I was proud. I had a job — a waiter in a small bar on the Lagos side of town — and that somehow made me feel grown. I worked hard and got paid daily: four thousand naira that day. For a moment I walked lighter, like money in my pocket was armor.
Then a gang of boys came at me.
They moved in groups, their faces smeared with dirt and something harder — hunger or trouble, I couldn't tell. Running would have been obvious; if I ran, they'd know I had cash and they'd chase. So I tried the other trick: I walked like a beggar whose belly had eaten air all week. I practiced limp shoulders and sightless eyes. The play failed.
They grabbed me, slapped me across the face, and laughed as they watched me stumble away, my money gone and my chest hollow with fear.
When I got home Titi's small voice met me at the door.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Nothing," I lied. I didn't want my siblings to see how thin my courage was.
I shut myself in the room and lay on the bed, hot tears finally finding their way. The pain hurt more than the punches — humiliation has teeth.
Later, Ma came into my room. I guessed Titi had told her. She asked, quietly, what happened. I told her everything: the boys, the blows, the stolen pay. She listened and said nothing for a long minute. Then she untied her wrapper and pressed a folded note into my hand.
It was four thousand naira.
My chest stuttered. For a second I thought I'd misheard. "Where—?"
She didn't explain much. "Take it. Pay for food. I'll manage transport myself." Her voice was rough and small. I knew Ma worked the nights at a club; she earned little, but she scraped and hid small things away sometimes. She'd given me back the money she had — because she couldn't bear to see her children hungry. Guilt and gratitude punched through me at once.
I promised myself I'd work tomorrow and replace it. That promise felt like a small, fragile vow between us.
Ma left the room and the compound hummed with its usual noises. Then a sound cut through — glass on concrete, a scream that made my stomach drop. Objects collided with the wall again and again with a sharp, ugly rhythm.
I ran to the doorway. Pa wasn't back earlier, wasn't he? The yard seemed smaller and meaner the moment I suspected otherwise.
Titi and Emeka burst into the doorway, faces gone thin with fear.
"Brother Ade — will Ma die?" Titi whispered like she was asking if the rain would stop.
"Why's Mama screaming?" I asked, swallowing hard.
Emeka spat the answer like it was a swear. "Wicked Pa's hitting Ma with bottles and a koboko."
I felt sick — but anger moved faster. I wasn't a hero. I was a waiter. I'd been beaten already today. But nothing mattered except Ma standing in the dark of his fury. I shoved Titi and Emeka into my room.
"Stay here," I told them. "Lock the door. Don't come out."
Titi pressed her forehead to mine in one of those small-child good-luck gestures. I felt strangely armored, a ridiculous soldier with nothing but a will and a bruise.
I stormed into Pa's room.
Ma lay in the middle of the mess, her blouse stained with dark, angry spots. The sight shocked something loose inside me. All the swagger of fear left. Whatever I had before — reticence, reasoning — it burned away. I became loud and immediate.
"Stop it!" I screamed. "Are you ashamed of yourself?"
Pa turned, eyes wild and red. He pointed the koboko at me like a judge pointing a sentence. "Adejoke! Get out before I count to ten!"
I didn't move. Maybe I was brave, maybe just too stunned to run. Pa hit me across the face. The slap sounded like a snapped branch. I staggered but stayed upright. He cracked the koboko across my back — the blow felt like fire beneath my skin. I went to my knees.
"Pa, stop!" Ma begged, clutching at his legs. Her voice was ragged with pleading.
Another strike landed on my mouth. Blood filled my mouth and trickled down my chin. The world narrowed; my knees trembled like loose hinges. I tried to call out, to say something that would make him stop, but my voice was a thin thread.
"Leave the room!" Ma sobbed, terrified and pleading for a child who was already failing.
I smiled at her — a weak, defiant thing — because if I couldn't protect her, my grin would be a promise that I'd tried. I could feel myself slipping: vision blurring at the edges, the air getting thin.
Pa kicked me in the stomach. The force made me vomit blood. I cried out. My limbs felt heavy, my thoughts fuzzily distant, like words I could almost hold but couldn't.
"Pa, your son is dying — stop!" Ma screamed, then clutched him as if she could anchor him with her hands.
He shoved her off hard. "You loose woman!" he spat, then left the room, boots thudding down the compound like a drum of warning.
I tried to say something reassuring to Ma. It came out as a soft mumble: "It'll be okay." Then the ceiling blurred into the white of a sheet, and the edges of sound folded like a closing book. My knees folded, then my world went heavy with black.
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End of Chapter Two