Two Worlds Collide (On Hold)

Chapter Four (Now)

A BEST FRIEND

One of Mofe's fondest memories is of picking her mother's white hair, it wasn't something that many people did even the people that did it didn't find it even relatively appealing, but she loved it.

She loved that her mother would lay her head full of silky hair on her lap, and then Mofe would begin to pick pieces of white hair one by one, separating the shiny silver ones from the black silky ones, taking the singular hair between her fingers and pulling it out.

She would do that, while her mother would tell her a story, or maybe two, about how when she used to live in the city, she would tell Mofe stories of how she was her father's favorite daughter, of how her father would give her everything she wanted. Mofe's mother talked about all of the luxury, of never having to worry about money.

And all the time she talked, Mofe would wonder what went wrong, she didn't know the full story, but she could deduce that it had something to do with her father and mother's love story, she never asked for details, she just enjoyed listening to the stories.

As she picked up the white hair from her mother's full mane of black, thick hair, she would wonder if her mother's hair would one day diminish and there wouldn't be anymore hair to pick, or if the white would one day overpower the black.

She would drive the flies away, and throw her rubber slippers at the lizards that ventured close to her, and she would listen to the story, she would imagine it all in her head like a movie playing, she had the picture of her grandfather even if she had never seen him, she knew he was an Edo man, and so she would imagine him as one of the chiefs she saw on television, the ones that walked around bare chested, with round beads on their neck and a white wrapper on his waist.

She would imagine his wife, a proud Itsekiri woman, her head held high. Mofe would imagine their children, her mother being the first, lacking nothing in the world.

She knew that it must have been love that lead her mother to leave her family, it had to be.

Even now, as she was weaving her mother's hair into all back cornrows, she realized that a lot of time had passed, her mother's hair that was once black with a few strands of silver, was now almost silver, with a few strands of black.

But then, even in her sixties, her mother's hair was still full and gloriously long, Mofe's hair could not still compare, it probably would never be able to.

"Ouch, do you want to pull my head?" Her mother asked, swatting Mofe's hand away from her head and Mofe just rolled her eyes, her mother was always like that, she had the softest skull and hated making her hair, she would always complain endlessly.

"Abeg, mummy let me just finish it, it's remaining only two," she said, holding the unmade portion of her hair for emphasis.

(Please)

"Let me just rest a little, my head is aching me, or do you want me to have an headache?" Her mother asked, even pouting her lips a little like a child and Mofe just laughed, her mother could be so humorous at times.

"Okay, fine, you can carry a half made hair, but don't disturb me later oh," Mofe threatened, and her mother didn't even look scared at all. The woman just stood up carefully from the old wooden stool that she sat and tied her old, worn, Ankara wrapper on her chest before making her way into their house.

Mofe was also about to make her way inside as the flies were beginning to disturb her, when she heard the dinstinct sound of their gate opening. Out of instinct, her head turned to the red metal gate that guarded the small bungalow that her and her mother resided.