It was a seemingly asinine thing for David to give Celine a call after the suspicious feeling he’d gotten about her a week ago. He didn’t like the way she questioned him about the couple that visited him in his office. It made him feel like she’d done something in his absence – perhaps, snuck into the bungalow. Eventually, he squashed the thought. If she’d truly done something weird, his security guards would have informed him almost immediately.

If she’d tried to sneak to the bungalow behind the mansion, one of the guards would have seen her. They could not all have been asleep at the same time – unless she gave them sleeping pills. David decided not to overthink it. It was just a simple question that any other person could have also asked. He didn’t have to get so antsy about it. 

Still, wasn’t it a bit strange that he’d decided to add extra keys to the bundle because of his unease concerning her question and now, he was thinking about her, feeling so worried for her? 

He could remember the time they’d spent at his office that day before leaving for the bar to drink. Celine had cried her eyes out about her abusive marriage with her ex-husband and her regret towards her child. Now that he remembered it he couldn’t help but feel concerned for her and curious as to whether she was okay. The compassionate side of him could not go without being expressed in times like this. It was a part of David’s Achilles ’ heel. 

So he picked up his phone and dialed her number. 

“Hi?” Celine’s greeting was more of a surprised, perplexed question rather than a polite expression of pleasantries. Why was he calling her? 

“Um…how are you? I…I just wanted to ask if you feel better now,” David spoke awkwardly. Celine’s beginning tone already set the mood for how David responded. He was scared and slightly intimidated by the way she’d questioned him. 

“Uh?” Celine was confused for a moment, even more surprised that David was asking the question in contrast to what she’d thought he’d ask her. She’d even forgotten that she’d put on an act that day. It took her some time to recollect what he was talking about. Still, wasn’t he supposed to be avoiding her or be somewhat wary of her? Why was he asking her about this?” 

“Are you better now?” David repeated his question because he thought she didn’t hear what he’d said. 

“Oh…Oh…I’m better now,” She answered, slightly relieved by the fact that David doesn’t suspect her. She must have wrapped things up pretty nicely the other day. 

“I’m happy for you. I just called to check on you.” 

“Oh, you did?” Celine is still amazed but for a different reason now. After her discovery from a week ago and her meeting with David’s mum, she’d decided to create a distance between herself and him until she could come up with a potent way to help David out of his insanity. Now that David had gone out of his way to give her a call, it was only wise that she made something out of it no matter how little. 

“Yes,” he responded. 

“Well, I’m better now, thank you so much. But my daughter is kind of sick. She’s been acting crazy for some days now and I’m not sure what to do anymore,” Celine heave a depressed sigh for appropriate effect. “After giving her some medications, she began to get better. Now, she’s back to complaining about stomach aches again. She adamantly refused to let me take her to the hospital because she doesn’t like the way it smells. I don’t know what step to take from here. Could you please help me out?” 

“Yes, for sure, how can I help you, please?” David answered in a fretful tone. 

His heart was already throbbing as the scary news triggered memories from that afternoon several years ago. He could never forget the same helplessness he’d felt when Sindara insisted on eating jollof rice and nothing else. He could never lose his memory of how he ran from pillar to post, begging the neighbors for jollof when his parents didn’t pick up the phone.

Some random person with no inkling of how it feels like to be in a situation of life and death could easily say that David should have bought the food from a vendor. While that was indeed an obvious and sensible option, it was not easy for him because he didn’t know if his mum was on good terms with the vendor. 

This was a valid fear considering the fact that his mum had declared war between herself and one of the neighbors in the estate. This could be the same predicament with Celine too. Taking Autumn to the hospital was the obvious thing to do. Still, there must be something standing in the way.  

“Can you come over?” 

“Oh…yes, yes, I can. Send me your address. I’ll be there in a minute.” 

David was glad to be available to help her. This was what he wished had happened with his sister. Hence, he was quick to grab everything that he felt might be of use and rushed out of his office. Once he hit the road, he had hopes that he was going to get to her abode on time but the Lagos traffic had something else in store for him. 

