SHE CALLED ME SIS

CHAPTER TWO — Our Room Was Not Big Enough for Silence

The first week with Lani felt like living with a stranger who could read my thoughts — and still didn’t care.

She wasn’t rude. She didn’t scatter the room. She didn’t steal my things or report me to Madam. No. Her crime was worse.

She was silent.

That kind of silence that fills the air and makes you feel like you’re the one making too much noise just by breathing. She moved softly. Spoke rarely. Thought deeply. It was as if she came with a rulebook I had never seen — one that demanded distance, dignity, and detachment.

I wasn’t used to that.

I was used to yelling. To chaos. To Madam banging the kitchen door and cursing the help, to Daddy walking past like he couldn’t see anybody, to neighbors quarrelling over who used their generator during fasting hours. But Lani came with quiet.

And quiet… was dangerous.

The kind of quiet that holds grief. Or secrets.

Maybe both.

She woke before me every morning, always already dressed when I opened my eyes. She’d fold her wrapper, sweep our side of the room, and leave before I even rubbed my eyes twice.

By the third day, I started setting my alarm just to beat her to it.

I didn’t like how she made me feel in my own space — like a guest.

That Thursday morning, I confronted her.

Not with shouting.

With questions.

“Why do you wake up so early?” I asked as she was putting cream on her legs.

She looked up, slow. “Habit.”

“From where?”

“Ibadan.”

Her answers were like pocket change — small, barely useful, and not what you asked for.

“Okay,” I said, folding my wrapper. “Do you want to use the bathroom first?”

She shook her head. “You can go.”

That was her. Always polite. Always careful. Like she was tiptoeing through a house full of landmines. And maybe she was. Maybe her old house taught her how to survive silence and kindness the same way ours taught me to dodge insults and expectations.

I tried not to care.

But every day, she unfolded into the house a little more, and I didn’t know how to feel about it.

By Saturday, she was already on Madam’s good side.

“She even helped me wash bitterleaf,” Madam announced over lunch like it was a badge of honor. “Zara, when last did you offer to help without me talking ten times?”

I didn’t reply. I just chewed my garri like it owed me money.

Lani didn’t even look proud. She just sat there, picking at her soup, her head low like someone still trying to disappear.

Later that evening, as I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, I heard her humming.

Low. Off-key. Familiar.

I didn’t even know I remembered the song until I caught myself mouthing the lyrics.

It was “Orin Tuntun” — that old praise song we used to sing during morning devotions when we were small. Back when we still visited her mother during holidays. Back when she still had round cheeks and used to follow me around, calling me “big sis” even though we were only two years apart.

I turned to look at her.

“You remember that song?”

She paused, mid-hum. “Yeah.”

“From where?”

She gave a sad half-smile. “Mummy used to play it on Saturday mornings. She’d clean and dance and force me to join her.”

I sat up. “I remember. She used to wear that big yellow scarf. The one that always looked like gele.”

She chuckled. “That one. She said Saturdays were for cleaning and thanksgiving.”

“What about now?”

Silence.

She didn’t answer. Just returned to folding her clothes, even though they were already folded. I watched her for a while, waiting.

Then she whispered, “She died last year.”

The air in the room thickened.

I blinked. “What?”

She cleared her throat, still not looking at me. “Last year March. Cancer.”

I didn’t know what to say. My chest tightened in a way I hadn’t expected.

Madam hadn’t said anything. Daddy hadn’t mentioned it. They just brought her here like extra luggage, not a girl who’d just buried her mother.

I stood up and walked to her mattress, sat beside her.

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded. Her eyes were glassy but dry. “I didn’t cry much.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged. “I did most of the crying before she died. By the time she left, I was just… empty.”

I understood that too well.

There’s a way pain can drain you until not even tears remain. You just float through days like a ghost wearing human skin.

“You don’t have to fold the clothes again,” I said softly. “They’re already neat.”

She laughed a little, finally looking at me. “I know. I just… needed to do something.”

We sat there, side by side, breathing together.

Something shifted that night.

Not everything. Not trust. Not closeness. But something.

For the first time, she didn’t feel like a stranger in my room.

She felt like someone carrying a wound she was too proud to show.

And somehow, that made her feel more human.

That night, when we lay in bed, she whispered again.

“Zara?”

“Hmm?”

“Why don’t you like Madam?”

I turned slowly. “Who said I don’t like her?”

“You don’t smile around her. You barely talk to her. Your eyes get small whenever she enters the room.”

I sighed. “She’s not… easy.”

“She treats you like an outsider,” Lani said quietly. “But you live here.”

“So do you.”

“Yes, but I’m new. What’s her excuse?”

I didn’t answer.

Because the truth was too heavy to unpack.

Madam had never liked me. From the moment Daddy brought her home as “Aunty Celine” who would now be our mummy, she treated me like a memory she couldn’t erase. I reminded her of Mummy. Of the first wife. Of the woman whose wedding photo still hung behind the sitting room curtain.

She smiled for guests. But behind closed doors, I was the child who didn’t belong.

“I used to try,” I said after a while. “Used to help her. Try to impress her. Beg for love.”

“And?”

“She never gave it.”

Lani exhaled. “I get it.”

Then she reached for my hand — just for a second. Just a light squeeze.

But it felt like peace offering.

And I accepted it.

For the first time since she came, I slept well.

⸻

Sunday morning, the house buzzed with church preparations. Madam shouted instructions from the bathroom. The house girl, Chinyere, ran around with heels and wrappers. Daddy ironed his agbada in the parlour like a man going to receive a national award.

Lani and I dressed quietly.

She wore a black gown — plain but elegant. I wore my blue ankara skirt and white blouse. We didn’t match, but somehow, we looked like a unit.

In church, Madam made us sit in the same row. Lani took notes during the sermon. I stared at the pastor’s lips and thought about how many lies people cover with “Amen.”

After service, a woman came to greet Madam.

“Ahn ahn! Is this your second daughter?” she asked, touching Lani’s chin. “Fine girl! She looks like you!”

Madam laughed her usual high-pitched laugh. “Ah no o, this one is from her own mummy.”

She said it like it meant nothing.

But I saw the flicker in Lani’s eyes.

The kind of flicker that reminded you: You are not really theirs.

That evening, we didn’t talk much.

She lay on her bed, hugging her pillow.

I lay on mine, writing in my old notebook.

Halfway through, I paused.

Then wrote a single line:

She called me sister. But it didn’t feel like family. Not yet.