HE SAID NO.
EPISODE 44
Michael sat up as Mama Ologi came in with a tray of pap and Akara. The sun was just warming up and the weather was a little cold, seemed like the perfect timing for a steaming hot breakfast.
Michael had been with his grandma for 4 days stretch, and it had been 4 days of pampering and premium relaxation. It’s been ages since he stayed that long with her, he blamed it on work and church activities and his dearest grandma had not been able to hide her excitement since he came around.
“Grandma!” Mike called out softly as he sat up on impulse while squinting his eyes.
Mama Ologi was still staying in their old one-roomed apartment. Although it had changed from the one he knew since he was a kid, the petite building was the only thing her husband left behind.
Mike had renovated it and added some sparks to his grandma’s old house after he had tried his best to convince her to come over to the city and she refused blatantly, she had so much history with Akoka village, so much that she didn’t want to lose so soon.
She had virtually lived all her life there. She was born in Akoka, got married to her husband in Akoka, she had even claimed on several occasions that she wanted to die in Akoka, she doesn’t want to be buried in the city or the public graveyards.
“I want to be buried right beside my loving husband.” She would tell Mike with a smile on her face as if she looked forward to dying. The thought of her death was something that Mike could not contain without shrieking.
“Not now, Grandma! And not anytime soon!” he would correct her at every single chance he got.
Mama Ologi dropped the tray on a stool that was placed close to the family size bed in the spacious room which also housed a plasma TV once a few other electronic gadgets that grandma used once in a while, a medium-sized fridge, a glass center table, and 2 beautiful sofas, courtesy of Michael.
“My son, sit up and eat.” She smiled lovingly as she settled on the bed beside him.
“Grandma, you shouldn’t have bothered. “
“Who told you that this is a bother? I am not complaining, my son. C’mon, sit up.”
Mike sat up reluctantly, he wasn’t ready to eat but his Grandma wouldn’t let him be. He had given up on ‘manning’ his way through and had resorted to cajoling tricks, it was evident that before his grandma, he would always be a child.
“Grandma, I have to brush and freshen up first.” He objected, hoping it would work.
Well, it didn’t…
“You will freshen up when you are done eating this, and after you are done bathing, you will now have breakfast.”
Mama Ologi was just impossible!
“After this!” He exclaimed. “Ah, no o. I have been eating like that is the only thing I came to do in Akoka. Do you want me to have potbelly before I return to the city?”
Mama Ologi laughed so hard that she lost her breath for some seconds.
“Michael Ilesanmi! Don’t you know that pot belly is a symbol of wealth?”
“The symbol has changed Grandma, now it is flat tummy.” He replied as he joined in the laughter.
He sat more conveniently in such a way that his legs dangled in the air as he balanced the tray on his laps. Grandma sat with him as he feasted on the Akara balls.
“Delicious, as usual, Grandma.” He complimented, she just smiled with her hands beneath her gracefully wrinkled chin skin as she watched him eat.
He looked at her occasionally, her face was still as radiant as ever, God had gifted her with soft and supple baby skin and old age just scratched a little on the surface. She was still, the beautiful and jovial Mama Ologi that he had always known.
Mama Ologi had been to him the biological mother that he never had and he had vowed to take care of her with everything he owned and that he did and he planned to keep on doing it. He still had not given up on his dream of bringing her to the city, he was just waiting for the perfect timing.
He picked the Akara balls one after the other as he supported the ministration with a spoonful or two of hot creamy pap.
“How is my daughter?”
“Your daughter?”
“I mean Grace, your wife.” She winked.
“Oh! I was about to remind you that I was not married. She is fine.” He chuckled dryly as he stuffed more Akara balls into his mouth, silently hoping that she wouldn’t ask any further question about her.
She was silent and curiosity made him steal a glance at her, he caught her with an awkward smile on her face, gawking back at him.
“Why are you looking at me like that, Grandma?” he asked, as he looked away from her to his food.
“Ilesanmi!” she called him fondly. She personally gave him that name and she loved calling him that instead of Michael.
“Grandma.” He answered softly still focused on his Akara, which was the only one left.
“Is there anything I should know?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know unless you tell me.”
“Nothing Grandma, I and Grace are cool. We would have been here together but some things came up.”
“I didn’t ask you if you and your wife were cool. “she paused. “Do you mind telling me what came up?” he looked at her again, she still wore the same awkward smile.
