A friend to remember

1: A twelve-year-old Tragedy

*****
Sheila Arabowale looked up from her iPad, her glasses on the bridge of her nose. She passively-as she always did- observed the room. Her daughter was pressing her phone furiously as if she was doing something very serious. She was always doing something serious, Sheila frowned. These days Daniella was always occupied with something she had to do, especially on her phone.

Sheila did not say anything about her recent obsession with the latest device, seeing as it kept her daughter away from screaming her head off.

She just returned from her school and she was already in form-fitting clothes, jollying away on her device, with a care in the world. Shella wished she could be like her daughter, how she so wished she could be like Daniella, spoilt, and free-spirited with no troubles and no care in the world.

Shella had too many troubles, and much to her dismay, she had no one to tell of her dismay, her daughter was too young to understand her plight, and her husband was too cold, and she could not consider him hers anymore. Ever since what happened in their household twelve years ago, their household had been plundered into unexplainable plain. She removed the glasses, wiped her eyes and sighed.

Daniella glanced up for a brief moment before she went back to what she was doing. They talked but they were very little these days, the rift between them had gotten so bad that Sheila did not even know how she was going to fix it. She sat there watching her daughter through narrowed eyes, observing, waiting. Maybe she would say something, maybe she had something to say.

"Why are you staring at me?" Daniella started, not looking up from her phone.

Sheila was somewhat taken aback by the question her daughter just posed. Her frown deepened and she blinked, "you are always on that device these days Ella! It is bad for your health," she commented.

"I am not sure why that is any of your business, or why you are acting like you care but if you must know, I am doing something very important on my phone."

"You are being very rude Daniella," she snapped. Daniella shrugged as if she was past caring whatever her mother thought of her.

"You are going to continue pressing that phone in front of me." Daniella sighed and finally looked up, she did not look directly at her mother before she stood, "I will conduct my business elsewhere then since you do not want me here."

"I never said that!" Sheila snapped defensively. "All I said was that you shouldn't be pressing your phone too much, that is not healthy. I don't think you want to start using glasses do you?"

Daniella sighed tiredly, "I am leaving anyways," she announced and turned to leave the living room.

"Wait!" Sheila suddenly called out. Daniella looked up from the phone, with curious eyes. "When is the sporting event coming along?" Sheila inquired, she did not care about the sporting event, they both knew she did not care about it but it would do her a lot of good if she knew what was going on in her daughter's life.

"I am not sure, the school is opening its doors to some pauper school. A government school, distasteful!" Daniella tsked. Sheila blinked at her daughter's attitude. Her daughter had developed some sort of hatred for people of lesser privilege.

"Watch your words, Ella," Ella secretly rolled her eyes. "I am going to my room," she announced and walked away, leaving Sheila to her thoughts.

What was there to do really? Nothing. She walked toward the other side of the large house, that could very well be called a mansion. She knocked on the door to her husband's office and heard a come-in.

On entering the office, she looked around it, before her eyes fell on him, Shettima, her husband. He looked up briefly and looked back down.

"What are you doing here?" he did not bother to hide his hostility which saddened her. Her first clenched but she said nothing, it was apparent where Ella got her bad attitude from.