by Maya Rossi
He was my Madam’s son.
Merrick looked down at the trowel and the wet cement at his feet. He dropped the tool and walked over. “What’s going on? I’ve held my tongue as much as I can. Now, tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing.”
“Really? That’s strange. I haven’t seen I.J here in over a week and she’s my padi.”
“Padi.”
Merrick cocked an eyebrow, as ever he was confident and smug in the way only a rich kid could be. It didn’t matter that he was toiling now. A rich kid was a rich kid. Silver just didn’t tarnish.
“... that’s what I said.”
“She’s your padi, your friend.”
“Yes,” he stepped close, “did something happen? Damn, I should have checked on her.”
He stood too close. The smell of cement clung to him. He stood tall and muscular and strong. And I hated him for it. I stepped back.
He reached for my hands, and I snatched it back. Those witch eyes snapped in a strange emotion and he reached for and caught my hands. He squeezed in reassurance.
“Talk to me.”
When I shook my head, he pulled me frightening close. “Forget that I’m ‘madam’s son shit,” he spat. “Forget all that and talk to me.”
“And if I told you all I want is to join you at the farm? I’m tired of staying at home.”
He regarded me silently for a long time. We both had working hands, rough and tough like leather. Especially his. It was so unlike Madam’s or Benita’s and I felt guilty for even thinking that.
“You’re not going because it’s your job?”
Angry, I tugged at my hands, but he held fast. “That’s a poor imitation of my voice, by the way. And no, it’s not a job. I’m just tired of being home.” My voice turned sweet. “II might even grab a book, stand around and supervise.”
“Fine. But you tell me who Madam Gold is or the scar or your issue with I.J.”
I snatched my hand back with enough force it drove me back. He cursed. “Stop looking at me like I kicked your dog. I have no choice.”
“You just want to know what--”
“I just don’t want to know,” he interrupted, “I want to understand. You make these statements, you snarl, and you endure alone.”
I blinked back tears, directing my eyes to the gate. “Because that’s how it has always been, because that’s how it should be.”
Merrick nodded, looking sad. I watched him work on the stairs. He had a mansion back home, and he chose this. There was something about his hunched back, the care he took spreading the cement over the stairs. I tried to imagine Benita or Oga in this position, and I couldn’t.
“How much do you pay Oga?”
He should tell me it was none of my business. He would be right. Back home, I won’t even open my mouth, let alone ask about his business.
“Fifty thousand per week,” he said easily. “I took almost ten million from him.”
“Ten million,” I breathed.
He grinned. “Canada’s expensive.” He shrugged. “He added interest. I’ve made twelve payments, I have one hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and eighty-eight.”
He worked, and I watched. The animals made the occasional noise. Somewhere outside, a mother disciplined her son. He begged and cried, and the mother’s gentle reprimand followed. Finally, he stopped crying.
“That’s Temi, so damn stubborn. You know what his mom told me the other day? I pretend to keep up with him, but I thank God every day he’s not a twin.”
“She has twins?”
“Yeah, the first girls.”
We lapsed again into silence. Merrick gave the stairs one final brush. He dropped the trowel in water from the well and scrubbed. He could have had me do that, but he didn’t. He never did. Merrick never ordered me to do anything.
“Madam Gold,” I said.
Merrick propped the wet tools against the wall and glanced up. “OK.”
“She’s hmm…”
He sat on the mat, keeping some distance between us. He didn’t urge me to speak up, didn’t hurry me. He just returned from the farm, exhausted. Yet, here I was drawing out a simple question.
He waited me out.
“She runs this orphanage in Delta state. She later opened another in Lagos.” I picked at a thread in my jeans. “She helped us. I joined her at age six. Some of us are babies abandoned on her doorstep. Homeless children, runaways. Every child in the street who has no one eventually ends up with Madam Gold.”
“And what does she do?” he asked softly.
“Cares for us, makes sure we’re fed and gives us a home.”
Merrick frowned. “So she’s a nice woman then?”
“She’s our savior,” I corrected.
