Chapter 3
On her way back home after school, Oche reminisced about the days when she and her mom would try on makeup and she’d walk in her mom’s shoes. She loved how her mom hugged her. As she thought of this, she walked home faster to see them.
She walked through the gate to her house, across the unswept compound, through the dusty parlor and the unwashed plates in the kitchen with cockroaches in them. She opened the door to her parents’ room and saw them both in bed. The smell was always stronger when she left the house and came back. The smell of rancid meat, that sickly-sweet smell. Their bodies were already beginning to bloat with decomposition, but to Oche they looked the same as when she had left them for school last month.
She had come back then and found their throats slit while they lay in bed. She thought if she didn’t move them, then maybe the wounds would heal and they’d wake up. So she left them there, always checking on them and sometimes getting into bed with them, hearing them speak in her head.
“I’ve been reading for my test, daddy. I’m sure I’ll pass it. Don’t worry, I’ll make you even prouder. I’ll make you smile so much that you’ll jump up and hug me,” she said with a smile on her face. She kissed the cheek of his maggot-filled mouth and went to her mom’s bedside.
“Mommy, that Jude boy pushed me today again, but Mary saved me.”
“Sorry baby, that’s how some boys behave when they like you,” she heard her mom say.
“I don’t want him to like me, I want him to leave me alone,” she told her mom. “But he won’t, so I’ll have to endure. But I’ll soon pass this test so daddy will come to school and beat him,” she said as she bent to hug her mom.
Oche was completely unfazed by the maggots moving in her mom’s chest and gut or the congealed blood seeping from her neck.
“I love you, mommy,” she said. “Sleep well, I’ll come and check on you later. We can read my favorite storybook together,” she said as she left their room and closed the door.
She went to her room to study for her test. As she read, she told herself that all she needed was to pass the test, then things would go back to the way they were. She’d hear her dad argue politics with the TV again and her mom call her name to tell her the food was ready.
Oche loved her family so much. She enjoyed spending time with them, and she couldn’t imagine her life without them. She would ace this test and all would be well again. She held on tight to these affirmations and her family and she would never let go of them.