***

From the first stairway up until the door of Celine’s living room, David sprinted in less than two minutes. That said a lot because the steps were about fifty in number. When he finally got to the third apartment where she resided, he burst in through the door, panting noisily to catch his long-lost breath. 

After about five minutes of inhaling and exhaling frantically, he stilled and took in his surroundings. When he saw Autumn sleeping peacefully on the couch opposite where he was standing, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Wasn’t she supposed to be shivering or showing obvious signs of sickness? Perhaps, he wasn’t seeing what was supposed to be seen. So he looked around the spacious living room for Autumn’s mother, only to find her seated on the hammock by the balcony outside with pink headphones fixed on her head. 

David walked across the rug, not bothering to take off his shoes. When he got to the balcony, he opened the glass doors and saw Celine swinging her body back and forth on the hammock in rhythm to the lyrics of the song playing on her headphones. Almost hurtfully, David tapped her shoulders. Celine opened her eyes slowly and saw David. With urgency, she removed the device from her ears and stood up. She didn’t look too surprised though. This confused David all the more. Wasn’t she supposed to look ashamed by the fact that she’d told him a lie? Or she just didn’t care? 

“You made me think that Autumn was dying,” David swallowed, trying his best not to yell at her nor sound too furious.

“No she wasn’t,” Celine furrowed her eyebrows and gave David a what-do-you-mean look.

As she did her best to feign a look of innocence, she ensured to notice how his jaw was hardened and his eyes were steely and colder than the arctic. From his countenance and the surreal show of concern he was expressing, she could tell that he rushed here with hopes that he could redeem a fatal situation – just like he wished he could have years ago. Perhaps, he was just overly caring.

Still, it was safe to say that his trauma had shaped that side of him. The way he’d even asked the question deeply mirrored the pain he would have felt if he didn’t come on time to help Autumn if it had been that she was truly dying. Celine felt sorry for him. 

“So why did you ask me to come, only to rush here and see you listening to music and enjoying the view of the city?” David gestured towards the view of the rusty bungalow roofs and kiosks that occupied the land beyond. Keke napeps and okadas rushed by very often, most of the riders honking briefly and revving the engines of their motorcycles a bit too frequently. 

“My daughter is sick. I didn’t know she was allergic to pineapples until I gave her some for the first time three days ago. I took her to the hospital and they prescribed some drugs but she didn’t react well to some of the drugs. I already gave her another medication a few minutes before you called and she fell asleep shortly afterward.

I didn’t know that the drug had a sleeping effect. She has been coughing profusely and was having nosebleeds prior to the time I gave her the drugs. I just decided to tell you about it so you can help me out in case she wakes up and continues to show signs of sickness.” 

“You said she was acting crazy—” 

“It’s one of those exaggerations women make when trying to describe something that bothers them.” 

“But Autumn is actually acting crazy,” David’s eyes widened and his tone took on a higher pitch. “If she’s not been responding well to the drugs that the doctor prescribed, that’s something to be very bothered about. What if she doesn’t respond well to the medication you just gave her?” 

“I checked her body temperature a few minutes ago while she was asleep. It’s reduced significantly. I just needed you to be there to assist me in case anything unexpected happens.”

“Oh,” David breathed out and closed his eyes for a minute, trying to absorb the reality of the fact that Autumn wasn’t in a critical condition. 

David reminisced on the anxiety that gripped him behind the steering wheel when the cars in front of him wouldn’t move. The longer the traffic lasted, the more suffocated he felt. The never-ending cacophony of sounds made everything worse. The gala seller by his right wouldn’t stop shoving the basket of her wares through his car window. The shoe seller was also relentless.

