NOT MY FAULT

I grew in a family where we really don’t care about one another. Nobody cares where you slept, who you sleeping with, when you are sick or what grades you got in school. Don’t disturb for food and don’t accumulate bills believing someone cares. I started living this life since I was fifteen but the expressions we create to the whole world was all is well with our family. My brothers and sister are alien to the realities that I live in. the truth is I built my trust in friends who catered for me once in a while. For every penny I had from the age sixteen I worked for it. I was never a prostitute but men who enjoyed the night with me ends up with loads of appreciation. To some people I was wrong but to me, there was nothing wrong in what I was doing.

Two pastors have been convincing enough, lecturers were a normalcy (that saw me through  my academics), gym classes paid phone bills, bouncers and dj’s were for the fun of it, uncles and daddies catered my house rent and boyfriends built up my account. I was just existing. I had no plans for the future and no family. 

Age is as constant as change thus I was growing older. One night I heard someone call my name in my sleep … Kate Kate Kate. Get a life and stop this. I sprang up from my bed and surprisingly my phone was ringing. I ended up not knowing who was talking. I reached for my phone to check who was calling me and I saw it was Clara. What on earth who she be calling me for at this time. I struggled to pick but the call was lost. I put the phone down and increased the fan to accommodate no sweat when the phone rang again. I picked and the noise from the background made it impossible for me to hear what she had to say. With a faint voice I got the glimpse and the tone strongly told me “he asked me to marry him” and I asked her what her response was. She answered I said “YES”. For the first time I was touched about something happening to someone in my family. My younger sister just got proposed to. I am happy for her but on one side of the coin I felt it should have been me. In ten minutes the pictures have circulated the whole social media. From Facebook to Instagram, BBM to WHATSAPP, people started telling me congrats like I was part of it. I tried to see his face but the pictures were dark. The face of the guy looks familiar but I wasn’t sure he is not one of my former payees. I really didn’t care much thus sleep was the next thing on my mind.  

The next morning I had calls from my dad and my mum. They had called to tell me if I have heard my sister was getting married. They were happier than expected. I was surprised as they showed some level of care. It was when my mum said “and I heard his father is the governor of CBN” that I knew the cause of their joy. The marriage is an avenue to make money. If the information is true then I really knew the face.  Either George or Solomon. How on earth did she catch that big meat? They are coming to see us next week Friday my mum said. I didn’t know if that was an invitation but I know I will be present. 

I called my friends and told them the good news. They were all surprised as me. I gathered all the information about the guy in two days and Helen was once a sex maid to George. She wasn’t even ashamed as she was narrating her experience with him. The whole salon stood still to listen to her sexcapades. I wondered in my thought and something inside of me made me think I needed him more than my sister. 

 I went with two friends a day before their proposed visit to help with the arrangement of the house and sincerely nothing as changed. I asked dad if he will not at least repaint the house and he said……. My daughter, it is good your in-laws meet you the way you are. Don’t reduce the amount of help they will have rendered by painting. I didn’t accept that thus I called a painter and I gave a face lift to the house. We were expecting twelve people but I insisted we cooked for twenty. Clara was the happiest person in the world. Her fiancée had given her two hundred thousand naira for preparation and stupidly she had told our father. That one collected ten percent for his drink and I was also given fifty thousand for the food. I easily did that with my friends. We were set for them by 11am but they didn’t come till 1pm. The convoy made a reference to our area. The whole street knew a dignitary was about to be welcomed. The governor came down with his elegant wife and they respectfully was about prostrating and kneeling for my dad and mum. They pulled them up and escorted them into our sitting room. 

Their perfumes killed the smell of the air freshener in the sitting room and in couple of minutes we were serving them food. I wore a long gown and a little slit and I was fortunate to be the one that served the twins. George and Solomon really looked alike. Until I sat down I never knew they were staring at me. The other two guys that came with them looked hungry.

The date for the traditional and white wedding was fixed and our family promised to send them the list of things required before the end of the month. We were escorting them and familiarizing when a note was slipped into my hands. It was a phone number with no name. It was dropped by one of the hungry friends but I suspected it wasn’t his number. I waited to get back to my house before I placed the call and surprisingly it was ………………..