The chalk on our classroom wall.

The night my father brought another woman into our house. Doose wrote my name in our classroom walls. I will never forget that day. My baby brother was two months old. Our small house in Wadata , Markudi was smelling of baby powder and hot pap. My mother tied two wrapper , one to cover her body, another one to carry my baby brother on her back. Her eyes were tired. Baba entered without knocking. behind him was a woman with a Ghana must go bag, her slippers were making noise- kpam kpam on our cement floor. My father said one sentence " Hauwa will manage here" This was my mother's house. my mother did not shout. She did not cry. She just pulled my baby brother closer to her chest. I saw her hands shaking. That night Benue rain beat our zinc roof .- gbam gbam. in the other room. I heard my father laughing. It was not with my mother. I closed my eyes and hated love. The next morning in school, I was still very angry. Our classroom wall was dirty. Doose took white chalk and write in big letters. I LOVE MIMIDOO. The whole class shouted "wooh" I was so embarrassed, I hated boys, I hated that chalk. I ran to the wall and cleaned it with my bare palm until my palm was white . Doose just looked at me and smiled. " Tomorrow I will write it again"he said . He did . every day he wrote it again . I did not know that the boy writing my name in chalk would be the same boy to find me 10 years later under the same heavy Benue rain when I have finally learned to stop cleaning love off the wall.