KIMBERLY PART FIVE.

Kim grieves after Maxwell's death.

“Chinwe, Chinwe, Chinwe!”

“So you cannot even draw those simple shapes, yet you were there at the back, talking?!” Mrs. Grace asked angrily. “I’ll teach you a lesson. Your turn, Kim, draw those shapes”

Kim collected the chalk and drew the shapes with flourish.

After that day, Kim and Chinwe became close friends. Kim learnt over time that Chinwe had come from a broken home with five children, all of whom were dropouts. Chinwe and her siblings were being raised by her mother alone who hardly had time to devote to her children.

“Don’t worry, I will help you as much as I can” Kim said after listening to Chinwe’s story.

During break periods, Kim devoted her time to teaching Chinwe what they had been taught earlier in the class. Although it was harder than Kim had anticipated, Chinwe knew nothing, yet Kim was patient in teaching her and she was gradually picking up.

The duo studied at every available opportunity, this closeness was mocked in their class and in the school generally by some notorious students, Frank was the chief among them. He soon dubbed the FF. Initially, both Kim and Chinwe didn’t know what it meant until Chinwe mistakenly stepped on a classmate one day and the classmate shouted at her “Freaky freak!” Chinwe was in tears till the school closed that day despite Kim’s reassuring words.

At the end of the term, Kim came first in the class of twenty two pupils with a margin that was too wide to be bridged. Mrs. Grace was not happy with this but she had no choice than to accept the fact that Kim could have an annoying medical condition, yet she was not a dullard. Chinwe on the other hand took the eighteenth position; this seemed to inflate Mrs. Grace anger all the more.

“Why is she angry this much at us?” Kim asked Chinwe as Mrs. Grace stood in front of the class one Monday morning, reading out the results of each pupil for the term. Then there was only a couple of weeks left before vacation.

“She is angry because you topped the class despite the fact that you are not part of her favourite students. Also, I came eighteenth, that’s new and strange. I was always last before this term.” Chinwe told Kim.

Kim,

December 1996.

Seasons changed and Kim came to her first year as a teenager. By then, she was already in SS1, two classes behind Angela but both of them grew up together as teenagers and best friends. Kim’s condition neither improved nor worsened, yet she became the favourite of everyone who knew her.

At age thirteen, Angela was already preparing for her senior WAEC. She was considered the most brilliant of the children in the house because she got to SS3 at the age of twelve. Maxwell had been there at sixteen, Rose at 15, John at 14 and now Angela had broken the record. Kim worked twice harder at school in order to catch up with Angela but both of them knew that that was impossible because she started schooling vey late; nevertheless, Angela often encouraged her.

 One Saturday afternoon, after the family came back from shopping, Rose who was then in her final year at Obafemi Awolowo University was at home for a semester’s break, John too who was at 200 level at University of Ibadan was at home for a weekend so the house was unusually full that weekend. After the shopping, the girls and Mrs. Smith were in the kitchen preparing dinner when the phone rang.

Typically, the family land phone rarely rings because every member of the house (including Kim) has his or her mobile phone, so whenever the land phone rings, the call is most likely from outside the country and the call is either meant for Mr. or Mrs. Smith or both of them. When it rang, Kim was the only one in the living room, en route to the dining room to pick something that Mrs. Smith asked her to pick. Mr. Smith and John were outside at the basketball court, facing off each other and seeing who would first shot the basketball through the net twenty times and making an unbearable noise in the process. In the kitchen, Rose was gisting her mother and Angela -who listened with rapt attention and hung on her every word as if her life depended on it- about the social activities that she was involved in on campus. Kim herself was equally interested in the narration and was sorry to miss any part of it but she couldn’t just refuse to go where Mrs. Smith sent her.

For long moments, she didn’t know what to do about the ringing phone. She debated calling Mr. Smith from the pitch to come in and pick the call but she knew from experience that he wouldn’t leave the court till he was satisfied so she pushed the thought aside. She thought of calling Mrs. Smith from the kitchen but decided against it, so she picked the call and told the caller from the other end to hold on for either Mr. or Mrs. Smith then she rushed to the kitchen to summon Mrs. Smith.

