she talking about? Maria wonders and turns back towards the playground. She’s shocked to see that in the place of the playground, now stands a house made of red mud bricks with a very large mango tree beside it.
Just as she’s trying to recognize the place, two little girls, about 7 and 4 years old, run out of the house, screaming at the top of their lungs. The older has on a red gown and corn rows. Meanwhile, the younger, has short-cropped hair. As Maria watches, her whole body begins to tremble and the pain in her chest intensifies. She wants to shut her eyes so the memory of this day disappears, but she can’t move a muscle.
“Maria, look after your small sister. Remember you are the firstborn,” a woman calls from the house. Mama! She cries as she recognizes the voice.
This is the day she and Bertha climbed the mango tree even though Mama had warned them not to. She’d climb first, quickly plucking mangoes and descending. Bertha did the same but had a different idea.
“Maria, see, I’m flying!” That was the last thing she heard before the crash. “That’s where you got trapped and the day your childhood ended,” the elderly woman’s voice interrupts her loud sobs.
She can still hear her mother’s cry of anguish as an immobile Bertha was rushed away. Later that evening, the house was filled with strange teary faces and accusing stares. At that time, she didn’t understand death but her mother’s words made her know she’d committed an unpardonable sin.
“You should have protected her; you killed your sister! I told you that too much play will put you in trouble!” Her mother’s words were the poisoned arrows whose venom sipped into her system and stained the lens through which she saw life.
Play was dangerous. Man could not trust even themselves and bad things could happen to people at any time. That was the mantra she lived by.
“It’s time to be set free, to play again,” the woman says. “Who are you?” Maria asks, wiping the torrents of tears running down her face.
Just then, the face begins to transform and the features become more and more familiar.
“Mama?” She gasps in shock. “I trapped you in the cage of guilt and I’m sorry. I release you. It was not your fault. Now it’s time to forgive yourself or else you will trap my granddaughter too,” her mother says.
“Look, here,” she points into the stroller. Maria looks inside and lets out a wail as she sees that it is her sister, Bertha. The child opens her eyes and looks straight into hers.
“I’m sorry,” Maria cries over and over.
“It was not your fault,” Bertha says.
As Maria cries, her whole body begins to tremble and someone is tugging on her arm.
Mama! Mama! Mama!
Bertha’s face is turning to Nene’s.
Nene! Nene! Nene!
She wakes up abruptly, calling her daughter’s name. Feeling confused, she looks around at her environment. The dark blue curtains, white walls…she’s right in her bedroom at home. She looks to the side and Nene’s bright and eager eyes stare back at her.
“Mama, you were calling me from your sleep,” the child says.
“Hmm…” she hums as she inhales and exhales audibly to steady her heart rate.
“Let’s go, we’ll be late. I’m already dressed up,” Nene says, pulling her mother’s arm, struggling to drag her away.
“Go to where?” she asks a bit confused as she sits up.
“You said we’ll finally go to the park today and you’ll let me play and you also promised to play with me,” the child says almost out of breath with excitement. She looks at Nene’s outfit, a white top with a pink unicorn on the front, pink shorts, and black sneakers. She’s amazed that Nene is dressed exactly how she was in the dream. Maria catches her in a hug but she tries to wiggle herself out of her mother’s arms. She feels Nene’s little fingers slip onto her ribs then the tickling begins. Nene knows her mother hates to be tickled and more than once Maria has scolded her for it so but today, she lets herself go this time. She starts to laugh and at first, the sound is strange even to her ears but she’s permitted herself to be a child again. She pulls Nene to the bed and they start a tickling wrestling match, their laughter filling the room like music.
This is it! Her before now, the untethered child who had once been filled with endless possibilities, not afraid to laugh, to fail, and to live. She looks at this child who’s been caged for years, kisses her forehead, and whispers, “You’re free.”
—
Anjie C Nkweti is a Cameroonian writer who is passionate about telling stories of hope, faith, and healing. Her works have been featured in online publications such as the Kalahari Review, the Writing Cooperative and on her social media platforms.
She is also the author of “Dollo Baby,” a short story which is available on Amazon. When she’s not writing, Anjie mentors young writers and hosts creative writing camps for children.
Connect with her:
Twitter @anjienkweti
Insagram @anjienkweti
or her medium.com account: anjienkweti
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Our greatest fear is letting go of what hurt us most in the past yet if we do let go, we gain our freedom. We get to view life from a totally different angle than the one that so caused us to be rigid. This story ‘Her before now’ is one of a kind. It’s an eye opener of what a mother goes through to keep her child safe considering what her childhood was thinking that being too controlling will save her. Maybe or maybe not. Whatever the case is, it’s really a good idea to let go and feel relieved and at piece with our inner self. To feel loved. At home.
Well done writer👏