The pedestrians that were trying to cross the road despite how jam-packed it was were uselessly obnoxious and unnecessarily loud as they screamed and tried to get car drivers to halt for their sakes each time the traffic got a little better. He could barely drive and time was ticking fast. He was tempted to alight from his car and travel the rest of the journey to Celine’s house by foot but he thought the car might be of use if they needed to take Autumn to the hospital. 

Celine allowed David to bask in his bliss. It almost made her feel good to see him feel a sense of airiness and lightness of heart until she remembered that he was a kidnapper and that she had a task ahead of her – one that involved putting aside the pity she felt for him so it doesn’t get in the way of her mission to liberate the girls.

She could imagine how he must be towards the girls if he did this much for her own daughter. He must have been feeling a continuous sense of guilt towards his sister and decided to channel it to the poor girls by being overprotective towards them and acting like their big brother. While that might seem harmless on the surface, it was great affliction for those children. Celine had to be careful and be sure to tread on safe waters. 

“This makes you feel good, right?” She asked him. She wanted to instigate a conversation that might trigger him to open up to her about his feelings so she could get to the root of the problem. She needed facts, not hypotheses.  

“Yes, it does. I’m glad I didn’t come when she was still coughing or having nosebleeds. I would have believed I came late and couldn’t do anything to prevent that from happening,” David expressed himself as he allowed Celine to lead him back into the living room. He'd now settled on one of the armchairs.   

“Why should you feel that way?” She smiled and gazed at the sleeping form of her daughter for a brief moment. Then she turned to David. “You can’t be in control of everything so there’s no need to feel guilty all the time. You could have chosen not to come and that would be fine.

If God forbid, she died while you had chosen not to come, that still wouldn’t have been your fault. It’s useless to blame yourself for not coming. It’s the same thing if it was the other way around. If you had come while she was still coughing, it makes no sense to beat yourself up for coming a little late.” 

“What about you? I’d feel guilty towards you for not being a reliable friend. Also, wouldn’t you regret calling me for help? You would have wished to call someone that was more trustworthy.”

“No. I’d know that I tried my best. Also, I wouldn’t have resented you if you had decided not to come.”  

“That doesn’t sound believable. Why does everyone make hatred look like an emotion that only enemies are supposed to have towards each other? Your family member can hate you. Your friend can loathe you. Your friends and family members are not supposed to be intrinsically good people nor are they expected to always have nice feelings towards you just because you are dear to them.

If they can’t show their anger towards you when you err them, then they are only denying the humanness in them. Nobody is intrinsically good or bad. There are grey areas. Your loved ones can feel evil things. This is exactly why I never believed my mum’s show of love to me after Sindara died. How could she not hate me after what I did? I literally betrayed her trust. How could she just accept me like that after everything?” 

“Okay, so does that make the hatred your dad has towards you any better? Like does it make you feel good? Do two wrongs make a right? If you say that your loved ones are supposed to hate you when you betray their trust by mistake, then you should have stayed at home while your dad loathed you with everything in him. You should have stayed there to suffer from the pain that he was willing to inflict on you. Instead of trying to inflict pain on yourself, you should have allowed your father to do it instead. Why did you run away?” 

“I don’t know…” David answered in a small voice. His voice softened. “I just wished my mum had lashed out at me even once. I wanted to see her yell at me and call me all sorts of names for being a disobedient son.” 

‘And what would have happened if she had done that? Would that have kept you from running away? Your dad showed the exact sentiments you wanted him to express. Still, you ran away because you couldn’t deal with the love your mum had for you despite what happened. You could have ignored her kindness and chose to accept the hatred from your Dad.” 

“I—”

“The problem is not with your mother, David. It’s not with your sister, Yemisi, who decided to still love you after what happened. You are the problem, David. The real issue is the fact that you allowed guilt to become your everything. Guilt has changed your perspective towards everything and it has succeeded in shaping your worldview as well.  It was your choice – just like the choice your mother had. 

