Broken china

 

Usually, my father would call me Chi or Chizzy. Or if he wanted to be playful, Chizzy Chi. That was why I knew something was off when I heard him shout my full name from his room in the floor above mine.

Not just my name, my surname as well. His own name technically. Thinking about how his name is my surname and it was weird that he was calling his name while referring to me almost made me laugh. Almost.
I scrambled off my bed as soon as I could. Even though I was my father's favourite child, I knew my boundaries, the rules, my obligations. Not keeping my father waiting was one of them.
I left my room and locked the door. My brothers are simply evil. The last time I left my room without locking it, they ransacked the place. Since then, whatever I was leaving the room for was never too urgent for me to leave without locking the door first. Even a full-name summon from my father.

I climbed the stairs taking three steps at a time. I was confused and curious about what I had done to be called that way.
Did he find out about Caleb or was it something else?
I knocked twice on the large wooden door immediately I got to it.

'Enter.'

That was not my father. It was my mom.
I stepped into my father's room. It always looked like a mini palace to me. The plush Moroccan rugs, the really big bed in the middle of the room, the study table beside it, everything about the room made me love it. Mom used to stay in this room with father before, until they had a fall out. Now, she sleeps in the guest room. She hardly ever talks to father and that is why seeing her now, in his room, standing beside him holding a cane is out-of-place. Wait, holding a cane!
"Please ask your ntiboribo daughter why she broke my China oh! This is the fourth one she is breaking this week. I have spoken and spoken to her to be more careful but it's like my mouth is smelling."
She was right. I broke four plates this week. I did not intend to does anyone ever? My mind just usually found a way of slipping out.

"Chiziterem!"

There was something different in my father's voice. Like a forced aggression. Like the plate issue did not really bother him but he wanted to please his wife. He reminded me of eager-to-please Gina in my class, the time-keeper and how she would shout "break-time" or "break-over" at the top of her lungs so that the principal would commend her during the assembly the next day.

"...this child, whatever has possessed you must leave today!"

I wasn't listening to what my mother had blurted out but now, she was handing my father the cane that was in her hand and telling him that he has to give me the beating of my life.
My father held a poker face. He had never flogged me before. I was the good child, the obedient one, his favourite. It was my brothers that usually got the full wrath of his "discipline". I began to think about how my brothers would have a hard time sitting down for hours after receiving "discipline". Is that what was going to happen now? As terrible as my life was already, I'll have to go around with swollen buttocks?
My mother said she had to leave. It was already 6PM and her soap opera was coming on soon but she hoped to hear me scream from downstairs.
My eyes followed her as she made for the door. They are filled with tears now. My father always did whatever my mother wanted these days. It appeared as if he was trying to buy her favour. I knew I was in hot soup.

"Chiziterem!"

"Yes Sir"

"You broke four of your mother's valued table wares, is that true?"

I contemplated lying but it was against the rules too. I was already in trouble.

"Yes Sir...I'm sorry daddy I..."

"Hold on. I am also hearing that you failed woefully in your last assessment test. Is that true?"

He knew about that! I knelt down immediately, half to beg him and half to beg God for deliverance. My father did not joke with school. Failing woefully meant not being among the first three in class. In this case, it meant coming fifth place.

"Please daddy..."

"Come here. Come closer"

I moved on my knees, slowly, tentatively anticipating the first wipe.
When I got close enough, feel I saw that he did not look the same. There were cracks in his skin, large eye bags and what his eyes, tears?

"Talk to me Chi, what is the problem. This is unlike you. Talk to your daddy"

He hugged me now, the way he used to hug me as a little girl, placing one hand on my back and the other behind my head.
What was the problem? Everything was the problem! But how does a daughter tell her father that she has been lagging behind in her academics and breaking dishware because Caleb, her boyfriend in SS3 says he no longer wants her because she is too childish?
Surely, daughters don't discuss their boyfriends with their fathers or mothers or aunties or family for that matter do they? Well I could not so I told him a lie, something that would save me from several lashes of the cane that was still resting on his lap. I told him I missed when things were okay between him and my mother even though in fact, I had never really cared. I told him it bothered me that there was underlying tension between him and mother and I was scared that they would split.
As I spoke he cried harder and buried his head in my shoulder. The more he cried, the faster my heart beat. I hoped the snort would fill his nose and he wouldn't be able to smell the whiff of the blunt I was practicing how to smoke earlier to prove to Caleb that I am not childish.

Author's note: To all the hurting daughters that hide from their hurting fathers.

In a typical Nigerian home, having a boyfriend is a taboo unless you're old enough to get married, so no one talks to her father about her boyfriend except she wants to die(I'm just kidding, or maybe I'm not?😂).
A Father usually would not cry either, especially not in front of his daughter (but it is my story, I can make anyone do anything I want. Lol).
I think homes are supposed to be safe spaces for open discussions and vulnerability. In the end, the children are really just young people, exploring and getting to know themselves, making them keep things from you is to nobody's advantage, and "Nigerian parents" are really just people conditioned by their environment but people nonetheless.