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I remember everything about that mansion: the chandelier that hung over our very heads like across, watching keenly the everyday display; the flower vase Grandmami had given Mami as a gift; the blue painted wall that endured the massacre from Kayi and me; Mami’s smell as it hung over the curtains in the living room, I wondered if she intentionally used the same spray on the curtain as she did her clothes.

The vase went first, then the screeching, tiny voice followed, then silence. Kayi slipped into my room, one step silently after the other, as though his feet were heavy and that was the only way to move them. He sat on my bed and strapped me into his arms; they had gotten bigger over the years. I wondered if it was because he was growing up or because it needed to be a shield. Another shatter. I wondered what it was. Then the tiny voice screeched until it became a whimper. I saw the drops on Kayi’s arms; one after the other, they flowed down his skin. I looked up at Kayi; his eyes were dry, and the tears were mine. I traced the drops with my eyes as they flowed down his skin, laying the hair down on their path. I had always thought he got his hair from Dadi.

A door bang came from Dadi’s room, so I drew out of Kayi’s embrace and ran as fast as I could. I just wanted to hold her close to me, if somehow that would reduce her pain.

“Kati, no.” I could hear Kayi scream behind me, but slowly I let it fade away. His footstep thundered steadily behind me.

“I just want to hold her.”

Then I saw Dadi. I thought he had left like always, leaving her to nurse her wounds. I ran to her to where she had cowered and clasped her with my little hand. Somehow, I hoped they would grow as big as Kayi’s so they could wrap her entire body.

“I always told you to not interrupt me when I’m talking to your mother.”

He leaped to pick up the whip from beside the bed where he dropped it after using it thoroughly on Mami. Kayi had always called it “the resetter”.

Somehow, I felt using “the resetter” wielded him this power he had always sought to have. His face went all blank whenever he handled it, devoid of any emotion. He would shut his eyes like he was going into a trance and draw them deep into their sockets, letting the whip stroke any part of my body. Whenever Dadi had done his worst, Mami would come in the night when my eyes were shut and gently place a kiss on my hand and massage every part of my body with aboniki and warm water. All I wanted was to do the same for her.

I closed my eyes, so the whip stung less. Kayi said it took you on a journey to a faraway land where everything was just peaceful. He’s a wise man. But I did not feel the stings pierce through my body or the slow radiating shivers it sent through my spine up to my brain. Slowly, I peeped to be sure I was not truly in wonderland. Kayi was there, taking the lashes; he had taken my pain. He stood there like my rock, bearing every lash. The more unshaken he was, the angrier Dadi got, staggering and leaping but never missing each chance to lace his body with brutal marks that would later form scars on his body. At that point, I knew what my whole world was surrounded by – my mom and my big brother.

~

I stared at the mirror image of myself in the glass. Each time I expect to see the grown-up me, but every time all I see is that young girl who cleaned every one of Kayi’s wounds, careful not to touch them so they didn’t sting.

“You’re strong; you’re confident. You’re not a function of your past.”

I recited every word from the card attached to my dressing mirror as if somehow, they would go beyond words and I could actually live them. My therapist said, “Reciting those words will bring my mind into the reality of my present.” It’s been a year, and well, my mind is probably just not the regular mind.

I glanced at the grandfather clock on my dressing table; it was already 1 p.m. It was Dadi’s own; he had given it to me on my fifth birthday, just before everything turned sour. He had gotten the clock and the mansion we lived in from his father, and it was the only thing I had left of him. I wondered if seeing it every day was one of the reasons I could not move on. Every part of it reflected a memory of a portion of our days in the mansion.

“Kati, Kati.” Mami’s voice jolted me back to reality.

“I’m coming, ma.” All the thoughts vanished as I tried to prepare. Today was one of those days when I knew she needed me as much as I needed her. All the thoughts that had been parading the back of mind would find legal ground to come to light.

“Kati, you’re strong. Remember that you’re stronger than your past.”

They say wounds of the heart will probably never heal. Mine healed but left a scar I had to nurse forever.

I remember that night like the back of my hand. Dadi had come home to dinner, which was now a rare occasion. He sat at the dining table and called out to Kayi, who was passing by the dining table with his food, to go to his room. Dadi insisted that we eat together, but Kayi vehemently opposed. As the naive nine-year-old I was, I followed my big brother’s lead.