Truly, she could have chosen to despise you. To a certain extent, she had the right to express her anger towards you,” Celine shrugged. ‘Wait, a minute, though. Do you think your mother didn’t feel guilty too? Do you think that she didn’t see herself as an incompetent mother? If the financial situation of things in your family wasn’t terrible, would there have been a need for you to beg the neighbors for jollof?

As you said, good people are capable of feeling bad sentiments but that’s when choices come into play. Whatever you decide to do with your emotions will come with grunts that you alone would have to bear. Your mother must have come to terms with the fact that it was her fault that her daughter died even though she was obligated to make her living condition much better. She wanted you to see the same thing too; to let you know that you truly meant well regardless of the fact you made a mistake.

Your mother chose to love you still and she wasn’t being fake or untrue to herself for being kind to you despite everything. Even while she was stretching her hands out to you, she must have felt a pang of maliciousness in her heart. It would have been much easier for her to curse you and she must have known that.

Still, she acknowledged her feelings, buried them, and chose a more difficult path all for your sake. There wouldn’t be anything to gain if she had decided to curse you and hate you. You would run away still. The fact that your dad hates you doesn’t make you feel any less guilty, does it? You’re the one who just chose to push your mother away.” 

“But tell me didn’t I do a terrible thing?” David was still confused as to whether or not he needed help.

Celine licked her lips in preparation for her next response. She hoped that as simple and as shallow her words might sound, they would strike a chord within him. “You didn’t, David. You were only fourteen when it happened. It was a mistake. Your sister would probably still have died if you hadn’t done all you could.” 

“That would also make it my fault for not watching over as a big brother should. She was kept under my care for the time being.” 

She licked her lips again. She was getting frustrated. “Doesn’t that go to show you that sometimes, you can’t be in control of what’s going to happen?” 

“I don’t believe that.” 

“What if things get much worse if you don’t let it be?” 

“I’ll know that I tried.” 

“No, you wouldn’t,” Celine raised her eyebrows, slightly surprised by the blatancy of David’s lie. How could he even convince himself to believe that he wouldn’t feel guilty if things got worse? She’d spent almost twenty minutes trying to make him realize that he didn’t have to feel guilty all the time and he failed to see the truth. How, then, could it be possible that he’d see the truth in a much worse situation? Why was he even contradicting himself? 

“There’s no way you’d cut yourself some slack in a situation like that. David, if you don’t learn to let things be sometimes, you are going to run mad,”

She was tempted to mention the girls. It was clear that it was going to be extremely difficult for David to let them go. This was the same thing he felt towards them. She was sure he did extreme things to ensure that nothing bad would ever happen to the girls.

She couldn’t even imagine how fretful David would get if any of the girls sustained something as small as a little scratch on their faces. It was a thought that frightened her and it made her want to beg David right away to let the girls be but she had to follow the process. It wasn’t yet the time to mention the girls. In fact, the entire conversation was over for now.

Somewhere in between the conversation, Celine had hinted toward David visiting his mother. It had been years since he last saw her. She could only hope that he got the message and was bothered enough to consider it.  

While David stared into thin air, the possibility of running back into his mother’s arms became a matter of contemplation. Was it something he could do now after running away from her countless times? Could he allow himself to be forgiven by his mother or rather was it possible for him to accept her forgiveness? He did not betray her just once. He did it subsequently afterward.

Even right now, he knew she would be devastated if she learned about what he was doing. Still, how could he bring himself to stop it when his sense of validation was already attached to the practice? Did he have a right to show up to her as a wrecked man? Did she deserve another heavy round of heartbreak? 

“Would you like to eat anything?”  Celine said in a bid to end the argument. 

“No, thank you,” David answered coldly. “I’d better get going now,” He rose from the seat.  

“Oh, okay,” Now, you are not even bothered about Autumn’s health anymore. She wanted to add this to tease him but thought better of it. It was a good thing he’d rejected her offer. She liked that he didn’t pretend to care for autumn after she told him the brutal truth. Now, she could only hope that he’d ruminate deeply on everything she’d said and perhaps visit his mother