Secrets revealed

The weeks dragged on painfully. I could not yet bear the thought of saying anything to Mummy and Daddy. But suddenly that changed. Maybe I was just tired of the silent screams in my head. Or maybe it was the sight I walked in on later that afternoon.

Mummy had just finished her afternoon meal. She asked me to take her plate and tumbler to Eniola, who was washing dishes in the kitchen. When I walked in, uncle Peter was standing right behind Eniola, rubbing his body against her back. Eniola was standing at the sink with her hands in soapy water, laughing, trying to push him away with her elbow. "Uncle P! Please!"

I recognized that look on his face.

The porcelain plate dropped from my hand. It hit the cement and shattered into little pieces all over the floor. Uncle P jerked quickly away from Eniola. Startled, he glared at me. Then he left the kitchen through the back door.

Mummy hurried in. She found me staring at the shards on the floor. "Kate , what happened.^" she asked in annoyance. When I was silent, she just sighed and asked me to get the broom. "Your daydreaming is just getting worse and worse. What are you always thinking of?"

That evening, we sat at the dining table quietly eating our night meal. The only sounds in the dining room were our spoons scraping our plates. "Mealtimes are for

eating and not talking," Daddy always said. I was about to lift a spoonful of rice and beans to my mouth when I suddenly laid the spoon down.

I looked around the table. Then my voice rang out clearly in the silence: "Uncle Peter has been coming to my room at night."

A spoon clattered to the table.

Daddy's face hardened, Mummy gasped. A puzzled look clouded Eniola's face. On the opposite side of the table, the vein on the side of Uncle Peter's head was pulsating so fast I was afraid it would explode and spray us all with blood.

I exhaled, sitting back in my chair.

Mummy's eyes filled with tears. She placed both her shaking hands on top of her head. Daddy's spoonful of rice and beans hung halfway to his mouth as if it were suddenly unsure of its destination. We all watched as he slowly dropped it and picked up his tumbler of water.

Uncle P flinched as if he thought Daddy might fling the tumbler in his direction. He crouched back in his chair, holding both arms in front of his face. Daddy took a long sip and gently set the tumbler down. While his face gave nothing away, his trembling hands told a different story. He was a man fighting hard for composure.

Daddy's tumbler had red streaks around the rim. His blood pressure had shot up quickly and his gums were bleeding. Mummy's eyes widened when she saw the bloody streaks. Getting up from her chair at the other end of the table, she walked over to his side. She laid her hand on Daddy's arm, silently pleading with him.

The brownish-white ceiling fan above the dining table continued to turn slowly like an old woman carefully stirring a pot. Its familiar creaking was the only sound in the humid

room. "Kate. Eniola, Go to your rooms now," Daddy ordered quietly.

Poor Eniola—looking baffled—quickly got to her feet and headed for the entryway. She looked around, still unsure as to what had just happened. Reluctantly, I followed her. As we exited the room, I took a quick look back.

Daddy was standing. He held tightly onto the dining table, looking down at Bros T, who was now prostrated, face flat, on the floor before him. Mummy was kneeling beside Daddy's feet, tugging at his trousers, silently pleading for her brother.

In that moment, my anger towards Mummy reignited. She should have been worried about m€\ She should have been coming after me.

I followed a pale Eniola back to her bedroom. By now, she knew something was very wrong. She kept asking, "Kate, why is Daddy angry with Uncle P?" but I refused to answer. After a while she started to cry. I wanted to scream at her, to shout "Shut up!" but seeing her tears melted my anger. I snuggled with her under her cover cloth, linking my fingers through hers. "Don't be angry. Do you want me to tell you a story. Eniola nodded. I told her a story and soothed her and soon Eniola fell asleep. Even in her slumber, she was troubled. She kept mumbling, rolling, and kicking me with her feet and arms.

