by Nia Eze
“See her! Oh! You are ‘liking’ him!” she turned to her husband, “Of all the people that she could have like…!”
“DON’T!” Angela screamed. “Mummy please don’t say it!” she slunk back on the sofa, her eyes brimming with as yet unshed tears.
There was an uncomfortable silence amongst them. After awhile Mr. Acha took a deep breath.
“How? When did you realize your feelings for him?” he asked his daughter.
Angela stared at the ceiling as she tried to collect her thoughts. “Probably since the first day.” She replied. “I wouldn’t say I…fell in love with him at first sight.” She rushed on as her mother clapped her hands in part derision and consternation. “He was such a mess that first time. But he was brilliant and gentle. A little lost but he had been so brave.” She sighed. “I’m not sure when it happened.” She continued. “I just know that I love him. With all my heart and soul I love him.” At her mother’s snort she continued, “I love him Mummy! I did not ask to. I wasn’t even expecting to…love was not something on the radar for me! It came as a surprise.” She ended on a whisper as if she was surprised all over again. She looked up into her father’s eyes.
“Does he love you too?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I like to think so…I’ve never told him.”
“Jackson?” Mrs. Acha asked a look of frowning surprise on her face.
Mr. Acha drew a deep breath and stood up from the step. “Perhaps you should and let’s…have this conversation again.” He turned and walked back up the stairs feeling every creak in his bones. His wife followed after him mumbling complaints and dire warnings. Angela stared up after her parents alternating between relief that she had it all out in the open and terror that she had to come clean with Jay.
She lay back down on the sofa, her mind in turmoil and in all that whirling and churning, she heard a clear voice speak in her head. She needed direction and in this her peculiar situation, she knew just the Person to turn to. She went to Him in prayer.
CHAPTER 17
There were rain showers and warm sunlight in his heart! He felt like the sun had had just come out from behind the clouds in the rain. Angela loved him too!
Jay chuckled at his fanciful thoughts. ‘Really Jay! That’s the best you could come up with in horrible poetry?’
“Jay?”
His hazy, dreamy vision cleared as he was brought back to earth by Angie’s single-worded question.
“I’m a truly selfish person.” He said.
“Wash your mouth!” Angie hissed as she continued arranging the flowers she had just brought in from the garden.
“I am.” Jay insisted. “Your mum is horrified and I can’t blame her. I keep saying to myself, ‘Jay, do the right thing and let this go’, but I can’t.”
Angie stilled in the act of doing her task waiting for him to continue.
“What kind of life could I possibly offer you?” he queried. “How long will we have to wait until I can put things together, make something of myself and offer you…”
“Are we harping on about that again?” Angie interrupted as she turned her attention once again to her task.
“Angie be serious! Maybe your mum is right. Maybe…”
“Jay don’t …do you really mean it? When you say you love me too? Or is that just some overflow of emotions…? She stopped at the wounded look that came to Jay’s eyes. She sighed and dropped her flowers once again.
“Jay, I’m not a fool and despite popular perception, I wasn’t born yesterday. Of course I know it’s not going to be easy. I KNOW that it will be particularly challenging. The labs, the test, the not knowing what to expect, the uncertainty of the future! I KNOW!!!” she put an arm on his shoulder and rubbed at the tension she felt coiling under it.
“We’ll do this together Jay. No one should ever have to walk this road alone. No, it’s not pity. You’re strong Jay. You would go it alone if you had to, I know it. And you would come out ahead too! But I want to be a part of this, Jay. I really want to be standing with you on the other side.”
“I should say no.” Jay lamented.
“But you won’t.” Angie interjected with a smile. “I won’t let go. I’m certain that this is where I was meant to be.”
“Do you…what are you letting yourself in for Angie?”
“All of it. Let me.”
Jay looked away from her and tried to master his emotions. He wondered satirically if the super hormones had made him more ‘feminine’ than had been anticipated. He felt her nudge and turned back to her.
“Can I even say no?” he tried for a teasing tone to a half serious question.