“It is an international call ma” she said when she got back to the kitchen

“Oh, is the caller on hold and did he or she mention his or her name?”

“She said she is calling from the US embassy”

“Alright, take it from here Rose, let attend to the call in the living room. Maybe it is meant for your father but nothing can pull him away from that game he is playing now. I guess he was a professional basketballer in his first life” she said as she walked out and the children laughed. After she’d gone, Rose resumed her gist for her audience.

Suddenly, a high pitched noise echoed from the living room, breaking into their discussion and making their hearts to jump to their mouths. One after the other, they rushed to the living room to find out what was wrong. In the living room, Mrs. Smith stood still at the corner where the land phone was located with the receiver clutched tightly in her hand. Though she was staring at them as they rushed in but she was not seeing them. She opened her mouth several times to talk but nothing came out. Rose grabbed her shoulder and shook her vigorously “Mom, what’s wrong?!” she asked, alarmed and on the verge of breaking down. The receiver slipped from Mrs. Smith’s hands and bounced several times on the tiled floor before it stopped moving. Already, Angela had run out to bring their dad in.

Mrs. Smith slipped lifeless to the floor as if life had gone out of her. Rose and Kim got hold of her before she could hit the floor so they pulled her to the nearest sofa and started resuscitating her. That was when Mr. Smith came in with John and Angela on tow.

Gone.

It was later that they all knew what had befallen them. The US embassy had called to tell them that a message had been sent from the apartment where Maxwell lived in the US that Maxwell was sick and had been taken to the hospital earlier that day. A couple of hours later, the embassy had been called again that he had passed on. It was the news that Mrs. Smith received in the living room.

Kim loved everyone in the Smiths’ family but loved Maxwell especially. He was the big brother she never had.  He was the first person that accepted in the family when she was first into the house five years back. When the other members of the house had been cold and unfriendly, he had treated her with compassion and love. Even after everyone else and accepted and took her as part of them, there were times that she felt out of place and neglected but if Maxwell was there, he would include her in whatever the family was doing and make her feel belonged. She didn’t know her birthday but he had told her how to go about it.

“See, it doesn’t really matter which day you were born. All days are same. If you don’t know your real birthday, don’t worry about it, it does not determine how far in life you will go. Just pick your favourite day and month and year and make it your birthday. If anyone asks you tell him or her that is your birthday and nobody will doubt you as long as the date never changes. In fact, you are more privileged than people who know their real birthdays; they never have the choice of the day they were born, they have to accept it even if it was a bad day. Did you get that?” He had asked and she had nodded her head in response to that question with smiles. That was two days after she got into the house. “Now which day and month are your favourite?”

“12^th December” Kim had replied without hesitation

“Beautiful, it has a very nice ring to it. Congratulations Kim that is it. Mind you, never tell anyone you made it up. Nobody will help you remember your true birthday, worse, they will end up giving ugly date and I know you don’t want that or do you?”

All that was three years ago and Kim was a nine year old girl that was filled with grief over the death of her mother who was her only lifeline to survival and existence. But that seemed like a lifetime away. All these memories rushed back as the family sat on the front pulpit in church a week later in mourning cloths as they held the funeral service for Maxwell. Though the service was held two weeks after his demise, yet the grief was fresh and raw like a bunch of flowers picked that morning.

Kim couldn’t stop crying whenever she remembered the special moments she had spent with him. She couldn’t make up her mind if she felt more heartbroken when her mum died or now but she was so heartbroken that she felt that she would never get over his death.  After the funeral, the family returned to their mansion on the island, followed by their friends and families. When they got back home, Kim went to her room to mourn him alone. She was in no mood for talking so she firmly closed her door after her and flung herself on the bed, wishing she could cry but no tears came but the grief was palpable.

She sat up on the bed and retrieved her diary from under her pillow where she had shoved it the night before. She opened to the last page, and read the last few things that she had written about him and this brought tears to her eyes and she let them fall without restriction. She took the pen and continued writing her pain, loss and grief over his demise.

 (To Be Continued)