Anytime Seyi came to school smiling, I knew her mother and father had got into a fight.
Let me explain.
Seyi was such a lovely girl with an aura of peace. She was the definition of beauty. Unless she told you, it would be imposible to guess that her house was like World War 3 everyday.
Seyi’s father was a man of his ways. When he made a decision, he didn’t like to be questioned. Even as her friend, I was beyond scared of hearing his voice not to talk of seeing him.
Everyday, her father would find a new thing to fuel his anger and screams. Ofcourse the recipients of the fueled anger was Seyi, her sblings and most especially her mother and in due time, her mother’s bright and colourful sink had become nothing but grey and dull.
She cried in class and would constantly stare longinly at other fathers during the parents-teachers forum.
However, like every other abusive man, he was an epitome of peace and kindness to strangers. They loved and adored him. If it was possible, they would take the soil on which he walked and frame it in their houses.
The two sided life her father lived only fuelled her hurt and her hatred towards her father and she even though she loved her mother, she could never understand why she constantly allowed her husband treat her like a stranger.
So Seyi walked with the weight of the world on her shoulders. Infact, boys didn’t want to seen with her for fear of what her father could do to them. I guess bad news truly does spread fast.
Until, one day…….In the middle of a heated argument with her father and after a slap to the face, Seyi’s mother fought back. She returned the slap across his face.
Oh, Seyi, came to class glowing that day. When I asked her if she won the lottery, she said it was something better. Soon, Seyi’s story of her mother’s retaliation against her father took different forms. Some days, she slammed the door on his hands, other days she bit him on his back, some days she stabbed his foot with a fork. Some of them seemed so ridiculous that I could not understand why her mother would choose to still put up with all that instead of just leaving.
Seyi would arrive late to school on some days because the fight seemed intense and she decided to stay back and watch her mother deal with that man some more. Eventually all of that sights took a toll on my poor friend and she lost her mind. She was taken to a psychologist and eventually she had to register for a fulltime a psychiatric session.
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