Straining my ears, I listened for any noise from the dining room. It was eerily quiet. I wanted to leave the room and find out what was happening, but I remembered Daddy's command. I got up from Eniola's bed and stood by the window, staring into the starless night. I heard the compound gate open and the sound of an engine—Daddy's car.> Where was he going so late at night.>

I kept staring at the door. I waited for Mummy. I was sure she would come and look for me. Finally, just before dawn, I fell asleep on the floor beside Eniola's bed. When I woke up, I was alone in the room. I soon found out that Mummy and Daddy had left the house during the night with Uncle P in tow.

Stepping out of Eniayo's room, I looked down the corridor. Aunty Sarah, one of daddy's relative who lived down the street was sweeping Uncle Peter's room. She must have come in when I last night or this morning when I was asleep. I heard the clock chime ten o'clock. Eniola must have left for school. Hearing my footsteps. Aunty Sarah looked up from her sweeping. She stood still, watching me approach. Her face held no expression. I greeted her and she in turn gave me a hug. She did not say a word. I kept quiet as well, stopping at the door of Uncle Peter's bedroom and looking around. All his things were gone. Even the bed had been stripped of its sheets. It was as if he had never lived there. I turned and walked back to my bedroom. I could feel Aunty Sarah's bloodshot eyes boring into the back of my head.

"Kate," she called after me. I turned back "I am sorry," she said.

I nodded. I knew what she meant.

She swallowed hard. "Peter was no good. He should never have been allowed to come back here."

From my bedroom window, I saw Aunty Sarah continue to sweep out into the courtyard of the compound. She stopped, staring at the pile of dirt, her hand wiping her wet eyes. She took a deep breath and continued to sweep along a straight path towards the gate. Then she opened the gate, sweeping the sand and debris and dirt from Uncle P'sroom, pushing every presence of him out of the house and onto the road.

Daddy and Mummy drove Uncle P back to his mother's home in Jos. It was an eighteen-hour round trip. Eniola and I were in the sitting room when they came back late the next day. When Daddy opened the door and saw me, he stopped. His shoulders slumped as he turned his tired-looking face away. Mummy, who came in after him, stared at me with bloodshot eyes.

Eniola ran to them with a smile. I

stayed where I was and remained quiet. Mummy gave Eniola a quick hug. go and Sarahthat we are back," she said.

Eniayo ran to the kitchen.

Daddy walked towards the staircase leading to their bedroom, leaving Mummy and me alone in the room. Mummy's red-rimmed eyes filled with fresh tears. She looked at me and sighed. Then she too turned around, leaving the room.

I stared after them with my heart pounding in my chest. It felt as if it was going to break.

In the months that followed, I lived a double life. At school I pasted a happy smile on my face and pretended that everything was okay. 

Some days I wanted to tell my friends what had happened with Uncle Peter. My mouth would open and close several times. Yet I knew that I could not tell them anything.

If you don^t want everyone to know your secret, you don^t share it with anyone.

At home, I could not get away from the unasked questions in my parents' eyes as they lingered on my face. I no longer slept well at night, and my mind would play those questions over and over again.

Why did you not say something the first time'^ Why did you let it on for so long?

Why did you let this happen to you ?

Even when I turned away from their gaze, I could not escape the shame that followed me around like a bad smell. I found the truth hard to admit even to myself: that after a while, Uncle P violation had lost its strangeness. It had become ... familiar. With each passing month, his hand at my neck became gentler and gentler, until there was no need for it to remain there. "This is what you want," he whispered in my ear on so many nights.

Crying, I would shake my head vehemently. "No! Please."

Uncle Peter's response was always to stroke the inside of my thigh until I sucked in a breath and began to moan. "See.>" he

would say in a confident tone. "It is what you want. You just don't know it yet."

My body responded to the strokes and caresses of his rough hands in ways that I now wished I could forget. And after a while, I began to believe him. For what kind of girl has such feelingsWas it my fault too—could that explain Mummy and Daddy's unbroken silence.> There were many days when every part of my body felt too heavy to move, when lifting an arm or a leg in the morning was painful.

My only comfort in all my turmoil was Eniola.