“Mama” he said running up to meet me as I walked the halls of the school, “Mama” He yelled again
“Okay, seriously though, that Mama name is embarrassing. I’m 17 not 5. I think you can call me Mesoma now” I said as he caught up to me
“Hmm. Right. It’s weird, everyone calls you Mama. You used to like the name” He said as he slung his bag across his shoulder.
“When I was a child” I said
“And you’re grown now?” He asked his tone teasing
“Of course”
“Mmh. Okay, uhmm… are you going home? I left my flash drive and some other stuff there over there last night and I have this paper that’s due in like three hours. I’m exhausted. So are with the key?”
“Yes” I said slowly, “I’m going home”
We walked all the way home and we talked the whole way there too. Nat mostly about how he couldn’t wait to be done with school. Nat was a year above Kenny and Lotanna, so that meant that he’d be graduating in October of the next year, which was pretty close by all things considered. He only had a semester and a half to go and all would be well, Lotanna would be next in line because he had the good fortune of choosing a four year program, Computer Science. Kenny on the other had would not be graduating until the year after that because he decided to go for Engineering. Graduation for me seemed so farfetched, I could see it but I couldn’t touch it, if that makes any sense. I envied Nat and the likes of him, I didn’t necessarily hate school but did want to get out into the world and do my thing.
I’d always loved lawyers, it didn’t help that I was better in the arts than the science. My father always wanted a doctor in the family, and with there being only two of us I think he lost his chance. But what is it with Nigerian parents and the medical profession though?
Any ways, Nat and I kept talking, we were talking till he graduated. But we kept in contact which each other. Lotanna did give me the talk, the big brother talk, but it wasn’t a plain ‘no’ like he did with Kenny. It was more of a ‘Don’t have sex, don’t get pregnant’ type of talk. I thought it was because Nat was senior to him, age and career wise but I came to realise, he just genuinely liked the guy. He was a sweet guy and he did have a sensitive side to him. His family lived in Port Harcourt. They were well to do and he had sisters a lot of sisters and his family was loud and obnoxious and they didn’t care about embarrassing you ever. Which kind of made me wonder why he turned out the way he did, the exact opposite of his family. Quiet and reserved. He served in Abuja, which I swear is like one of the best places to serve from the way he described it. Or maybe it was because he was working at the NCC, a pretty plush company. Nat was smart, really smart. He got a permanent placement at the NCC right off the bat. While I was struggling to complete my fourth year, and Lotanna was constantly complaining about the flies in the north, Nat had moved into his first real apartment in Abuja.
Kenny and I never really spoke, when we did speak he talked to me with so much disdain you’d almost think I killed his father or something. We did say hi to each other in passing, at least I did, he’d barely manage a nod in my direction.
The day Nat asked me to be his girlfriend, second happiest day of my life. I was 19, almost 20 and I had basically given up all hope, reluctantly accepting my fate to be friend zoned for life. I definitely liked him a lot, I could say I loved him, but I thought I loved Kenny and look how that turned out. I did like him a lot more than I was willing to admit, because you know as a girl you don’t say these things. Nat made many a trips to Nsukka in my final year and his living in Abuja was a major, major determinant in where I chose to go to law school at. Like 98%, the other 2% being that I had never lived elsewhere before and I wanted to be as far away from home as I possibly could.
A year and a half later, I was called to bar. Lotanna flew in from Lagos where he was working in an IT consulting firm courtesy of Nat’s contacts in the private sector. Kenny was on scholarship to complete his masters’ program in Canada so he couldn’t make it, not that I cared because nobody wants the awkward glances and exchanges between your ex and your boyfriend who used to be friends in school. My parents drove the 6hrs plus journey because my mother being the typical African mother that she was, had to take foodstuffs with her. With the amount of stuff she brought one would think that she was hosting a wedding ceremony. I complained and complained, but her reply was always the same, “My daughter is a lawyer. Everybody must know, if your father had allowed me the whole village would be here”
“Mummy, I am not the only one being called to bar. They are many others”
“I don’t care about those ones oh. They are not my daughters. I want to celebrate my daughter, or abi are you embarrassed by us? Your parents? Eh Mesoma?”
Mind you up until this last question she had addressed me as Mama. The quick change to my full name is just saying, ‘You this girl, I dare you to say yes’. So I do what everyone in my situation, who loves their life would do. I lie.
“No mummy. Ah ah, why would you say that? I can never be embarrassed by you… Never. Ah me? God forbid, my own mother…” I say.
I push it, milk it. Defend myself a lot more and then I start with the teasing and the praising, that always calms her down.
“Mummy, mummy. How can I be embarrassed by you? A whole you? You that your ofe owerri is one in town? Ah never”
And slowly I see her almost smile. I sigh in relief. I am out of the woods
For now.


Part 3 coming at maeotto..com.ng

hakeem4