“No. You can’t. You already know I won’t let you so don’t bother.” She smiled as she gathered up her flowers and made to go indoors.
“Aren’t you going to finish that?” he asked.
“When you’ve destroyed my mood with all your talk?” she queried and hissed, walking away saucily. When she got to the kitchen door, she turned to look at him over her shoulder. He was still sitting on the garden bench looking bemusedly at her.
“Why are you still there?” she asked imperiously. “Can’t you see my hands are occupied and you need to get the door for me?”
“Already ma’am?” Jay asked saucily as he jumped up to get the door for her. “You can’t even put a lid on it till after…” he trailed off in part alarm and part elation.
Angie put a sway to her hips as she walked saucily past him into the house.
“Oh, but this is just a tiny part of my repertoire. You just wait.” She pouted and burst out laughing. It was the precious sound of optimistic youth.
************
Doctor Greene looked thoroughly unkempt.
The thought flitted through Sarah Jane’s mind as she sat there looking blankly at what had once been her respected colleague and dare she believe it, friend.
“You’re looking well Sarah Jane. Come to gloat at me?” he asked, his voice a cadence some between a sneer and what sounded like shame.
Sarah Jane sat quietly, staring at him for a brief moment and wondering at the best way to proceed.
“Why would I come to gloat? Shouldn’t you be the one gloating? What have you done to me?” she asked as calmly as she could.
There was a look of confusion on Doctor Greene’s face as he tried to make sense of her questions.
“What do you mean what I’ve done to you? He asked.
“Are you going to pretend with me?” Sarah Jane snapped. “Have you no humanity left at all in you? Would you pretend that you know nothing and let me...us flounder like you did with Jay?” and then as she felt her anger rise at the unfairness, the injustice of it all, “What sort of monster are you that you would do this to people? Without their knowledge! Without their consent!” she fairly screamed.
“Madam, if you don’t keep your voice down, we’ll have to escort you out!” came the sharp reprimand from the guard.
Sarah Jane quieted down, her eyes blazing at Greene.
“Sarah Jane, I assure you, I have no idea what you are talking about. Has something happened with Jay? Did the …? He cut off abruptly.
“Did what Doctor?” Sarah Jane pounced. “What did you do?”
Greene looked at the guard and then back at Sarah Jane. He apparently had something to say but was assessing, calculating things in his mind.
“Please say it!” Sarah Jane said, a pleading note colouring her voice albeit reluctantly. She had come too far to leave without some answers. She would not survive the torment Jay had. She never wanted to walk in Jay’s shoes.
“There were some… antibodies we were developing.” Greene said pitching his voice so low that both he and Sarah Jane had to lean into each other across the table in order to hear.
“Antibodies?” Sarah Jane queried, matching Greene’s pitch.
“Yes, antibodies. They were supposed to bolster him.” Greene rubbed his forehead as if to scramble his thoughts into some semblance of
sense and then he continued. “The cartel wanted to continue with the experiments on Jay. They would have attempted to reverse everything that we had done and even go further. I couldn’t…Jay…had been through too much already. The thought of him going through all of that again was unpalatable to me. So I was going to give him a bolster, the antibodies, to make it easier maybe.” He finished.
“Maybe?” Sarah Jane shrieked. She reduced her voice again to a whisper when she received a sharp glance from the guard. “You were willing to put him through it all again? Use untested ‘god-knows-what’ on him?” Sarah Jane lost her words for a moment, unable to communicate her rumble of emotions through mere words. “Well, you know what? ‘I’ got that shot it seems.” Her words like bullets shooting from her mouth and hitting target dead on. “And I’m changing!” she flapped her arms in frustration.
Greene’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her as if trying to access the truth of her tirade in his mind.
“What do you mean changing?” he questioned, the scientist in him coming to the fore.
“You mean you have no idea what I might be changing into? What monster do you think I’ll eventually develop into? Will I become horned? Beaked? Oh no! Three-legged? What?” she yelled sarcasm dripping from her voice.
