Awakening Love: Part 5 (2)
Read Part One here
Read Part Two here
Read Part Three here
Read Part Four here
Read Part Five(1) here
P.S.: If you’re enjoying the story, please like, and share (you can like up to 50 times, so feel free!😂)
AKOSUA
Akosua felt the blood rush to her head, and took a step back. She felt like she was going to be sick as she looked at the woman who had once been her entire world.
“I don’t understand, what are you doing here?” she asked.
Her mother slowly walked towards Joojo’s bed. “Your father told me what happened.” She gently cupped Joojo’s face in her palm, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “My baby.”
“Get away from him!” Akosua screamed. Her mother jumped back, surprised, and turned to look at her.
“Akosua, calm down. We can talk about this later.” Her oldest brother, Panyin, placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, which she aggressively shrugged off.
“No. She doesn’t get to leave us and come back fifteen years later as though nothing has changed!”
“Akosua, please,” her mother turned to her with tears in her eyes. “Please let me explain.”
The young woman laughed, a hard and bitter sound. “Explain? Oh please, go ahead. Explain to your four children and husband why you ran away with another man, and essentially left them motherless. Explain to us why you never bothered to make contact with us in the fifteen years you were gone. Please, I want to hear this.” She stood, arms akimbo and stared at her mother.
Tears fell freely down her mother’s cheeks at this point, but Akosua was long past caring.
“Akosua,” her father said sharply. “Enough!”
She turned to face him, tears of her own streaming down. “Da, daabi. Wei deε mennti ase o. Fifteen years. Fifteen good years.”
Turning back to her mother, she continued, “Why did you leave us? Was it that we weren’t enough for you? Was I not enough for you?”
“Akosua…” her mother’s voice was low and pleading, but Akosua continued her rant, pouring fifteen years of hurt and pain into her diatribe.
“Do you know I cried myself to sleep for a whole month after you left? Do you even know I tried to find you myself; they found me on the roadside crying for you? You have no right — none! — to leave the way you did and come back now, as if you still love us. You don’t.”
“Akosua Serwaa Obeng, that is enough!” her father boomed. “Regardless of what has passed, Gloria is still your mother, and you will respect her.”
Akosua was silent for a few seconds, then spoke softly. “I have no mother. My mother died fifteen years ago, the day she walked out of our house to marry another man.”
With that, she walked out of the hospital room.
| ~ | ~ | ~ |
Akosua sat on the curb just outside the hospital. After storming out from Joojo’s ward, she had wandered around till she had found this quiet spot. She drew figures in the sand with a stick she had found, and thought back to her childhood before her mother left, when life had been simpler.
“Ma, ma, come and see what I found!” A seven year old Akosua ran into the kitchen and pulled at her mother’s skirt. Gloria wiped her hands on a dishcloth, and followed her only daughter outside to see what had her so excited. “Slow down, Akosua!” she yelled.
Akosua paid her no mind and zipped forward. As she ran up ahead though, she tripped on a loose section of gravel in the driveway, and pitched forward.
Gloria ran towards her. Her knees and palms were badly scraped, and had already started bleeding. Akosua’s lower lip started to quiver, and her eyes filled with unshed tears. Her mother lifted her onto her waist–she was rather small for seven–and carried her back inside.
After seating Akosua on the sofa, she got out the first aid kit and started gently cleaning the dust from the wounds. There was silence for a while, then Akosua spoke.
“Mummy, are you angry?”
“Of course not, why would I be?”
“You told me to slow down. I didn’t mind you. If I had listened, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Yes, that’s true. But I told you to slow down because I didn’t want you to get hurt. I’m sad that you’re in pain, because I love you. But I’m not angry at you.”
“Daddy would have been angry with me.”
Her mother frowned and looked into the distance for a while. “Sometimes Daddy loves you so much, and he’s angry at what hurt you. But not at you. Daddy has a lot to think about sometimes.”
“So you love me, and Daddy loves me too?”
“Yes, we both love you very much.”
Akosua smiled mischievously. “So I’m your favourite?”
Gloria laughed. “You’re our favourite daughter, yes.”
“But I’m your only daughter!”
Her mother tickled her, and she giggled. “Yes, I know. Now, come and sit with me in the kitchen and talk with me whilst I cook dinner.”
| ~ | ~ | ~ |
Quiet footsteps displaced the gravel behind her. Without turning back, she said, “Panyin if that’s you, please go away. I’m not really in the mood to talk right now.”
A familiar voice replied. “Oh that’s sad. I brought kelewele.”
