CONFLICTED

•Epilogue•

To be very honest, it was no easy task forgiving that old man and frankly speaking, the scar he left behind in my messed up childhood was too glaring to make me forget. So the bitchy phrase that said forgive and forget was looking like trash to me every fucking time. It was just too hard, impossible even, to forget, but when they seemed so happy together, it made me hate myself for being the sad one. So I just tried as much as possible to accept, like Tracy once said and dissolve any animosity I had left towards them.

And I could never forget granny who played an important role in my life the little time I got to know her. I often wondered what it would feel like to have a mom of her persona. Shit, I know. My mom would be the type to slap a bowl of freezing water in my face for sleeping in on a school day. A mother so soft, too soft and sentimental to be considered human. A woman that wouldn't mind too much about cleaning out someone else's home so far she could help make her only child realize his dream.

Mrs. Etim opted for sleep any chance she got and where she was quiet and observing most of the time, she didn't fail to offer soothing words to anyone in dire need of them, not caring if it was her scary mr-smile-once-a-month employer. You need an advice? She'll sit you down and calmly tell you things you already expect to hear but the method at which she goes about it would send you making use of the advice anyway.

The moment Aunt Lydia entered her second trimester of pregnancy, my father stopped going to the hospital again but this time to become a full-time house husband because he was a paranoid mess and he wanted to take quality care of his wife himself. He didn't need granny's services anymore so he gave her a more befitting life with a new house and sales shop for being so caring and loving. To her daughter, he promised to sponsor till she finished her studies and while he did all of these in good faith, I felt he shouldn't have sent her packing.

I still went to church and it still felt strange to me every fucking time. It was basically watching a group a people meeting at the same place every Sunday to... pray? Sing? Pay tithes and offerings? Then what? Every time I attended St Paul, all I did was take weary glances around me and wonder to myself why people got so devoted to some god they couldn't see, hear or feel. In the scientific world, things without those three qualities were not Matter and therefore inexistent.

I wasn't all that ignorant about Christianity. It just so happened to confuse me half the time. Having a lot of free time on my plate but just dying of curiosity, I picked up a Bible to read. Pointless, I concluded. So contradicting. Yet, my favorite part of the Bible would have to be the story of Jesus birth but I found the concept of childbirth intriguing all the same.

The rest of the holy book made me feel like I was reading a book of constitution. Just politics and laws, laws that ruled out laws, betrayals, tests, tribulations and words that instilled fear into anyone. My conclusion about the religion would have made an average christian bash my head into a wall if I voiced them out.

Tracy was free one Sunday and she came down from Lagos to St Paul to attend the service with her family. She was given the honor of leading a ministration by the choir which she wholeheartedly obliged to. Hearing her sing pop Afro music was one thing and hearing Tracy sing gospel music was definitely another. Her voice just found a way to make me have this inexplicable sensation of soaring high like nothing could possibly hold me down. Anyone facing depression could really listen to her and find a way to put a smile on their face afterwards. She was just so gifted, it was out of this world.

When the service ended, I decided to bombard her with questions to help my research on Christianity.

"Why are you so invested in this? I thought you were an atheist." she said and I hesitated a little before giving in.

"I made some wish a while ago and they all came to pass."

"And what?" she smirked, "you think it has something to do with God?"

I'll be having a sibling when Aunt Lydia gives birth, Suzan and Daniella got off my back, I made peace with Anna, Kelvin's exes had not killed him yet, I got to have Aunt Lydia and granny as my mother figure and I was back in touch with the squad. It was funny how my wishes got granted after looking up to the sky. It made me want to believe there was a celestial force out there that made things the way they were and I decided to look into people's belief before coming to a conclusion.

"Not really." I said, "I just.. it's just surreal and it makes me feel like there really is some illogical explanation to it. I don't know."

"What did you wish for?"

"It's confidential."

"I'm your girlfriend."

"Not my wife." I quipped back and she flicked my arm.

"Jerk." she mumbled and asked, "So, what do you want to know?"

"Tell me why you believe there's a.." I air quoted, "'God' up there."

"I don't." she replied and I frowned.

Moving on, it recently occurred to me that Tracy and I had not gone on a proper date and today, I tried coming up with a plan for our first date. I was thinking of this when a knock came to the door.

"I'll get it!" I yelled to no one in particular.

My dad was in the kitchen, busy preparing lunch for us. He was versatile with preparing a lot of homemade dishes by the way, and he'd taken it upon himself to be our new cook. Also, seeing Dr Thomps in apron was a sight I never thought I'd see till I die. His overly pampered wife stayed in the living room to relax and munch on a plate of chin-chin with her legs crossed out as she watched Tv.

I bounced in my steps on my way to check who's at the door and once I opened it, I saw her face and immediately froze in my spot. Slowly, I stared her down and back up with my heart thumping painfully in my chest. She came with company but I just couldn't tear my eyes away from her for even a second. I didn't know what to do. I've forgotten the art of speaking and breathing or even blinking.

The skin under her blue gray eyes crinkled as she pulled a small uncertain smile. Yes, she's aged a bit but I could recognize her even in the dark. The perfect wavy blonde hair I knew her to have was now a dirty blonde pulled into a lazy bun. She looked so fatigued and she was just... there, looking at me with warm blue eyes that held less life in them than I knew them to have. Shit, she held more life in her than I ever knew her to have. I know that because I visited her grave for the past seventeen years.

"Christopher. Who's that?" Aunt Lydia casually came up to meet me, seeing that I was literally frozen by the door staring at... a ghost.

She had to be a ghost. That was the only logical explanation to the figure standing in our doorstep or so I thought until my stepmom came right behind me to take a peek only for her to drop the ceramic plate of chin-chin and have it shatter to the floor.

I heard a shuffling from the kitchen and I knew my dad was on his way out but before then, my mouth finally snapped open and formed a word.

"Mom?"

Check for the bonus chapter, besties. Don't miss out on that.

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