It strangely seemed like she knew something already and he knew that he could not that conversation. She had been asking of her since the very first day he arrived at Akoka and he had seemingly been doing a good job at keeping it brief but it was glaring that his game was over.
He put the tray aside as he cleared his throat, a bead of sweat had gathered on his forehead, all thanks to the hot pap mixed with a little bit of tension.
“Actually, Grandma…” He was about to start. “Could you please stop smiling, first?” Her awkward smile was already making him cheesy.
“Would you love me to cry instead?”
“Okay, I will look away then.”
“If it makes you feel better, I have stopped.” She said as she tried to make a straight face.
He started from the point where he went out with Grace to how she saw his conversation with his close friend and up till when she called it quits via a text message.
By the time he was done, the smile had resumed again.
“Ilesanmi…”
“Ma.”
“From the moment you called that you were coming to Akoka, I knew that something was wrong.” She started. “Although I wasn’t sure what it was, I guessed it had to do with Grace, remember when we were having dinner outside, the night you came? I asked you about her and I watched your countenance change in a millisecond and up till now, I have not caught you talking to her on phone since your arrival.”
Michael hanged his head low, he had been caught.
“She did the right thing.”
“Grandma! How would you say that now?”
“If I were her, I would have done the same thing.” She continued without pity.
“But I was innocent!”
“But she didn’t know that! “
He sighed.
“If you had told her about from the outset, you would have saved yourself this outburst. Any man or woman that keeps sensitive information from their spouse is shooting himself in the leg.”
“Grandma, I admit I was wrong, everyone I know has said the same thing, but I love her.”
“You will go back to her and tell her everything.”
“I would have if she had at least picked my calls.”
“When last did you call her?”
He was silent and she still had the signature smile on.
“Ilesanmi, from the time you told me about her, I have been praying for you both and God has assured me that my son has found his wife. “
Now that made him smile.
“He told me the same thing too.”
She nodded briefly before she continued…
“The tongue and the teeth fight at times but it doesn’t stop them from working together… this is just a prologue, you will have more misunderstandings when you get married. “she gulped down a gallon of saliva.
“You know, you were so little when my husband died. “she smiled again, this time very broadly. “He was the sweetest man I know and if I had the opportunity to choose again, I would pick him over and again.”
I told you how much he loved onions, but I hated it with passion.”
“You made me dislike it too.” Mike chuckled.
“But my food has been delicious without it, abi?”
“As ever!
She made a proud face.
“I remember that I made his meals separately from mine, I did it most of the time but there was this day that he got back from the farm and requested that I made him yam porridge. I also just got back from the market where I sold raw pap and I was too tired to make separate meals. I got to our cooking spot in the backyard and I contemplated making the porridge without onions, but my husband always managed to find out and I didn’t want to get him angry.
As I walked to the passage to carry our local grinding stone, he peeped from this room and he said.
‘My love, don’t bother, I will eat it like that. After all, you don’t like it with onions.’ “This time it was Mike’s turn to smile.
“You guys were so sweet.”
“Yes, we were.” She smiled into space again. Mike could bet that she was daydreaming about Grandpa.
“We had our differences oh! In fact, a lot of them but that was what made our union more graceful and exciting. The reason why we lasted that long was because we learned to admit our differences and forgive our shortcomings. We learned to talk through our issues, we didn’t allow silence to brew misunderstanding amidst us and tear us apart.”
Mike nodded.
“When you leave Akoka, you should get a means to reach her and talk things out, tell her all of your truth, and ask for her heartfelt pardon. Although I don’t know her, I feel in my heart that she has a kind heart and would not hesitate to forgive you.”
Mike hugged her passionately from behind. She patted his arms softly.
“Everything will be fine, my son.”
He stood still in that position and tightened his eyelids, as he allowed the last statement she made to sink into the depth of his troubled heart.
God had told him not to worry and Mama Ologi had reaffirmed it.
“I love you, Grandma!” he whispered close to her right ear lobe. She smiled broadly and squeezed her eyes hard, as she struggled with the tears that were desperately trying to find their way out of her eyes.
Apart from Jesus, Mike was all she had left in the world and nothing would make her happier than seeing him happy.
To be continued…
Written by Sodamade Olamide Tolulope.
Click 5 below to continue reading