He waited for a bit, but when it became obvious, I would add nothing more; he nodded. “Father gave me first real beating when I was just five years old. I remember little. But he broke my arm, and I ended up in the hospital. Those days, it was just me. We went on holidays to exotic places. I had toys my friends begged to play with, I went to the best schools. He was a nice man.”
While he spoke, my mouth had dropped open. I had so many questions. “It’s not the same.”
“I never said so,” he said archly. “I told you my story as it is.” He yawned loudly. “I’m out. So tomorrow, then.”
“How do we feed the birds?” I asked.
“We’ll come back.”
“And go back again?”
He nodded. “I’ve done it before.”
Farm work was the hardest work. I stood in the shed provided by a hastily erected pole. Four poles stuck in the ground, plus palm trees across the top. We had spent most of the day clearing out the weeds with cutlass and hoe. I used hoe and Merrick cutlass. Then we gathered the weeds to be burned at a later date.
My arms ached, my right hand was torn across the palm from dragging out a stick. I turned my palm over and stared at the injury in amazement.
Merrick still worked.
He worked like a man possessed a dreamy one. The cutlass was like an extension of his arm. The bunch of his thighs, the thrust of his arm, it was beautiful. I dropped to my haunches to tend to the roasted yam. It was brown all over. I used some dry fish and oil to make a small stew for the yam.
As I added pepper, some of it drizzled onto the wound on my palm. It was like having my arms sliced open. The pain burning and intense. I must have cried out because Merrick came running.
“Christ, I thought it was a snake. Are you alright?”
My eyes filled with tears, I curled my fingers and pressed it to my chest like that would stop the pain. Merrick’s eyes narrowed. “Let me see.”
“No, no, it hurts.”
He led me to a fallen palm tree and made me sit. Next he grabbed some of our water, then plucked leaves out of the nearest scent leaf plant.
“Open your hand, Ada,” he ordered.
“No, no, no.” The tears were falling unchecked now. “It’s--”
“Open your fucking hand.”
I forced it open, and he doused the flames with water. I moaned as it cooled, only for the pain to return almost immediately. He poured water again and covered the wound with the leaves. A muscle ticked at the corner of his jaw. He threw the water bottle to the ground in anger.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
I blinked, shocked at his rage. And it was rage, not anger. His eyes snapped, his breath heaved and his fists clenched and unclenched. I tried to rear back, but it only made him angrier. When he leaned forward, I yelped and slid from the palm tree to land on my ass.
Merrick helped me to my seat with gentle hands. “You injured your damned hand and kept working? Why?”
“I’m--”
“So help me,” he began through gritted teeth, “if you tell me how I’m Madam’s son, I will lose it.”
I glared at him. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“Then say what you want to say.�
�
“Well, if you had let me answer instead of assuming, I would have said it seven years ago!”
Merrick’s eyes closed in a slow blink. He propped his hands on his hip. “Seven years, really?”
“You deserved that,” I muttered.
“Yes, I did,” he agreed solemnly, “but so did you.”
I bristled. “That’s not--”
“Only a fool goes on working after an injury,” he clipped, working himself up over something so little again.
“If I was home, and I stopped, I will be a beaten fool or a fool who would spend the night outside,” I snapped.
“Isn’t that just the thing,” Merrick caught my jaw in his large hands, “you’re with me, not at home. Can you try to allow that sink into your thick head?”
Before I would reply, his phone rang. Merrick dropped my jaw and moved to fish it out of his trouser pockets. He raised an eyebrow. “Madam is calling,” he said in a mock imitation of my voice.
“Mom.”
I curled my fingers into my palms, listening to mother and son talk. Soon, Merrick the phone over. For a second, I held the phone, waiting for my breathing to slow down.
“Good day, ma.”
“Adam, how are you? Merrick has told me what a big help you’ve being to him. Thank you.”
I asked about the shop; we spoke of inconsequential things and Madam told me about their trip. Towards the end of the call, she cleared her throat.
“I got another maid, she’ll be here until you’re back.”
I closed my eyes tight, throat thickening with tears.
“Ada?”
“Ada?”
