EPISODE 2: BIG LITTLE LIES

EPISODE 2

Grace was a genius when it comes to photography and dancing, but hiding emotions on her face was beyond her.

First, a tear ran from her tear gland after the call but that wasn’t enough, she burst into real tears and they trickle down her face. Her eyes were tearing badly as she ran out of the Admission and Audit Campus and immediately boarded the nearest cab to the hospital where her mother was.

“Hello... Is this Grace Angelov?” A Nurse called Grace on her mobile phone. This was the conversation she had some minutes ago.

“Yes ma’am”

“Well, I called to let you know that your mother is crying and she refused to stop so please can you...”

Grace hung up, she started crying, ran out of the campus towards the road to board a cab that would take her straight to hospital. She was in the cab filling her thoughts with negative thoughts like what will happen if her mother dies.

Grace did not hear correctly what the nurse had said; all she thought she heard was “Well, I called to let you know that your mother is dying and she...”. At that point, Grace did not want to hear more; instead she let what she thought she heard lead the way.

“But if my mother is dying, will that nurse be so stupid to tell me over the phone?” She asked herself after she stopped the negative thoughts that she was having and thought for a while about what the nurse said and decided to call her again because a part of her was scared and the other was confused. The distance from the AA campus to the hospital was more than half an hour but less than an hour with or without traffic.

“I said your mother has been crying since” Hearing that from the nurse made Grace think she (Grace) was stupid, not because she heard wrongly but because she was going to pay 2000 Naira to the driver for the cab ride. She regretted not taking  a bus because she had completely wasted money.

After a while sitted in the cab, it felt really strange when the thought of how her ex boyfriend, Adeyemi broke up with her in SS 3 first term. Though it made her smile but she wondered why she had that thought.

It was a year and 8 months ago, Adeyemi wrote on the chalk board on a Monday morning after the school's assembly, “Ace, It is over, I want biger fishs”. Ace was the secret name Adeyemi used to call Grace. Only the both of them understood and knew that Adeyemi wrote it on the board to her. She could recognise the bad hand writing along with the wrong spellings that looked like the way he made mistakes pronouncing his words.

Grace knew their relationship would not have lasted for longer than the 2 months which was how long they dated. She had had so much pressure from her friends in secondary school before she decided to make Adeyemi her first boy . She liked Adeyemi because he was cute and was a very jovial and popular boy in the class then. So she agreed when he asked her to be his girlfriend but she was not aware of the problem he had with English until they started dating. He grew up in an Asian country which made it really difficult to communicate as a Yoruba boy. 

Adeyemi would always complain that they were not normal boyfriend and girlfriend because they’ve not had sex but Grace did not want to get involved with sex because she wanted to get married as a virgin.

After she read it, she was angry not because she was hurt by him but because she wanted to be the first to break up with him and she hated the way he broke up with her. So she walked up to him that morning before any teacher entered the class, gave him a loud slap that caught the whole class' attention and said, “I hope this slap will teach you how to spell”.

Even the strongest boy in her class then knew that they couldn’t try anything to deal with Grace or confront her because they knew how involved she was in Martial Art and that her mother was once in the army before she quit. Her ‘Haters’ called her “Grace the Man” because of how she was never afraid of anybody, not even some of her wicked teachers. But she didn’t look like a man, she was tall, pretty, chocolate-dark in complexion and had curly and short hair.

Grace laughed anytime she remembered how a quick tear unexpectedly ran out of Adeyemi’s right eye after the slap and how he quick cleaned it before everyone saw it. She was happy she slapped him and did not fear that he would retaliate even though he couldn't.

Grace gained scholarship in her secondary school, so she was opportune to attend a ‘rich-man’s’ (private) school and she called almost all the guys “CHICKENS” because according to her they all act like brats. So she wasn’t surprised when Adeyemi almost cried.

Since that day, Grace took no more advice from friends about relationships; instead she promised herself to stay single till her year three in the university and not to date a guy that can’t speak good English. She always told her friends that the next guy she will date must have a dictionary in his head and must know how to spell ‘bigger’ and ‘fishes’. They laughed anytime she said that.

These thoughts flashed into her head and she laughed aloud when she tried to compareAdeyemi’s stupidity and hers that had happen some minutes before.

“ Abeg oo! Wetin dae make you dae laugh as if say you see comedian dae drive. Before na cry you dae cry, now u don dae laugh, na so una dae do am for una village? No go mad ooo” The driver spoke pidgin turning his front view mirror to check Grace’s face.

