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Four: TikTok

Four

Silence...

Secrets...

Lowered Whispers...

Heavy Souls...

Hidden anger...

Emotional Volcanos...

Unspoken Hatred...

Broken Homes...

You see, one thing about this demonic device called, money is its enigmatic power of distraction even in the roaring presence of danger.

Do not worry, do not fret, I'll break it down for and with you.

When our financial situation elevated overnight, one would expect someone like my mother to step into the 9-inch heel of oppression and mount the gèlè of Shakara on her head, but the absolute opposite was the case— in fact, she got closer to God even more and became extra nicer to everyone— including—sorry, especially the people who did her wrong.

"Eyin esha ma wo nitiyi," you just relax and watch, would always be her response when I overheard a friend of hers who heard about our relocation try to convince her about destroying her enemies with her newfound grace and oppressing the council of haters with "Owo ti o n ba oshi leru," the kind of money that scares away the spirit of poverty.

Mum was the absurdity in our lives, she gradually became the situation we never liked to address.

"Can we talk about that later?" One of us would usually say when the issue of our mother's awkwardness was brought up like we ever intended to ever address it.

"Your mother is gradually becoming a sadist and if that's how she wants to be, so be it! The best thing we can do is to keep praying that she gets over it." Father had declared to us one evening during one of our numerous video calls and somehow it had magically stuck with us.

Whenever we sent her gifts from America, she'd only show appreciation to God for our growth and would spend the limited time chastising Tiwatope or Titilayo for the kind of clothes they wore in the picture before finally accusing me of not monitoring them enough; she never spent hours reviewing everything as daddy did—even though we knew he could buy everything and more for himself—he'd still call for hours and have us pair and match the clothing items we sent with something he had in his wardrobe or he'd torment Titilayo for hours on how the new phone worked and how he didn't understand why the Face ID wasn't working well. It got to a point that we stopped asking the "Daddy, how's mum?" question, he'd just thrown us his biggest and most convincing smile as he assured us that everyone was doing okay, but the only thing that kept bothering us when the spirit of money wasn't blinding too much was the fact that we hadn't seen our baby brother for years.

He loves the things you sent to him and he'd have loved to say thank you himself but he's fast asleep...

Oh no! You just missed him...

We just tried calling you when he was with us, but you girls don't know how restless your baby brother has become now...

When he's 10 we'll have him transported to the states...

These were Daddy's usual excuses and he'd always wear a disappointed face sometime, but most times he'd try calling out Tobi's name with a frustrated reaction like the boy was too busy playing to care to speak to his sisters. Mum on the other hand would just sniff and say the words that we were solemnly beginning to detest especially because they came from her lips: "It is well," before changing the topic into something like school or church service.

"Something weird is going on—we haven't seen Tobi in over 12 years and we're all being careless about it." This came from the matte lips of Tiwatope who was tapping aggressively on her phone screen, possibly responding to a Twitter troll.

"Where's this coming from?" Titilayo yawned and sipped on her ice tea. We always liked to gather at her Central Park crib which daddy got for her when she clocked 20. It was a Sister 2 Sister ritual we liked to keep—most especially when Titilayo forced a podcast out of our lips and we became obligated to fill up strangers—mostly in Nigeria about our daily lives for reasons we still find it hard to comprehend, but at the long run, it gave us the opportunity to bond and although they always pretended not to care too much about the bonding aspect, I knew that the Sister 2 Sister Sunday was a therapeutic experience for me just as much as it was for them—although I'm beginning to suspect that Tiwatope is more into it for the TikTok contents she gets out of us that usually blows up her social media engagements, but I'm hoping that there's still a bit of soul in her.

"A place of care and concern—and who the FUCK! does this BITCH think she is?" She stared at her phone in unbelief and stared back at us and I began to suspect that this was more than an internet troll.

"What's that?" I sat up.

"Apparently, there's this stupid ass blogger in Nigeria who's saying shit about a divorce between mum and dad and it's currently blowing up Twitter—Hashtag AjibadeCokerTheCheater, look," she slid her phone on the dining table at us and Titilayo beat me to it and only paused it after she cranked up her face in disgust.

"Guys, what do you think? Do you think dad would ever cheat on mum? I mean, I know mum has been off lately—"

"Lately?" Tiwatope cut me off.

"Okay," I rolled my eyes, "maybe a little more than lately, but Dad cannot do this to her regardless, it's not her he's disrespecting at this point, it's us!"

"True that. I'm calling him right away." Titilayo rose from her seat and paused to check if anyone would try to stop her but we only edged her on with our facial expressions.

"I'll just try to contain this situation with a TikTok post or whatever about haters or something." Tiwatope reached for her phone and that was when I began to doubt if she had any soul left.

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