“Madam, your time is up.” The prison guard interrupted.
“Please, can I just have a minute, just one more minute with her.” Greene commanded. The guard acquiesced and Sarah Jane remembered how ‘in-charge’ she always thought Greene was. Even when the rest of them were floundering with Jay, he always seemed to know what he wanted to do and how.
“Sarah Jane, get a hold of yourself. This is no time for you to lose that legendary focus I’ve always admired. Sarah Jane found herself trying to swallow air as she fought for calm.
“There may be an antidote.” Greene said his voice dropping even lower.
“What?” Sarah Jane jerked in surprise and hope.
“There’s no time. Go to this address; 6, Luckman Way, Masha Estate. It shouldn’t be too hard to find. There is a key in the fifth flowerpot by your right on the porch once you climb up the front stairs.”
“Sir, your one minute is up.” The guard interrupted as he came forward and pulled roughly at Doctor Greene. He shuffled him towards the door leading back into the inner recesses of the prison.
As they went, Doctor Greene turned round to Sarah Jane, who still sat, immobile with shock, on her seat. “I’m sorry Sarah Jane. Believe me, I wish…good luck.” He said and turned back around, leaving the room quietly with the guard.
CHAPTER 18
“A male prostitute!” the voice blasted in his head. “You’d have my niece wed a male prostitute! Worse, a freak show!”
Jackson Acha put his hands over his ears and gripped his head as if hoping that it will free his brother’s voice from his head. The conversation he had had with Simeon had been replaying ceaselessly in his head. With it came questions, doubts…
“God my Father.” He whispered, his agony robbing him of words to pray. As he sat bent over, with his head held in his hands, his wife’s feet came within his line of vision.
He looked up to see her face was a composed mask of worry. For the first time since they had met each other some twenty six years before, they both stared at each other at loss for words to say that could express their deepest emotions and thoughts.
Agnes sighed as she took a seat next to her husband on the bench.
“Why are you being adamant?” she asked. “Angie is a beautiful girl. A precious soul, a loving, giving heart…” she broke off her impassioned speech, not knowing how to reach her husband, to convince him to withdraw his tacit consent.
Jackson was silent for awhile and then he released a sigh.
“Is Jay not worthy of her?” he asked. “You love that boy. You know him. Is he less? I could ask you the same question Agnes, why?”
Agnes looked away from him, her slippers-shod feet slapping on the ground pensively. They were both quiet for a long moment.
“Do you regret it?” Jackson asked. “Do you regret everything? Jay, letting him into our home? Our lives?
Agnes stared blankly at the shrubs and flowers in her back garden for another long moment.
“Do you know…”she started, “I’m so confused.” She exhaled deeply.
“He’s such a loving, sensitive young man.” Jackson said. “Yes, some of it is out of the past that he has had but has his past reduced his humanity?” He turned to look at his wife. “What scares you so much?” he asked.
“Aren’t you scared for her?”Agnes countered. “Think! It was all over the news! It’s not even fully out of people’s consciousness. He’s become some kind of poster boy for everything bad about…science! Genetics! Gender… and all that sort of thing! How are they going to live with that? How?”
“Is that it? Or is this just because it’s Angie?” Mr. Acha asked calmly.
“How can it not be because of Angie? She’s our only daughter!” she flared. “Our only child!” she whispered brokenly. She was silent for a moment and then she continued, “I want grandkids! Can that happen? Will that happen? I want Angie to be happy, settled, cared for. Now she wants to be a care giver for the rest of her life! This is not…my dream for her. This is not what we prepared her for!” she railed.
“Maybe so.” Jackson said while an inner glow lighted his eyes as some gem of understanding began blossoming in his spirit.
“Maybe so Agnes but it doesn’t mean that God wasn’t… hasn’t brought her up for such a time as this.” He said and turned to look at his wife with a smile. Agnes looked at him in consternation, wondering what he was talking about, seeing the look on his face and seeking, in her despair, to come to the same understanding that he seemed to have attained.