“You only come home when it suits you, and you want us to pretend like we are one big family. No, I won’t be a hypocrite.”

Dadi banged hard on the wooden dining table and stood up. At that point, it felt like I was in the Bible story of David and Goliath that Mami had always told me. Dadi’s countenance changed immediately. He held his hands in a fist and clenched his jaws. If his gaze could kill, Kayi would have been seven feet below the earth.

“What did you just say?”

Kayi repeated each word. Even if I was young, I could still read the writing on the wall. This was not going to end well.

I pinched Kayi to stop.

“Kati, stop. This man needs to hear the truth. You have a family, yet you go about galivanting with young girls without even giving a thought to your family’s welfare. Then you come home all drunk and pass unnecessary aggression on us. When family members come over, you pretend as if you are the best father in the universe and return to status quo when they leave.”

“Kayi, enough. Stop talking to your father like that.”

Mami’s tiny voice came from the background.

Kayi turned to Mami, who had been seated at the other end of the dining table.

“Mami, if you decide not to leave this man or at least talk some senses into him, it’s fine, but I’m not you. Dadi..” Kayi turned back to the other end of the table.

“You are a disgrace of a father.”

That statement must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Dadi went to the kitchen and came out with a knife. He aimed straight for Kayi. Before we could wrap our heads around what was happening, there was blood everywhere, and all I heard were muffled voices until I heard nothing again.

I must have passed out because, when I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital bed with a fragile Mami beside me. Her eyes had sunken into their sockets; they were all red and puffy. She told me I had not woken up in two days.

“I was so scared I would lose you too.”

Too? It took a while before I could process the word, then it clicked.

“What happened to Kayi?” I asked immediately.

“He’s dead, Kati.” Mami fell into another round of tears. At that moment, my world came crashing down. Everything I knew or believed went down the drain.

How could God be so wicked? Why would he take my brother away from me? It was all my fault. I should have dragged Kayi away from that place. I should have begged him to let us eat at the dining table. I should have done something, anything, and not just stood there. Papi was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter, but he was long dead in my heart, never to be revived.

From then on, it was just Mami and me. She had not gotten the privilege of getting a university education and had been married off to Papi at the age of sixteen but that didn’t discourage her. She took up menial jobs, anything just to put food on my table and send me to school. She wanted me to have the education and opportunities she didn’t have.

Ah, Mami. Kuu ro omo!

~

I took a look at Mami as she tried to buckle her sandal. She had that slim frame and short stature that made it easy to almost miss her. She would always say she was grateful I and Kayi took Dadi’s frame, huge and tall, so no one could ride us.

She wore the white and black gown I got her for her last birthday.

“Kayi would want us to be happy today, not sad, Kati.”

She puts up a brave face for me each year, but I could tell just behind her eyes that she was still hurting. Sometimes, I hear her pray in the night that God help her heal and that He help her forgive herself. It was Kayi’s memorial again, and we had to be strong for each other; we are all we’ve got.

He did not deserve to die. I should have done something and not just stood there watching. Maybe Kayi will still be alive. But Mami was still here. I see her in every domestic violence case that is brought to the hospital. Each time I make a call to the police to make a complaint, I wish someone had done the same for us. I wish she didn’t lie to everyone that each scar was a fall or a slip in the bathroom. I wish she had listened to me after the third strike that we vacate the house. Each time, my heart bleeds when those women say they can’t leave the monster because of their children.

“Who will take care of them if I leave? What will society say?” one woman had told me when I counselled her.

Don’t you get it? If you stay, you could lose your life, and your children will lose their mom.Where will society be then? I had wanted to scream at her but excused myself to the ladies instead.

“I’m ready.” Mami pulled me out of my train of thought.

“Okay, Mami. The cab is here.” I had suggested we take a cab today, because I didn’t trust myself behind the wheel without losing my train of thought at any point. Today, I was intent on trying what my therapist had said.

Face your past so you can live in the present.

I sometimes wondered why she took up the job; she seemed oddly too young to allow herself to be drained by the sorrow of others. Probably twenty-seven or twenty-eight with sparkling eyes that shone with confidence but also deep enough to show that she had also passed through fire to be where she was.