“Ma?”
Her voice softened. “It’s just until you come back. As soon as you do, I’m sending her back. Even before you return, OK?”
After the call, I hand back Merrick’s phone, but he didn’t reach for it. He stared at me with burning eyes. “You love him that much?”
“Him?” I asked, confused.
“My father,” he returned flatly. “You love him so much you can’t see straight.”
My first reaction was to laugh. Oga. Why would I love Oga? Then Merrick kicked out at a stick. It hit the stew and turned the pot over.
“You love him so much, you can’t wait to go back. Does she know?” He wagged a finger in my face. “Why not tell her, let’s see? Go on, tell her. I want to check something. What has he promised you?” He gave me a patronizing smile. “Let’s see if I can top that. You’re nothing but a slut after all--”
My hand moved before I knew it, and my palm cracked hard across his cheek. It was the injured hand. Blood and leaf from the wound smeared across his cheek. He turned his head back, smiling. Smiling.
“We both know you can’t try this with Oga so let it not become a habit--”
He broke off abruptly, chest rising and falling with every harsh breath. I cradled my hand against my chest, while tears flowed down my cheeks. It hurt so bad, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of checking the wound.
Merrick’s piercing gaze continued to rove over my face, I had no idea what he was searching for. But I needed him to leave so I could check on my hand. His callused fingers caught my jaw and angled it up.
Slowly, he leaned down. I held my breath. His mouth brushed mine, once, twice. And a third time. It was so light, my eyes remained closed, head tipped up after he stepped back.
We didn’t speak on the way home. Merrick remained moody and angry.
After we dropped off our farm tools, he took me to Nurse. I smiled at the smell of crayfish as the bustling ball of a woman greeted us. She took one look at my hand and sent Merrick away.
“Did he do this?”
When I caught the worry and anger in her eyes, I shook my head adamantly. “No, no, no. I did it to myself.”
“Ah.” She didn’t believe me.
“I joined him at farm today. My first time,” I clarified. “I got injured and kept working. He never knew I was injured, and we stopped when he saw it.”
“You thought he’ll want you to keep working?”
“That’s the normal thing, we can’t complain.”
She nodded and reached for a bottle. “We can’t complain.”
I slept fitfully that night. Then later, I went outside just to look at the skies. It always seemed so close here, like I could just reach out and pluck one. I found my way outside easily in the dark, careful not to wake Merrick. He worked so hard; he slept immediately, his head hit the mat.
But when I got outside, I saw the red tip of a cigarette glowing.
“I thought you stopped,” I breathed, sitting beside him and stretching my legs out.
He took a long drag and blew it out. “It helps me relax, but it’s not my closest friend, you know?”
“Who’s your closest friend?”
He thought about it for a long time. “Aunty Gladys and my cousins. Taylor too.”
“Who’s Taylor?”
“Rachel’s daughter. The one you met in the house that first day.”
“I’ve always wanted to ask. How come you never ran into your father?”
“He hates Aunty Gladys, and will do anything to avoid her. Worse?“ He smiled in satisfaction. “She’s wealthy and doesn’t need him at all.“
“You want that.”
“Badly,“ he admitted. He sighed. “I apologize for the stew.”
I wanted to say the usual words, but they wouldn’t come.
“I heard your conversation with Nurse.”
“You listened.”
He shrugged without shame. “You can’t complain.”
“No, we accept things as they are.”
His eyes found mine. The confusion, the perplexity made my heart ache. I looked away. “But I was angry about the stew. It was soooo good, I would have enjoyed it.”
“Let’s make another tomorrow,” he whispered.
We sat close, shoulders touching. Merrick smoked a few more puffs and put it out. I looked up at the skies.
“I can help you at the farm.”
“Or?”
“I could go to the local school?”
I saw his smile through his words. “Which do you want?”
“School?”
“OK, then.”
Chapter seventeen
I.J was beside herself. “This is true courage. But I hope you’re prepared.”
I stirred the stew and left it to fry. “Not really, I just want to learn.”
“They’ll put you in a lower class,” she warned.