Story, story…

I'm cleaning out the cobwebs here. I'm cleaning them out with this story that's been nudging my mind. I'm not sure where it's going yet, but here's a draft for your reading pleasure. Enjoy and please leave a comment! If you're not already, follow me on Instagram and Facebook, I might be doing this often.

Jadesola’s mother called her very early that morning.

“I had a bad dream about you. Jadesola, I want you to be patient. Don’t take matters into your own hands,” she said.

“I’ve heard you, ma.”

She listened half-heartedly to her mother’s urgings, drifting in and out of sleep and worry. The eviction notice was crumpled under her buttocks, where she had slumped on it in desperation the night before. The fridge was completely empty, and she wanted to keep her son home, but the school was already getting suspicious of his frequent absences.

When Jadesola was packing her bags to visit Vancouver two years before, she had never imagined the kind of fear that now gripped her heart like a plier. Will I be homeless today?” What will happen to my children?

Getting out of bed, she half-walked, half-floated to the kitchen to see what miracle she could find in the shelves. There was nothing but the garbage, already stinking with the baby’s soiled diapers. She tied up the garbage and stepped out of the door.

She hated winter so much; it was too cold to think straight, too cold to get help from people. Winter froze everything, including goodwill. It was in winter that she’d met the baby’s father. He had been kind, taking her everywhere and buying her son gifts.

Her aunt had a bad feeling about him: “He looks too smooth,” she had said.

To that, Jadesola had said, “Do you expect him to be rough? Aunty please o!” She knew he wasn’t perfect, but if all went well, he would propose and file for her to be a permanent resident. In the meantime, she would tolerate his nonsense.

When she got pregnant in spring, he told her he was a family man. My wife is in Alberta, I thought you knew what this was. I have other children. Jadesola almost lost her mind. How could I have let this happen to me again? As with her other child, she cried her eyes out and accepted her fate. Thankfully her aunt’s church welfare gave out many maternity gowns and baby clothes when her daughter was born.

As Jadesola climbed back up the stairs of the apartment building, wondering if child welfare would take her children away from her and she would be sleeping on the streets of East Hastings, she saw him. Even before she neared him, she knew the man was dead. It was the way his head dangled over his chest, with his gray hair hanging like wilting vegetables. She had seen the man only twice; once when she’d first moved into this apartment six months ago and the next time at the bus stop on his way to work at a butcher’s shop. He could barely walk without shuffling his feet, panting like a thirsty dog.

She did not scream; her eyes were fixed on something else. His wallet sat by his thigh, right next to his phone, as though he had been about to get something from it and make a call before death whisked him away. She took a step forward, suddenly remembering that he had mentioned his pay date. It would not be a lot, but it would take care of food and maybe a deposit for the rent.

Her mother’s words drifted into her mind:  I want you to be patient. Don’t take matters into your own hands.

I didn’t kill him. I just need to take a few notes, I’ll leave the rest.

She grabbed the wallet and found $600. She took $500.

She thought it would be suspicious, so she returned $300. Replacing the wallet, she rose to return to her apartment when the door to the opposite apartment opened.

“Anybody there?”

Jadesola, hidden behind the entrance door, watched the tenant fall over the old man, crying and shaking him. In that moment, comparing her own opportunism and the tenant’s grief, Jadesola recognized the state of her own heart. What kind of person am I?

As soon as the tenant ran in to call the police, she fled towards her own apartment. But right there, in front of her door, was her son, he had seen her.

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