ᴀᴅᴇʏᴇᴍɪ

He returned on Monday. The daughter did not greet him. She ate her food, finished her homework, and went to her room. He tried to explain. She listened, then said she had a test the next day and needed to sleep. He has not missed a visiting day since. He arrives early and stays until the end. The daughter speaks to him politely. She does not run to meet him the way she used to. Her mother watches and does not intervene. She has not asked him about the other woman. He has not mentioned her either. The message he sent that Saturday is still on the girl’s phone. She has not deleted it. Some nights she reads it again before she sleeps. He does not know this. He only knows that when he reaches for her hand at the school gate she allows it for a moment, then lets go. The weekend he chose someone else is never discussed. It sits between them anyway. He continues to come. She continues to let him. Neither of them has said that things are back to the way they were. They both know they are not.

He had promised his daughter he would attend her school’s visiting day. He had also promised another woman he would spend the same weekend with her. He chose the woman. He sent his daughter a message on Saturday morning saying work had called him out of town. The daughter read the message while standing at the school gate with her friends. She did not reply. Her mother, who had stayed behind, saw the girl’s face and asked what was wrong. The girl showed her the message. The mother said nothing. She only held the girl’s hand and walked her back inside. That evening the mother called him. She asked where he really was. He repeated the story about work. She told him their daughter had waited at the gate until the visiting period ended. He said he would make it up to her. The mother said the girl had already stopped expecting him to come. She ended the call. He spent the rest of the weekend where he was. He did not call the daughter again until Sunday night. She did not pick up.

The education office sent officers to the school the following morning. The children who had pushed him were identified. Their parents were invited. The school was ordered to separate the boy from the group and to submit a weekly report on his safety. The teachers who had said “children will be children” were queried. One of them was later transferred. The boy returned to school after three days. He still sits alone sometimes. No one takes his food. No one hides his books. His mother still walks him to the gate every morning and waits until he is inside. The drainage ditch has been covered. The school has started a simple reporting system for bullying. The boy’s knees have healed. He has not been absent again. His mother keeps the photographs on her phone. She has not needed to show them a second time. Every afternoon he comes out of the gate and looks for her. She is always there. They walk home together. He talks more than he used to. She listens. The children who once pushed him now pass him without stopping. He does not look back at them. He only holds his mother’s hand until they reach the house, then lets go and goes inside to change his uniform.

The boy had been the smallest in his class for years. The others took his food, hid his books, and laughed when he could not find them. He told his mother. She went to the school. The teachers said children would be children and that he should learn to speak up. She came home and told him to endure. He endured for two more terms. Then one afternoon he did not come home. His mother searched until evening. A classmate finally said the boy had been pushed into a drainage ditch behind the school and had not climbed out. She ran there. She found him sitting in the dirty water, holding his bag above his head. His uniform was soaked. His knees were bleeding. He looked at her and did not cry. She lifted him out, carried him home, and did not return to the school the next day. Instead she went to the education office with photographs of the injuries and the names of the children who had pushed him.

To all our mutuals and non mutuals, we have a very important announcement to make, most especially to all my mutuals who don't like going through lengthy text. We'd be returning a bit to our lost art of telling good stories, perhaps two of em a day. If you do come across one and it's not just your thing, you can just do with a repost, a like, and perhaps a bookmark, it's still a good way of gracing our friendship 🙏🏻.