My Mother lost her number, and I think I died
musings of a daughter
Dialling tone
080354… 7
Ringing…
“Hello.”
“Hello, mom. I missed you. “
At 18, I see the disgust when I say I do not know my father’s number. It is this order: them needing to speak with my father urgently and asking me for it, me remembering that really it’s a new year and I haven’t got past saying, “081…5.. oh, it’s difficult jare!” Then the look of disgust on their face. Heck, I would call my mother to reach my dad whenever there was an emergency.
“11 digits?! Big girl like you?”
“Why not just try learning it?”
“You don’t respect your father. It’s why you won’t learn his number till now.”
“It’s easier to learn his! Just learn it like you learnt mine.”
Lies. It’s not. Maybe even my heart and head realise that loving mother comes with a new kind of warmth; the one that isn’t political with love. Father’s number is like arithmetic. Arithmetic, not math. Same rules, numbers and formulas, still your mind chooses to forget them just when you need to remember.
a×b = b×a
(a×b)×c= a × (b×c)
0 × anything= 0
So you see?
Remember the one time you were asked to memorise a teacher’s number for school? Whose did you learn first? I said mine out loud to the teacher who entered it into the class register.
“Yes, go on. Your father’s number.”
“I could not learn it, aunty. I’ll learn it tomorrow.”
Is it needless to say that the space was blank until I wrote the number down on a piece of paper weeks later and submitted it to my teacher?
Wait, maybe it’s because my mother’s number is like spoken word poetry. The long one you have to memorise before the big event tomorrow that keeps playing in your dream. The one whose first word you forget when you get on stage but when you remember and say it, it triggers the flow of words until you’re done or you take a sip of water only to find those listening snapping on their feet.
It’s just easy to say, 080…354…7. It’s like saying my name or the name of someone I love. Saying my mother’s number rolls off my tongue easily.
080345…7
My thumb pad is in love with those digits on my phone screen. It knew first when I was left at school long after everyone left and the security man was angry at my brother and I for having parents who would forget their kids. It learnt it long before I went away to writing camp and was homesick. My fingers found my phone and had dialled mother’s number before I realised it would be silly to call her and cry to say, I miss you. Guess who choked with tears immediately I said, “hello mummy?” So, you see, you see why my head knows this number.
At the hospital where the doctor pushed a speculum inside me instead of a swab stick, my fingers knew the number pads as my eyes began to well with tears. The day my portal bore the message “Admitted Granted” my phone buzzed immediately:
Calling…
Ma Mere
080354…7
Blood is thicker than water. Phone buzzes make the heart grow fonder.
I imagine my mother’s number as having a form and personality. Some woman who sits in the room and pulls my chair close so I share secrets with my mother on the other side but have to shout it over her shoulder. She must laugh, this digit with personality, when my mother and I fight and I promise to never care or say I love you when I sign out on weekly call dates. Lies. All lies.
It’s three weeks since my mother lost that line and blocked it. I wonder how her bank and work forms would ache with longing when the phone number field is edited. Would it feel like losing a lovely spouse and having to adjust to another because I know I’m lost. I feel like I walked into a brick wall and the vaseline on my head is doing better at making me sweat than relieving the throbbing pain I feel. My chest is a chest of memories and someone has pulled out a drawer of beautiful childhood feelings. I fear I’ll forget them if I forget the digits. You know how you write numbers on a notepad when traveling, just in case you lose your phone and need to call? That’s security. I feel like I’m trapped at Ore and have no lifelines.
It’s been three weeks. Three weeks of typing in the numbers 080354….7 (I never search her name, I would rather dial) to hear the automated sound say “You’re not allowed to call this number” just after it says to link your NIN. Three weeks since my mother lost her line. I swear, I think I’ve died.
