MY MOTHER IS NOT A MOTHER

My name is Sharon and I put it to you today that my mother is not a mother!

Yes! She is not a mother. And as a matter of fact, she never wanted me in the first place. I can’t recollect the number of times she told me I was bad luck. On several occasions’, she told me I was a mistake that should never had happened.

I have never remembered her showing me a mother’s love; not even once. Well, except for when my Dad was still alive and that: when she knew he was watching.

But Daddy is long gone as he died when I was 4.

Weeks before he died, I heard he and my Grandmother (his mother) arguing. Grams had told him he should never have married my Mum and that I was only a means to an end for her since most people knew he adored children.

Grandma also told Daddy without both of them knowing I was eavesdropping that Mummy was only after Daddy’s money.

Yes, my Dad was rich. He bought me toys and took me out to big places but he almost had nothing to do with Mummy. Now that I think back, I wonder how they could call themselves a couple.

Daddy never failed as a Father; at least to me. He protected me. He corrected and disciplined me when I behaved below his standard but he never took it lightly with my mother when she laid her hands on me.

He never trusted my mother with his riches and only gave her huge sum of money whenever she lied that she wanted to purchase things for me when all she cared about were her looks.

As for Grandma, she loved me for Daddy’s sake but she hated my Mother with passion. Mum would always say to my face that when my father dies, she would be the one in charge since all his properties could automatically belong to her. Only mummy was wrong.

Things didn’t go as she had thought and Oh, I suffered for it.

How and why did things change?

One afternoon, Daddy died in a hit and run accident.

He had taken me to the amusement park for sightseeing. On our way back home, I insisted I wanted to take Strawberry Ice cream so he stopped the vehicle and went across the road to an ice-cream stand.

While he was returning to the vehicle, he hadn’t notice an oncoming truck because he was looking at me: making sure I was not scared since he wasn’t there with me.

The truck hit him and knocked him down. He died almost immediately; in my presence.

Daddy died because of me.

When Mummy heard of what had happened, she was angry. No; Furious!

She said ‘I killed her husband.’ Daddy hadn’t made a will that could have favored Mum since he sure wasn’t expecting he would die so soon. Grams and Daddy’s siblings eventually took control of all my Father had.

Grandma told my mother to leave the Mansion but gave her the option of leaving me in the families care. We both knew I couldn’t lack care and material things but Mum told them not to worry and that we would both see the bitter side of life together.

What a mother!

We left the mansion for my Grandmother and went to the house my mother grew up in with her parents. My Mother’s mother, Grandma Sarah was 74 years old and was very angry when she saw us.

She and my mother’s younger brother, Uncle Rick laughed my mother to scorn and asked her if she had already gathered enough wealth to last her a lifetime.

“Didn’t you say you would never come back to this God forsaken house? Why are you here?” My Grandmother asked her daughter in anger. After a lot of plea, Grandma allowed us to stay.

“At least you brought a beautiful damsel.” Uncle Eric commented. I wondered what he was implying.

“Rick, don’t you lay as much as your finger on my daughter. As you can see, she is a minor. Stay off!” Mum glared at him and he kept shut.

There were only two rooms in the house: Grandma’s room and Uncle Rick’s. The adults concluded I and Mum would join Grandma in her room and so we moved in. After a lot of search, Mum eventually got a job at a Restaurant as a waitress and would leave me at home with grandma and my uncle from morning till night.

Uncle Rick would never cease to comment that I should be grateful I got my Dad’s gene hence I was a beautiful girl. I would just stare at him in silence but Grandma would shout at him to keep shut. He would lick his lips in a scary way and walk away.

Uncle Rick was a womanizer. He brought ladies to the house however he wanted. Before long, I started seeing things and listen to conversations that a child my age shouldn’t be exposed to. I wasn’t registered in any school because of lack of funds so I stayed home throughout the day.

One day, I saw another side of Uncle Rick that was so difficult for my little mind to comprehend.

I was already five but my mother always assisted me with my bath before she went out. On this day, Mum woke up late and had to rush off so she couldn’t assist me. At around, 9am I still hadn’t taken my bath and Uncle Rick noticed. He decided he was going to help me and that I should get my towel and wait for him in the bathroom.

Before doing as he said, I checked on Grams to seek her opinion but discovered she was having her morning Nap.

I removed my clothes, wrapped my towel around my small body and went to the bathroom.

Not too long, Uncle Rick arrived with warm water.

I watched as he got things ready and when he was done he told me to remove the towel and hand it over to him.

As he collected the towel, he stared at me for some seconds and eventually said that I was becoming a big girl so fast. I shivered in response.

He placed the towel on a bar and started. He washed my body himself so I just kept mute. I just wanted him to be done quickly.

In few minutes, he was done and I reached out for my towel to cover my body like Mummy used to.

“Take it easy, Girl. I’m not done yet.” He said. He had that scary look on his face again.

“But…” I started.

“There is one more place that is still dirty.” He said as he licked his lips like he used to. I was getting scared.

“Where?” I whispered with a shaky voice.

“Oh No! You are scared. Don’t worry, it’s only a matter of days before you get used to it.”

What? Was he going to clean me up everyday?

“Widen your legs a bit.” He commanded and bent down in front of me.

My instincts told me to call for grandma but I clamped my mouth shut for fear of pissing him off.

I did as he said and before I could say Jack, he started touching me where a man wasn’t suppose to. I screamed.

