Unfulfilled promises 52

Unfulfilled Promises

Written by Audrey Timms

Episode 52

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When Oleng got home, she didn’t see her mum’s new car but she saw the other car, the Honda civic she had seen the day before. She got in and met her mum’s so-called lover in the living room watching television.

“Ah! You’re back.” he hailed when he saw her.

For an answer, she hissed and headed for her room.

“Please wait.” he called and ran after her.

He caught up with her at her door from across the lobby. She folded her hands across her chest and leaned on the door.

“Yes?” she rudely asked.

“What’s your name?”

“Didn’t my mum tell you?”

“I wouldn’t be asking if she did, would I?”

She eyed him before replying knowing he was lying. “Oleng.”

“Oleng.Quite a strange name. What does it mean?”

“Don’t worry.” she flatly replied.

“I don’t understand your attitude towards me. I just asked for the meaning of your name not that I said you should go to bed with me.”

“Which you’ll never have the effrontery to do.” she lashed out at him. “Oleng means don’t worry. Now if that is all, I’d like to enter my room now.”

“Is it the Ol or the Eng that means worry? Because if it is, you should be called either Ol or Eng because with such an attitude, a person who comes in contact with you will have cause to worry.” he threw at her.

“Please keep your opinions to yourself.” She turned the key in the lock and opened the door. “Please keep your distance from me also and I’d appreciate it if you don’t speak to me again.” She yanked open the door and slammed it in his smiling face.

He burst into laughter. “It will be very difficult to keep my distance and not talk to a gorgeous looking thing like you.” he yelled into her key hole before swaggering away.

“Bastard!” Oleng muttered and locked the door with the key.

She went to her bed and laid down. She made sure she stayed in her room till in the evening when her mum came back. When she was sure they had gone out, she tiptoed to the kitchen and prepared a quick dinner for herself.

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Oleng was in the kitchen the following morning slicing yams to prepare a breakfast of fried yams and singing at the top of her voice when suddenly she felt hands on her sides, tickling her. She screamed and dropped the knife. It narrowly missed her legs. She turned around and was shocked to see her mum’s so-called lover standing there, grinning like an idiot.

“Good morning, Oleng. You have a lovely voice.” he cheerfully informed her.

“Wait. I thought I told you to keep your distance.” she threw at him.

“And I thought I told you that wouldn’t be possible,” he replied. “Look, what exactly is your problem? Are you pissed because I’m dating your mum? She’s a big girl so she can make her own decisions.”

“For your information, I don’t care if you’re dating my mum or Queen Elizabeth. All I want you to do for me is leave me alone!” She vehemently told him, fury blazing in her eyes.

“Why?” He said, tongue in cheek.

She hissed. “No reason whatsoever. Please just leave me alone!”

“I can’t do that because if things go as planned, I could become your stepfather.” he informed her grinning.

Oleng was too stunned to speak. She stood there staring at him.“You? Marry my mum?” she asked incredoulously.

“Yes. Me. What’s wrong with that?”

“Are you not married?”

“Divorced.”

“Don’t you have kids?”

“Two. A boy and a girl.”

“So what do you want with my mum?”

“I love her.”

Oleng burst into laughter.

“What’s so funny?” he asked offended.

She stopped laughing then. “Is your love reciprocated?”

“Yes. She is crazy about me.”

“Really?” she chuckled. “The thing is I can’t imagine my mum in love not to talk of getting married.”

“Watch and see.” he smoothly replied.

Just then she heard her mum’s foot steps.

“Sweetheart.Sweetheart. Where are you?”

“I’m in the kitchen, my love.” he called and sneered at Oleng.

“Honey, what are you doing in the kitchen?” Mrs. Akpan asked just before entering the kitchen. She was surprised to see her daughter there.

Oleng’s looked at her mother with irritation. Her mum had not for one second spoken a word of endearment to her and now this stranger was not only ‘sweetheart’ but ‘honey’ as well. Jealousy sliced through her. She felt murderous hatred for her mum that instant. To make matters worse, Mr. Wale Akinyele took her mum in his arms and kissed on her lips, right there in front of her. Oleng hissed and brushed past them.

She went to her room and willed her tears not to fall but they did unheeded. So her mum could actually love someone, she could show love to someone? She could feel for a stranger but not her own daughter. She hated that woman!

When she heard a knock on her door, she quickly wiped her tears away. The woman she had always called her mother came in. Oleng didn’t look at her but pretended to read a magazine.

“Oleng,” her mum called softly. Oleng noticed the so-called love seemed to have softened her mum. Well, it was just too late! She didn’t bother replying her.

“Emm…” she hesitated. “Wale is no longer in the kitchen, you can go and continue your cooking.”

“No need for that. I’ve lost my appetite.”

“Okay. Let me prepare it for you. Do you want the yams fried or boiled?”

“Do whatever you like with it. I just told you I’m no longer interested. You can ask your Wale how he wants it.” she spat out.

There was silence in the room.

“This is about him, isn’t it?” her mum nodded slowly as if just realizing. She shut the door and came into the room. “You’re angry because he’s here, isn’t it?”

Oleng continued to ignore her. She came closer to her daughter.

“Haven’t I tried? Haven’t I been celibate enough? In your growing years, did you ever see a man here? Did you ever see me with a man outside?”

“How could I have when you weren’t always around?” Oleng finally answered.

“Yet you never saw me with any man. What exactly is your problem? Am I not old enough to have a male friend? I’ve been celibate for 21 years because of you. And now that I’ve found love again, you want to ruin it?”

Her daughter waved a hand in disgust. “O please stop with the ‘I’ve always been there for you’ kind of attitude. You and I know you don’t give a d--n if I approve of Wale or not. You’d still do whatever you liked regardless of my feelings,” Oleng fumed, dropping the magazine to face her mother. “Do you know what is baffling me about this whole thing is that you can actually love someone. So you can actually love someone? I can’t believe this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Am I not a human being?”

“No, you’re not!” Oleng yelled as she sprung up on the bed on her knees. “For 21 years, I waited for your love but I never received it and now suddenly you can actually love someone? Unbelievable.” Tears streamed down her eyes and she wiped them away in fury.

“I will not take that from you!” Her mother warned her sternly.

“You will. You just have to. I’ve waited all my life for a word of endearment from you but it has never happened but now you have words like sweetheart and honey for a stranger. Yes, that’s why I said you’re not human. How can you feel for a stranger and not your own daughter? Are you really my mother? Are you sure I wasn’t switched at birth?”

Mrs. Akpan slapped her daughter real hard on the face. “Don’t you say such rubbish to me.”

Just then Wale came into the room at the highly charged moment.

“Why are you both yelling?” he asked innocently.

“Nothing sweetheart. Oleng and I were just having an argument. Please, I’ll join you in the living room. Please.” she smiled falsely.

“If you say so.” He shrugged and left the room.

Oleng just continued to hold her sore cheek and send daggers with her eyes at them.

“You’ll watch your words while you are here. I will not tolerate any form of insolence from you anymore.” she warned her daughter who continued crying.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be leaving soon.” Oleng quietly told her with a sob.

“Suit yourself.” her mum replied with a careless shrug and went to the door. “You took my first love from me. I’m not going to allow you take the second.”

Oleng wondered what she meant by that when she closed the door. Had she indirectly killed her father? She decided to ask Aunt Vien the story of her mum’s life when she returned to Calabar. She had wanted to stay a whole month but she couldn’t stand these old love birds, she would return to Calabar at the end of the week. That was her home now anyway.

To be continued