Tseju's Bayo

Chapter Twenty Six - Our Zone

Mrs Mobijilade smiled, but it didn't touch her eyes. "I know I said we would talk about it when I got back, but now is not the time..."

"I don't understand mummy! What is happening, you're scaring me out! Just tell me please."

"Now is not the time or place. You have your final exams ahead of you and you have your man in the hospital. You're just recovering from a panic attack. Now, my dear child is not the time."

"This is the time mom. I am an overthinker, you know I'll overthink!" Tseju's voice was peaking.

"Lower your voice young lady!" Mrs Mobijilade whispered with as much authority as her voice could muster.

"I will not!" Tseju knew her mother hated being addressed with disrespect but she was too riled up to care. "Now is not the time to give me a lecture on the need to maintain a tone of respect with you or older people!" She got up, heaving and began pacing.

"You, my mother! My dear mother have been awol for the better part of two weeks because you've been on treatment for an ailment that neither of your children know anything about! The crippling fear that I'm about to lose my second parent has wrestled me to the verge of my sanity and I can't," her voice broke and her shoulders sagged. "Please tell me it's not cancer," She begged.

Mrs Mobijilade inhaled deeply as if she dragged in strength and not just oxygen through her nostrils. "It's brain cancer. Now lower your tone because you're aggravating my headache." She whispered in a low tired voice.

Tseju looked like she'd been shot in the chest by her bestfriend. Shock was evident on her face as she fell back into the seat she'd just gotten up from. If you looked through her eyes long enough, you would see her soul praying that this was a lie, that she was dreaming, that this was a bad dream and the buzz of her alarm clock would take her out of this reality.

She opened her mouth to speak several times but it seemed her vocal cords, tongue and brain were on strike, nothing coherent came out and so for the next couple of minutes, both women sat in silence and just stared at each other.

Mrs Mobijilade broke the silence first. "I know you have a lot of questions and you wanna say a lot of things. I know that you want to be angry at me that I didn't let you in on this, but can we do that after Bayo leaves the hospital and we're back in Benin, in our home, in our zone?"

Tseju didn't move. She stared at her mother in disbelief, tears streaming down her face. Her chest felt like it housed a heavy stone, she felt cold. She had so many questions, she wanted to know how long her mom had known, she wanted to ask why she didn't tell her, she wanted to know how this happened, but most importantly, she wanted to know if her mother would attend her convocation.

Would she be there to watch her walk down the aisle when she finally wore a big white dress and got married to the man of her dreams? Would she do omugwo? Would her grandkids know their grandma or hear about her? Tseju's mind was spinning.

She got up from the chair and sat on the bed beside her mom. "No. no, we're not going to wait," She held her mother's hands in hers. "Everything else is going to wait. Bayo will wait, my exams will wait, my recovery will wait. Now, in this moment, me and you, we're here. This makes this our zone, I want to know everything. I want you to tell me everything and from here on, I'm going to be there," She was sobbing, "Every single step of the way. You have to let me be there! We have brain cancer, not you."

"God forbid, you don't have brain cancer in Jesus name." Mrs Mobijilade intercepted in typical Nigerian mother fashion, always ready to ward off evil.

Tseju laughed, cleaning her eyes with the sides of her palm. "You know what I mean."

"I do, but the Nigerian mother in me doesn't."