He put his other hand on my mouth immediately.

As I watched in fear, he stopped for few minutes. I whimpered in pain. He grabbed my towel with his other hand and started stuffing it in my mouth. My eyes widened in fear. Does Uncle want to kill me? I wondered.

“Why are you acting like a kid? Don’t make me angry.” He spat out.

I blinked. What was I if not a kid? I was only 5 for Christ’s sake.

He bent down back and resumed back to what he had been doing earlier. I screamed against the gag. I struggled.

He did unspeakable things to me not minding my tears. He was smiling in pleasure. When I realized my struggle would change nothing, I just stood there crying.

I cried terribly but he didn’t even care. In few minutes, he was done.

I watched as he removed my towel out of my mouth, washed me one more time and cleaned my face to remove evidences of my tears. He handed my towel to me in silence.

I stared at him with despise as I grabbed my towel from him and fled from the bathroom. I heard him laugh behind me as tears once again rolled down my face.

I entered the room we shared with Grandma but she was still asleep. I dressed up quickly and lay beside her. The spot didn’t stop hurting me and i wept for long. I didn’t know when I slept off.

When Mummy came back from work at night, I had just started narrating things to her when she shouted at me that she was tired. Her actions weren’t so strange to me but I was hurt.

Uncle Rick made sure that became a daily routine. It continued like that till I was 6 years old and I got used to it. My Mum never suspected a thing. I still hadn’t started school and my mother didn’t care.

One evening, I was sitting in front of the house when some people whom Uncle Rick referred to as the ‘Church people’ came to invite us for a program.

Among them was a Woman who looked a bit younger than my mother. What caught my attention about her was that a young girl followed her closely throughout the time the group was talking to my Family. Her daughter I guessed.

I looked at mother and daughter and wondered if the woman was like my mother. The girl caught me staring and smiled. I stared back.

Truth be told it had been long I interacted with kids like me. That stopped the moment Dad died.

My chest tightened in pain at the thought of my Dad. If he were to be alive, Uncle Rick would be dead long ago.

“Esther, let’s go.” The woman said to the girl, jolting me back to the present. The girl was staring back at me. It was then I realized I had been staring at her for long. I looked down in shame. Her mother who had been watching us laughed.

“Its okay, my child.” She said to me. I dashed my eyelids furiously. She called me her child? Even my mother hadn’t done that in forever.

“Esther, we need to catch up with the others.” She said to her daughter.

As they turned to leave, the girl waved at me and I tried waving back. My mother shouted at me. I sighed.

“They are kids.” her mother said to my Mum.

As the woman turned to go, her daughter turned to me again; “Do you want to be my friend?”

I was speechless.

I wanted to scream ‘yes’ but I feared mum would be angry. I eventually smiled in response. The girl smiled back and ran after her mother. I watched her go with joy in my heart.

For the first time in a long time, I felt loved.

I had no idea if we were ever going to meet again, but I knew one thing for sure:

I now had a Friend named Esther.

My only friend.

The next day, to my surprise Mum went for the program in Esther’s church and when she came back she told everyone in the house she was now a believer. That she was now born again.

What a bombshell!

I didn’t know what she meant at first until Uncle Rick told me mother would soon join the Church people. To me there was just nothing new about her.

So many thoughts went through my mind. If Esther’s mother was also a believer, were there different types of believers?

Before long, Mum started attending their service and any time I wronged her, she would say I needed deliverance. I pleaded with her to take me with her to the church, so I could see Esther but she refused blatantly. Throughout that period, Uncle Rick still continued his ‘cleaning’ routine.

Few nights before I clocked 7, Mummy had gone for one of her prayer meetings and I was home alone with Uncle Rick and Grandma.

My uncle called me to his room. I thought it was time for his normal routine. However, when I got to his room, he asked me to lie down on his bed. I was scared, so I asked him what was wrong.

“It’s time to teach you something new.”

My eyes grew wide; “What things?”

“What I do with those girls that you see around the house.” He replied with a smirk on his face. I had seen him do a lot of things to understand him.

I shook in fear as tears rolled down my face. “Uncle, please.”

“My angel, it’s because I love you.”

I started crying loudly hoping to catch Grandma’s attention but I knew she might not hear due to her poor hearing ability. Plus she even sat outside the house where she was getting the cool breeze.

His face went hard and scary as he pushed me on the bed and started pulling my clothes up.

He had almost had his way when the door opened. I looked towards the door to see Grandma. She walked in angrily with her walking stick in her feeble hand.

As I struggled to rise from the bed, she started beating him with the stick, cursing him as she did.

“I just felt the pull that something was going on in this room. Rick, you are evil. Ha!” He flung her stick away and ran out angrily. I helped Grandma with her stick and followed her to her room.

“Sharon, since when?” She asked as soon as we had both calmed down.

“It’s been happening for long, just that he wants to do another thing today.” I replied.

“How come no one, not even your mother took notice?” She asked perplexed.

I kept my mouth shout as we lay down to sleep. Before I drifted off beside grandma, I heard the front door open and close with a bang: Uncle Rick had returned home.

Mummy got back around 4am in the morning but Grandma was fast asleep. I eventually woke up around 8 to news that almost had me running:

Grandma had died in her sleep.

It was just too hard for me to comprehend. The person who could protect me was gone just like that?

Unlucky me!

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The End?

No! Sharon’s Story doesn’t end here at all.

Click here to continue reading the Tale of this young Girl.