“e consain you? Na your mouth I use take laugh? Wetin be your own sef ?All this drivers sabi chuk mouth for una passenger matter sha. I never see!” She clapped her hands at him as she spoke. “After u don charge me 2k finish, from just here to here, you wan still  monitor me abi?” Grace said ceasing the smile on her face.

“Sorry o, you for trek am na, shae na here to here. After i don help u finish...” The cab driver said sarcastically?

“Help ke, who you help? U don take advantage of the fact say I be need cab go where I won go fast fast, na you con charge me 2k... That one nai you dae call help? Na me don help you sef... Abeg ehn, go where we dae go, I no won talk this hot afternoon.” Grace was already upset because the 2000 naira she was about to spend for the cab fare would have provided fruits for her mum.

 She later over looked the issue and  decided to spend the remaining minutes on the road chatting on phone with the friends she made the day before at the hospital.

She was really scared of losing the one person that has made her who she was and that person was her mother. She thought about why she was crying as she watched her mother sleep helplessly on the electric bed after the nurses had finally made her to.

“Gra...ce, Is that you?” Mrs Susan’s voice sounded very low as she tried to sit upright before she realised she had fractured her leg. According to the x-ray medical reports, she had a compound fracture and the wound, tissues, and bone needed to be cleaned out in a surgical procedure as soon as possible but they had no money for the surgery which made both mother and daughter worried.

Mrs Susan was very scared knowing that the doctor has to place metal implant inside the broken bone and that she might spend longer than she expected in the hospital which gave her more reasons to worry. She felt that she had given Grace more burden than she already had. She was scared to leave her daughter to face the world all by herself but Grace always told her not to worry but to have faith even though they never had help from family but just few friends.

Mrs Susan felt a sharp pain and screamed a little and then went back to her sleeping position while Grace sat close to her almost crying but all she could was to show a sorry face and say ‘sorry’ repeatedly.

“Yes mum, it is me.” Grace placed her hands on her mother's left palm, “Mummy, everything will be fine, I just know it!”

“I want to tell you something”. Mrs Susan burst into tears. She tried to cry less and talk more but the avalanche of tears spoke more than her words which made Grace know that there could be a reason behind the tears that might equal death. The last time she saw her mother cry like a teacher was flogging her badly was when her (Mrs Susan’s) mother died eleven years ago.

“This must really bother my mum”, She thought.

“Mummy what is it?” Grace asked as the tears had been transmitted to her.

Mrs Susan knew that it was time to tell Grace the truth which she had kept from Grace for 19 years. She thought she might not make it because the pain she felt from the fractured leg was worse than death.

She finally took in every emotions by forcing her tears inside and let only few drops of tears that remained on the eye's coat, fall down to her ears because she still laid on the bed. 

“Promise me you will forgive me. I have lied to you for 19 years”

At that point, Grace was totally confused, she tried to connect any possible dot but she had no clue what her mother was talking about.

“Lied? Mum, what are you talking about? 19 years?”

There was silence spreading for few seconds, her ears where standing to hear answers until Mrs Susan finally spoke and while she talked, Grace just stared at nowhere.

 “Sammy Angelov is not your father. I never told you who your real father is… Please Grace forgive me” Mrs Susan’s tears rushed out like running water and they left traces of white marks on her dark skin.

Grace did not know if she heard correctly, so she made her mother tell her the second time. She didn’t know when tears ran out of her eyes. The truth was bitter but the tears that fell into her mouth were really salty. Grace would have preferred to hear that her father was alive but not that her father whom she thought for 19 years was her father was suddenly not related to her. She tried to figure out why her mom hid that kind of lie from her but she couldn't. This made her have lots of questions in her head which 'why she had a curly hair' was part of it.

She knew her mother was saying the truth and "she couldn't lie another lie on a sick bed", she thought. She felt it could be that she had kept it from her because she must have had a good reason to keep it for 19 years, reasons that made Grace so interested to want to know more.

She made a quick decision not to be angry with her mum because she understood that with or without her father, her mother was her “parents”. But she needed to know more which made her to ask two questions which were, “Mom, who is my father and why did you hide it from me for 19 years?” 

WATCH OUT FOR EPISODE 3

Can you help answer the questions in Grace's mind?

Who is her father if not the Bulgarian "Sammy Angelov"? Why does Grace have to bear Angelov Grace? Why did Mr. Susan hide this from Grace for 19 years? Or why does she even have curly?

Comment if you have  answers...