She died

.....he would beat her everyday, and she would never cry out for help. She didn't want people to know he was beating her. After every beating, she would stay indoors for days until her swollen face and bruised body healed.

He would seldomly return home but every time he did, she was his punching bag. What confused me, was when ever he didn't return home, she'd pray for his safety where ever he was.

As a child, I thought he was always at work, but no, he was somewhere resting his head on the breasts of another woman.

Although I never wanted him to come back home, but mom was always worried and was restless when he didn't return.

He never used to answer his phone when Mom called.

One night, mom had called again and a strange woman answered the phone and warned her not to call the number again before she hung up.

Mom wouldn't stop calling until he answered the phone and started to yell at her. She asked him who it was that had answered the phone the first time but he told her it wasn't her concern.

Never for once did he leave the house and left money for food. Mom didn't have any business that fetched her money and I remember how she would always beg him to set up a business for her no matter how little it was. Each time, he would tell her that her responsibility was to look after me. Yet he wouldn't provide any of our needs.

Mom was able to get some money from her siblings to start up a petty business. He wasn't aware, because she didn't tell him. When he found out, he came to the market, destroyed the business and beat her up in the market place and went home with me.

When Dad returned home a few days after the strange woman answered his phone. Mom was bent on knowing who the woman was but he wouldn't say anything.

She wouldn't leave him alone until he began to beat her again.

He had hit her on her chest and she fell down and became unconscious. After a few minutes, she wouldn't get up. He tried to revive her but she wouldn't get up. I was scared, and so was he.

He began to call for help, but no one would attend to him. Even though mom never cried for help when he beat her, our neighbors knew what was happening.

They told him to eat her corpse since he had finally killed her. I couldn't believe mom had died. "Please God, don't let her die" I whispered. By this time, Dad's eyes were raining tears and I wondered why. He had always wanted to kill her, it made no sense to me that he was crying.

He ran outside to go get a taxi, a few minutes later, he came back in and found mom in a sitting position.

"Are you okay?" he asked. " You mean if I'm still alive?" mom replied. "Well, God will not let me die by your hands" she added, before entering the bathroom to take a shower.

I had imagined that the incident would have thought him a lesson, but no, it didn't. For a couple of days, he didn't lay hands on her but soon, he went back to using her as his punching bag.

One time, he beat her and attempted to throw her into a well outside of the house. It took the intervention of our neighbors to stop him.

Everyone wondered why she wouldn't leave him before he killed her. I wondered thesame thing too. I hoped that she would one day take me and go Faraway from him. But she wouldn't, she didn't. She was blinded by religion.

One morning, as I woke up from sleep, she was still sleeping. She must have still been in pains from the beatings the previous night. I knew for sure she would wake up, she always did. But that morning, she didn't wake up, she never woke up, she died.