Jackson grabbed his wife’s hand and patted it gently, stroked it lovingly. “Trust God with me?” he asked in his most entreating voice. “Has HE ever let us down?” he asked.
Agnes shook her head in response. Jackson smiled and patted her hand in encouragement. Agnes gaped at him in confusion and then sighed towards Heaven.
“Okay.” she said.
********************
Mahmoud spun the car into parking position and jumped out, barely avoiding the door slam against his fingers in his haste. His head had been spinning since he got the text from Umar.
Meet me at Obinna’s. We’ve found her.
He didn’t need any further explanation. Sarah Jane was in Obinna’s house. How? Had he snuck her out of the hospital that day? He had been worried out of his mind. If the sucker had kept her all the while they had worried, he’d probably punch him. He took the stairs in twos and threes, trepidation pumping adrenaline through his veins. When he got to the front door to the apartment, he pounded on it. The door opened silently on its hinges to reveal Obinna with Umar standing behind him.
“Where is she?” Mahmoud asked as he stalked into the apartment looking around agitatedly.
Umar responded by corking his thumb towards a shut door. Mahmoud made for the door only to be arm-checked by Obinna.
“That’s the rest room bozo. She’ll be out soon enough.” He said.
Mahmoud flung his hand away from him and walked to a sofa to sit and wait.
“How did you find her?” he asked Obinna.
“She came looking for me at the station.” He responded. After a short pause and no further question from Mahmoud, he continued, “She wanted me to help her speak with Doctor Greene.”
Mahmoud flung himself back on the sofa in agony. Up till that moment, he had not realized that he had been hoping that the whole incident had been a mistake, a figment of their hyper-active imagination, everything explainable in some other way.
“What…has she spoken with him?” He asked
“About a week ago.”Obinna nodded.
“You’ve known where she was for more than a week? And you’re just letting us know?” Mahmoud railed. “Did you know as well?” he tu
rned to Umar. Umar turned away in a huff, not bothering to answer him and sat on an armchair opposite him.
The door to rest room opened and Sarah Jane came out through it.
“I asked him not to tell you guys. How are you doing Mahmoud?” she asked, her face strangely blank and unreadable.
Mahmoud stood up and walked towards her stretching out his arms to envelope her in a hug. A few paces from her, he came to an abrupt halt. Her skin seemed to shine with some inner glow, like she was iridescent. It had not been apparent to him while he had been sitting on the sofa but it was pretty obvious this close to her. He stared at her as she stood there watching him calmly while he came to terms with the reality that something was really different about Sarah Jane.
“Why is your skin glowing?” he asked. Umar snorted but Mahmoud paid him no mind.
Sarah Jane took a deep breath. “Apparently, I somehow got injected with some antibodies that Greene originally intended for Jay.” She said as she made her way to the remaining armchair in the room. As she took her seat, she continued. “He says he had a moment of…compassion. So, he intended to give him a shot of something he called a bolster hoping to make it easier for him the second time around. He hadn’t been able to administer it before the raid happened and somehow, it got into me instead.” She took a sip from the glass of water that had been on a stool beside her chair.
“Why are you so calm about this?” Mahmoud queried in consternation.
“I guess I’ve cried myself out.” She shrugged. “I have had time to digest the news.” She placed the glass back down on the stool. “At first, I was devastated. The thought of going through what Jay had was so…more than I could possibly stand. But then, I saw Greene. He says there is a possible antidote.”
“Where?” Mahmoud asked even as he backtracked to his seat.
“He gave an address. Obi and I have been there but somehow, we’ve been unable to gain access to the building. The keys were not where he said it would be. We’re beginning to think it’s a hoax.”
“So? Let’s go back and get better directions from him. He owes Sarah Jane this much!” Mahmoud exclaimed.
“We can’t. It’s going to cost me some major favours already for the visit we managed. I don’t see how we can pull off a second one.” Obinna said from where he lounged against a door frame.