“Fine. Drop the food and go.”
Kobby laughed and took a seat next to her, handing her a greasy newspaper stuffed with seasoned plantain and groundnuts. Akosua’s mouth watered, remembering that she hadn’t had time to have dinner, and it was approaching midnight.
Neither of them said a word as they munched on their food, and then Akosua spoke up.
“I remember the day she left.” Kobby turned to look at her, and she continued, her voice soft. “It was three o’clock in the morning, and she had packed two big suitcases. We were all supposed to be asleep, but I heard shouting, and it woke me up, so I went to see what was happening. My parents were fighting. I couldn’t hear much, but I remember I heard very clearly the last thing my mum yelled before she left.”
Akosua had cried so much in the last twenty-four hours, she thought she had no more tears left in her, yet, more trickled down her cheeks as she continued. “My mother said, ‘You’ve taken everything from me! There’s nothing left to make me stay!’”
She placed her head in her knees and continued crying. Kobina wrapped an arm around her and drew her close. “Were we not enough? Was I not enough, Kobby?”
He hushed her as she continued to cry, her sobs quieting down after a few minutes. She wiped her runny nose with tissue that Kobby handed to her, and sighed.
“I’m sure you think I’m a terrible person,” she said. “Yelling at my mother like that?”
“I think it’s understandable. You’re hurt, and I guess you’ve never fully addressed that pain.”
“Hmm.”
“I think you should talk to her though.”
Akosua abruptly pulled away, feeling betrayed.
“Hear me out. I overheard the conversation you had.”
She winced, but he pushed on. “Akosua. you never listened to her. She never had the chance to speak. I’m not saying that what she did was right, but at the very least, for the first nine years of your life she was there. There has to be something that caused her to leave. Let her explain, if not for her sake, for yours. This bitterness will only continue to fester if you don’t address it now.”
“Kobby, you don’t understand,” she cried. “You grew up with two parents who loved you, and each other.”
“Can a woman’s tender care cease towards the child she bears? Yes, she may forgetful be, still will I remember thee. Akosua, God was there. His love goes beyond that of a mother or father. He’s consistent. We can rely on Him.” After a moment, he went on.
“Ewo, Akosua, you’ll make me a pastor before this night ends o!”
She laughed.
“ I’m not saying that it’s easy, but it’s important to forgive. At the risk of sounding cliche, unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. You’re only hurting yourself.
She was silent, and he continued.
“In any case, she’s standing behind us, and she said she’s not leaving till she talks to you. I’m done.”
Akosua whipped her head back, and, upon seeing her mother standing there, stood as though she meant to run away.
“Nope,” said Kobby, sitting her back down. “You need to do this.” He stood and walked away.
Gloria moved closer to her, but still left a little distance, as though waiting for permission to come over.
“Akosua…can we talk please? I…I know you probably never want to hear my voice again, but–”
“I had to learn how to use a pad from the library. Do you know that? The first time I bled, I thought I was going to die.” She chuckled dryly. “Daddy bought every brand of sanitary towel from the store. When the store clerk looked at me as she scanned the things he bought, I wanted the ground to swallow me.”
Her mother kept quiet, her face awash with tears.
“I wondered at that moment what it would have been like if I had had you there. In fact, there were so many times I wished I had you there, so many questions I never got to ask you.”
She sighed.
“It would be so easy to hold on to the pain. But I know in the long run, I’m the one who will suffer for it. So I’ll hear you out.” She patted the space by her that Kobby had vacated.
“Let’s talk.”
Read Part Six(Bonus Chapter) here
GLOSSARY
Da, daabi. Wei deε mennti ase o — Dad, no. I won’t understand this
Kelewele — seasoned plantain, often sold on the roadside in Ghana
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Hola, my people! No two month long wait for this chapter! Whoooo! We’re nearly at the end of this book! One more chapter (still considering chopping it into two, but let’s see). Anyways, this feels so bittersweet. I’ll really miss Akosua and Kobby, but…*drumroll*
There’s a new book! Title will be revealed soon, but the story centers on Dzifa and Joojo, and I am super excited to share it with you! It will feature a lot of characters from Awakening Love, so in all honesty, it feels more like a continuation from a different point of view, and I can’t to start posting!
I pray this chapter blesses you. It was quite a tough one to write, hmm. The Scripture Kobby mentioned is Isaiah 49:15, btw. The song for this chapter is My Destiny, by Banky W.
Please leave a comment, and like if you’re enjoying the story; it really does encourage me😭.