“I enjoy being able to bridge the gap between where people are now and where they want to be,” she told me when I asked her why she took up the job.

“We are here.” The driver alerted us.

There it was, the place where my heart was buried, the place where the last thing that made sense to me was locked. We alighted and walked towards the black gate. It had the name of the cemetery boldly engraved on it. “St. Augustine Cemetery”.

“Wetin you dey look for?” A dark-looking man who manned the gate asked rather rudely. He looked very young, not like the other men I had seen on the other days we had visited. Mami did all the talking.

“We wan to visit the graveside of our person,” she responded back in pidgin.

“Ehen. We don lock today. He continued as his eyes ran through everything we carried. “You sabi abi, madam.”

I checked my wristwatch; it was just 1:47 p.m., and visitation hours didn’t end until 4 p.m. He must have seen me check my wristwatch, as he became upset.

“If you wan enter, you know wetin you suppose do. No be the clock wey you dey check go make you enter.”

As if the fact that people were grieving the death of their loved ones was not enough, you still had to milk them so they could see their dead. I was going to give him a piece of my mind when Mami spoke up.

“I sabi wetin you dey talk,” she dipped her hands into her cream bag and put some rumpled notes into his hands.

The country we have found ourselves in. Everyone misuses the little power they have. Everyone will use any subtle means to exploit the other. Yet, someone would say our leaders are the problem. We are our own problem. If not wickedness, why milk grieving relatives so you can carry out your constitutional duties?

“Ah.. mama. Na person you be.” He said raising his two hands and stamping one of his feet on the ground.

“Enter, enter, enter.” He eventually opened the gate.

“We no go sign?”

“You no need sign, I no say you be correct person.”

That was the height of it for me. The guy had to get a lecture on proper work ethics because how do you let people enter without proper registration? Mami must have gotten an idea of what was on my mind as she held my hands immediately and walked me down to Kayi’s graveside.

Kayi’s graveside was at the extreme end of the land, so we had to walk through the entire length of the space. Here was a place where several lives ended whether timely or untimely, same with their aspirations and dreams. But it looked quite simple and relatively the same. They were all covered with grass, and on them lay tiled gravestones with different inscriptions.

On Kayi’s stone was written:

In loving memory of our son and brother

Kayode Kofoworola

1984-2000

He would have been thirty-five years old this year. Maybe he would have gotten married, and I’ll have beautiful nieces and nephews calling me ‘aunty’. The thought sank my heart, and I felt it drag down my body too, so I knelt down. I put my hands on the stone and traced every letter of it. My therapist’s words came running to me.

It is not your fault, Kati. You need to let go of the guilt so the past can be past and you can face the present.

“Kayi, I have missed you every day for the last nineteen years. I miss our night talks and you laughing loudly even if I was not saying anything funny. I miss you teaching me my assignments and encouraging me when I am not getting the concept.” I saw every one of those memories as though they were just happening. I felt hot drops fall down my cheek.

Cry if you need to cry, Kati, but remember that you need to let go.

“I miss you giving me those archaic American English books that I could barely pronounce any word in.” A smile found its way to my lips. Kayi always made me smile, and I know that is what he would want me to continue to do. Smile.

“Kayi, my brother. I know your death was not your fault, and it was not mine either. You did not intentionally want to leave us, but even in death, you’re still with us. Your bravery is what made us brave and helped us come out of the cage we were in. Wanting to make you proud pushed me to pursue excellence, and here I am, a doctor just like you wanted to be.” I felt like I was reciting a speech that was hidden away in my heart.

“Overall, I know you would want me to be happy, Kayi. So, I choose to be happy. I choose not to bathe myself in the memories of you but to live my life to honor those memories. I choose to live in spite of the scars we have because that’s what makes us stronger. I love you so much, Kayi.”

That was all I needed – a moment of truth with my brother. Yes, my past was not the best. Living in the midst of such violence every day and still striving to make everything seem normal. Having my big brother and best friend murdered by my own father was a wound that was never to heal. But I have learned that wounds do heal; the scars are evidence that we’ve been through fire, and that’s what makes us stronger.