The air in Lusaka was thick with the smell of dust and jasmine, a heady mix that clung to you like an unwelcome embrace. You were seventeen, adrift in a city you barely knew, and the only family you had left was Uncle Robert. You were practically a stranger to him, your childhood visits being fleeting and awkward, punctuated by his gruff pronouncements on the importance of hard work. Now, you were his responsibility, a burden he accepted with a stoic silence that felt heavier than any words.
His house was a sprawling affair, a stark testament to his wealth. The lush garden bordering the manicured lawn felt alien, a stark contrast to the dusty streets you navigated on your trips to the market with your mother. The silence within the house was deafening, broken only by the low hum of the air conditioning and the occasional click of the grandfather clock in the hallway.
At first, you tried to make sense of it all. You’d wander from room to room, trying to piece together your parents’ memories within the smooth, sterile surfaces. But the house felt empty, like a stage set designed to be admired but not lived in. There was a tangible absence, a hollow feeling that mirrored the ache in your chest.
As the days turned into weeks, the unsettling feeling grew. You’d catch Uncle Robert staring at you, his eyes unreadable, a flicker of something hidden behind their grey depths. His moods were unpredictable, alternating between cold detachment and bursts of explosive anger. He was always busy, disappearing for days at a time, returning late at night smelling of smoke and alcohol.
He’d try to be ‘fatherly’, awkwardly inquiring about your schoolwork or pushing food onto your plate. You’d respond with polite monosyllables, the distance between you widening with every passing day. An uncomfortable truth was surfacing – a truth that refused to be ignored. There was something about him, a darkness that lurked beneath the veneer of respectability, a darkness that made you recoil in your sleep.
One day, you stumbled upon a box hidden in the back of his closet. It contained a collection of old photographs and a handful of letters, yellowed with age. The photos depicted a younger Uncle Robert, a smiling, handsome man with a captivating warmth that stood in stark contrast to the stern man you were forced to live with.
The letters were from your parents, their words filled with a tenderness and a despair you’d never known. They spoke of a financial crisis, a desperation that led them to Uncle Robert for help. They’d hoped he’d be a rock of support, a safe haven. But his responses were strained, laced with thinly veiled accusations and demands.
The letters ended abruptly, the last one barely a month before their fatal accident. Your parents’ car, they wrote, was faulty, repairs long overdue. It was a simple mechanical failure, the police report had said. Yet, reading your parents’ desperate pleas, a chilling realization pierced you. The ‘accident’ didn’t feel accidental at all.
You confronted Uncle Robert, the fear and accusation rising in your throat. He reacted with a chilling calm, a predatory smile playing on his lips. He admitted to knowing about the car, about its flaws. He'd even offered them a loan, a loan that came with a steep price. Your parents, he said, had refused. “They had their own pride,” he sneered, his voice laced with a chilling arrogance.
He spoke of the pressure, the mounting debts, the desperate gamble. He hadn't planned it, but when the opportunity arose, he couldn’t help himself. It was a simple deal, he’d reasoned, a tragic accident, something nobody could prove.
You couldn't believe him, couldn't wrap your head around the cold brutality of his words. Yet, you couldn't deny the truth in his eyes, the smug satisfaction that mirrored the horror in your own.
In that moment, you understood. You understood the emptiness in the house, the coldness in his persona, the unnerving silence that shrouded the man you’d been forced to call Uncle. He wasn't just a man with a dark secret; he was a man who had crossed the line from greed to cold-blooded murder.
You knew then that you couldn't stay. You had to leave, to escape the suffocating darkness of his house, the chilling shadow of his presence. With a mix of fear and determination, you packed your meager belongings, leaving the house of secrets behind. You knew you were leaving a part of yourself behind – the life you’d dreamed of with your parents, the innocence that had been so cruelly snatched away.
You walked into the warm night air, leaving the oppressive silence of the house behind. The smell of jasmine in the air, once a symbol of strangeness, now felt like a promise. A promise of a new beginning, a chance to break free from the shadows and build a future on the foundation of truth and justice. And you knew, with every step you took away from the house, away from the man who had stolen everything from you, that you wouldn't rest until the truth of your parents’ death was revealed, until justice was served.
