UN-TITLED

Her loss

     She woke up to the beeping sound of a machine and looked around. When she realized she was in the hospital, she tried to move but she groaned at the pain she felt in my body, especially the ones on her left abdominal region. My Aunt Rhoda was sleeping on the couch, while her husband uncle Ben was looking out the window with his head down.

"Aunt Rhoda, uncle Ben" she called them with a raspy voice. They looked at her and rushed to her side with a look of relief on their faces.

"What happened, where is mum and dad??" she asked. They looked at each other and then Aunt Rhoda smiled at her, sadly.

" Jenny, do you remember anything that happened to you?" Aunt Rhode inquired and she nodded. Of course, she remembered. Or did she?!

She played through the sequence of events in her head. Her memories were squeaky like a damaged CD. A feeling of terror however sipped into her mind slowly and painfully until she remembered. With her heart thumping like a talking drum in her chest she asked " WHERE'S MY MOM AND DAD?!!!"

She couldn't shake the bad feeling she was getting off my head, her stomach seemed to understand and twirl, making her feel even more pain.

"Jenny dear, we received a call from a one of your teachers, she said her name was Mrs Jamal. She said you were rushed to hospital and you needed to be operated on, that there was no family member present to sign the papers for your operation. That your parents traveled, so we took the next flight to Jos that day." Aunt Rhoda, now sitting on the edge of her bed holding my feet, stated.

"WHERE ARE MY PARENTS?!!" she yelled even louder. She was trying extremely hard not to raise her voice, but it wasn't working. Uncle Ben walked to door, perhaps to give them space to talk. She heard a voice telling her to calm down as she was coming across as being rude or disrespectful to her sweet aunt who came all the way to help her, But the voice was neither loud enough nor sincere, there is nothing sweet about Aunt Rhoda. Aunt Rhoda was that kind of woman everyone thought was nice until they got to know her, she had a PhD in pretence and deceit. Her husband uncle Ben is a very sweet person, very nice and generous man. Often times she had wondered what he saw in my wicked Aunt, I guess he truly loved her. The whole idea of romantic love was still too vague understand at that time.

"They are dead Jenny, not just them about 40 others were killed and burnt as well by boko haram, I'm so sorry. " Aunt Rhoda said reluctantly.

She couldn't alter a single word, she began to cry her eyes out. She thought about everything and anything.

"My parents are no more, what is going to happen to my life now?, why didn't I just die with them". She exclaimed to the air.

She continued crying till her whole face ached and her nose was dripping catarrh. Aunt Rhoda said or did nothing but watch patiently. She didn't notice Uncle Ben was close to her bed already, he held her while she sobbed in his chest, while encouraging her to be strong and make my parents proud even though they are no more. He reminded her that he and my aunt Rhoda will always be there for her and he also promised to bankroll all my school expenses down to my university level and beyond. she could care less about all those now, she thought maybe if she cried enough God would raise her parents from the dead just to console her. She didn't fancy the idea of going back with them to Enugu. The holiday she had spent with them had been hell after the first week. Aunt Rhoda happened to be barren and can't have a child, that didn't however make her any kinder to children as people would expect, rather she was abusive and bossy. She once overheard her parents talking about how Aunt Rhoda's had had several abortions when she was in high school by one of those quack doctors that gradually destroyed her womb.

A couple of minutes later, a doctor came in smiling. "Hello Jennifer, I'm Mrs Abdul the doctor that operated on you two days ago, how are you feeling? " she said, still smiling.

"I'm okay" was all Jenny could say, she suddenly realized she'd been unconscious for two days and that made her feel awkward. "Cool, so I'll be checking your stitches to see if its healing properly and also remove the bandages, okay???" The doctor said.

Aunt Rhoda and uncle Ben headed outside to give them some privacy. The doctor lifted her hospital gown slowly, she removed the bandages gently as well. " it's healing nicely, i'll prescribe some anti biotics and pain relievers you can get from the pharmacy here in the hospital and you should be discharged by tomorrow " she said, cleaning the surface of the stitches with spirit, before putting my gown back down and taking her leave. Aunt Rhoda and her husband seemed to follow her to her

Minutes later, Aunt Rhoda came in with a bag containing new clothes. Jenny could see a pink polo and a dark blue jeans stuffed within. Uncle Ben came with food. Her stomach rumbled with expectation and she realized just how hungry she was. She opened the cooler and the sweetest smell sent shivery sensations down her bowels so fast it made her feel guilty. It was her favorite, Indomie noodles. She drove her fork in.

Jenny thought about how Aunt Rhoda used to stay with her parents before she got married, before she came into their lives her mum and dad had no issues or rather she'd never seen them quarrel. Maybe they did, but not in her presence. A couple of weeks after she started staying with them, everything changed I she began to hear everything. She was much younger then, yet like every child she could tell there was something wrong. Her parents would yell at each other for hours, especially her dad, he was always throwing tantrums here and there by the slightest provocation, and she became quite afraid of him.

She could swear she heard her mum crying countless number of times, because her dad would always come back home late which was unlike him. There was a night he slapped and beat her up because Aunt Rhoda told him my mum had been starving her, which was a lie from the pit of hell by the way. Jenny once overheard aunt Rhoda suggest to her dad that she thought her mom was having an affair, she didn't know what an affair meant, but the way Aunt Rhoda said it added up with her dad's reaction, showed an "affair" wasn't a good thing to have. Her mum would never do something bad, she was the best in the world in Jenny's eyes. As she ate, the very thought of living with Aunt Rhoda, this woman who almost destroyed their lives at some point, began to haunt her and she found herself losing interest in the food.