BENJY
After that Sunday which he was now referring to as the “Doomed Sunday”, Benjy couldn’t eat or sleep. His productivity at work was being affected. On Monday, after tossing and turning all night, he couldn’t pull himself out of bed. He texted his assistant that he was taking the day off. There was no point pretending he was capable of functioning when he had had nearly no sleep all night.
It was the Pastor’s voice he heard when he closed his eyes to sleep. The man’s voice, assertive and loud reading the Bible verse that was threatening to drive him crazy. Sometimes, it was his mother’s face he saw when he closed his eyes, there was a sad look of disappointment as she looked at him.
“I’m sorry,” he found himself mumbling through his fitful sleep.
It was Wednesday that he finally decided to do something about his unease. He couldn’t keep living like this.
He called the only person he could think of who would not judge him for what he was about to say.
“Ah, egbon, this one you called me today,” Ore teased on the other end of the phone when she picked up.
“Look at this girl. Didn’t we talk last week?”
“We chatted on Whatsapp, is that what you’re calling ‘talk’?”
“Na you sabi,” he said. “What’s up, where are you? Can you talk?”
“Um…I’m at the office right now and I don’t have any meetings so yes, I can talk. Is everything okay? You sound…serious.”
“I would have suggested we meet for lunch but I don’t know if that husband of yours will be lurking around the corner to take your lunch hour.”
Ore had once casually mentioned Ramsey’s habit of spontaneously showing up at her office and taking her to lunch. It sounded like one of those sweet romantic gestures Hollywood paraded as real life, but Benjy thought in Ramsey’s case, there was something sinister lurking underneath.
Honestly, the guy sometimes gave off vibes that reminded Benjy of their father. Had Ore married their father all over again?
“I can make lunch work. Do you want to meet up today? I’ve missed you small.” Ore said.
“Name the time and place. My schedule is open for the day.”
“Ah ah, you look like you’ve lost weight o. Is everything okay?” were Ore’s first words after she covered him in a hug.
He sighed in response.
“Oya sit down and tell mama about it,” she settled beside him on the bench.
There was a small park close to Ore’s office where they sometimes went for team-building activities. It was a cozy spot, tucked away from the busy highway, with an expanse of bright green grass that gave it a scenic feel. This was where Ore had suggested they meet to talk and Benjy was grateful for it.
As much as he didn’t mind meeting up at restaurants, he didn’t believe restaurants were the best place for private conversations. How many times had he overheard other guests having conversations at restaurants?
“So…how are you?” he asked.
His sister looked good; it struck him how she looked more and more like their mother as the days went by. It was as though he could see their mother in her more ever since she passed. It scared him too, how alike they were, physically and in other ways. Had Ore inherited their mother’s timidity? Her willingness to succumb to the dictatorship of their father?
“I was thinking about Mum the other day,” Ore said, breaking his thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“About the time she left us.”
“You mean she left dad.”
Ore shrugged. “Same difference.”
“What does that mean? She left dad, not us.”
“She didn’t take us with her so yeah, she left us too.”
“You can’t actually believe that, Ore.”
It was the first time they were talking about this incident and Benjy was surprised by the resentment underlying Ore’s comments. He had always thought of their mother as being at her bravest that day and it had never occurred to him that any of his siblings thought differently.
“You think it was okay for her to do what she did?” Ore asked.
“To fight for herself? To take a stand? Absolutely.”
“Even at the expense of her family? Her children?”
“Especially because of us. Did you know that Dad was hitting her?”
Ore looked away at a group of ducks waddling away on the small pond a few meters away from them.
“Did you know?” Benjy asked.
“Mum never mentioned that.”
Her response was an unexpected shock but even as he thought about it, he realized that their father had been clever about his abuse, that he and Deji had found out by accident after returning from school one day earlier than planned because they had been sent home for not paying their school fees.
He remembered that day clearly. The front door was unlocked and they had walked in to see their father haul the wooden spatula at their mother. Their mother’s reflex was strong, a sign that this was not the first time she had to dodge a flying object.
“Please,” it was the only word she uttered as she stood there, like someone in a war zone begging for mercy.
Benjy and Deji, still boys, were stunned by the scene unfolding before them and so they stood partially hidden by the kitchen door. Benjy recognized the fear he felt as he stood there. He looked at his father and didn’t recognize the face contorted in rage.
“You made me look like a fool,” their father said, advancing on her.
For every step he took towards her, their mother took two backwards, pleading.
“It was the women’s ministry money,” she said. “It’s not mine. If I had money, you know I won’t keep it from you. You’re my husband and I respect you.”
For a moment her words seemed to penetrate and their father stopped moving towards her.
“Kneel down,” he said eventually. “Kneel down like a proper wife who respects her husband would.”
Benjy held his breath waiting, watching. He wanted to look away, to not see his mother humiliated any further. Already, she looked like she was struggling to keep her wrapper around her chest as it kept slipping off.
It was at that moment Deji turned to him and made a sign that Benjy interpreted as “follow me”.
Next thing Benjy knew was his brother went back to the front door, opened it and banged it loudly behind him yelling; “Benjy! Benjy come inside right now!”
Benjy played along, “stop shouting at me, I’m here.”
It was their father who came out first. Benjy noticed that he now looked normal, gone was the rage he’d spotted earlier and in its place a mask of calm.
“Boys, what happened?” he asked. “Is school over already?”
Even now, years after it happened, Benjy felt the fear tighten his gut. He had been afraid of his father then, not because of his physical ability to hurt their mother, but because of how easy it was for him to switch roles. He realized that Ore’s ignorance about the abuse their mother went through was possible and valid. Their father had been different with her; tender and protective in ways he had never bothered to be with his boys.
What Benjy didn’t know was whether the way he treated Ore was a mask, or if a man with so much evil was capable of genuinely caring for his daughter while simultaneously hurting the woman who gave life.
“She didn’t have to tell you to know,” he said to his sister now. “The signs were there. You know dad was controlling.”
“Or he was just being a dad.”
“What are you even saying, Ore? Why on earth are you defending that man? I’m telling you he hit your mother, our mother and you don’t want to accept that as a fact?”
“But I never saw it happen! What if you are wrong? What if you saw something and interpreted it as something else? We’re humans, we make mistakes.”
Benjy could feel the anger building in him. “So what? You think I just hate him so much I would make up something like that?”
“I don’t know,” Ore shrugged. “I just know the person dad was to me and it doesn’t seem like he was the kind of person who would be gentle with me and abuse his wife.”
“You’re being extremely naïve and blind right now, and I don’t think I can continue to have a conversation with you. Two truths can coexist, you know that. Yes, he was gentle with you but he was a terrible husband to Mum and if she had left him all those years ago and never came back, maybe her health wouldn’t have deteriorated early and she would still be alive.”
There was silence then, both siblings stewing in their thoughts. Benjy didn’t often get upset at his little sister, but this was different. He had no idea that Ore had lived in a bubble about their upbringing. How could she not have sensed the tension that often brewed in their home between their parents? How Mum rarely spoke up or contradicted their father and his decisions? How could she think that was normal? And if she thought that, is that how she operated in her marriage to Ramsey? Docile, naïve?
“I should tell you this then,” Ore’s words were a whisper. “It was me.”
“You what?”
“I told Dad that Mum left with Uncle Badmus.”
