Crossed

episode 4

It had been a week already, a week since I pushed the man who raised me down a well and a week since my mother bolted and disappeared on her 3 children.

A week since I have had to stay home and baby sit Lileti. A week of looking at the spot he lay lifeless in a pool of blood and try not to throw up.

I'm dozing on my next, Lileti in my hands when I hear a knock downstairs. I put Lileti down on the when the knock comes again and rush upfront to see who it was. Sekani was off to school, and mother...my feet come to a stop, then I break into a run down the flight of stairs.

"Mother!" I shout as I open the door.

My face grows long with disappointment as I look at the man and woman standing before me. The man looks at least in his late twenties, the woman must be twenty one at the most, she flashes a bright smile but I don't smile back.

" you are still around?" The man asks, I thought you would be gone by now, I just knocked to make sure."

The woman presses past me at the door way and looks around the living room. It is only when I look back at the man do I see the moving truck down the entrance.

'The owners'

I had never met them, they always met my parents when Sekani and I were in school, like it was supposed to be.

"I presume your mother is not around," the man says as he also walks past me at the door.

When I walk back in, the woman is already opening up the boxes that had already been here, the ones that were piled up next to the door. She scanned the contents as if checking if everything was there.

"She travelled." I lie, it was beginning to be a habit.

"And your father?" He asks.

'I killed him' I dare not say it aloud.

"He ahh...had a minor accident and was hospitalized."

"Really, how is he?" The lady asks, trying to sound concerned.

"He must be okay, " I fake a smile, " he was hospitalized in the next town so that my aunties can see him often"

I didn't have aunties, this is the only family I knew, the only family I ever had.

"You should ring up your mother," the man says, " you were informed we move in today, yeah?"

My heart stops. They were moving in, which meant they did not need care takers anymore, which meant we had to move out, today, now.

The man says something about having had discussed the moving with my mother but it's like his words are hitting a barrier, preventing them from reaching me.

I watch his mouth move but I can't hear a single thing.

Where in heavens name were we going to go?

Where was I to take Sekani and Lileti?

How was I going to explain we got kicked out and instead of looking for a roof to put over our heads, mum abandoned us.

Where would a fifteen years old find shelter for her two siblings and herself?

How?