EPISODE 11
When Tania woke up, her
husband and the medical team
were around, they had on
somber faces and she wondered
if her plans had worked. She had
been willing to sustain a few scratches as long as the boy was
taken out, and now she wanted
to be told just that. Tania: “Dami, where is Dayo,
please don’t tell me Dayo is dead,
Dayo! Dayo!” she screamed on
the top of her voice, flailing her
legs and hands. She pushed
whoever tried to hold her or console her. Damilola: “Tania darling, don’t be
so hysterical, Dayo is not dead, he
is only in coma, he had severe
head injuries, and the doctor said
it will take a miracle, but we still
believe God” he said. It was at that time that Gberan
rushed in, his face a mask of fear.
He kept blaming himself for
allowing Dayo go to stay with
Damilola and his wife. What
would he tell his mother if something happened to the boy?
He was given a child to take care
of, and he failed. Gberan: “It is all Bella’s fault! If
Bella was not so put off by his
presence, the boy would not
have been eager to go stay with
Damilola and his wife” he did not
know when he spoke out. Everyone turned to look at the
newcomer. Doctor: “Who are you sir?” he
asked Gberan: “I am the boy’s father,
where is he, and how is he?” he
asked in a rush. Doctor: “Let us talk in my office”
he said and led Gberan out of the
room. Tania became thoughtful,
so Dayo did not die, she
pondered. She looked at her
husband, and saw that his mind was not in the room. He looked
lost in thoughts. Tania: “What are you thinking?”
she asked wearily. Damilola: “I am wondering how
you could have run your car into
the bridge’s railing. It was not
even night!” he said, the tempo of
his voice was rising, and he was
getting angry at his wife. Tania: “Are you now blaming me
for this, you just want to look for
a way to pin this on me” she
matched his tempo of voice. Damilola: “Who should I blame?
You were the goddamn driver,
you had a kid in the car and you
could not drive carefully. Don’t
you know that if he dies, you are
in trouble?” he barked. Tania no longer replied him, she
was thinking of her failed
objectives, Dayo was in coma
instead of being dead, and there
was a slim possibility of him
waking up, was she going to allow the miracle take place? “No, I have to do something fast,
but I have to get Dami off my
hair” she thought, then she
turned to her husband, and put
on her best vulnerable act. She
began to cry, with her shoulders shaking with the force of her
sobs. Tania: “I am so sorry my darling.
Having spent time with Dayo, I
ached for my own child, I was
thinking too much, I didn’t know
when I was in the path of a
collision with another car, I had to swerve, to avoid that crash. I am
so sorry, I should have known
better than carrying my problems
everywhere, I am sorry” she
began to sob. Damilola took pity
on her because he felt he was the cause of her predicament. He held
her and began to rock her. Damilola: “I feel the pain too, that
is why I had gone to Gberan to
ask about Dayo’s roots, it
happens that Gberan is not the
father of Dayo, he was just his
foster father, and I wanted to adopt him. Perhaps by so doing,
God would bless us with our own
child” he replied, his voice laden
with emotions. Tania fell silent as she thought
this as a maneuver that Damilola
wanted to use in bringing his son
into their home. She became more
determined to end Dayo’s life. She
told her husband to go to the house and get her a change of
clothes and make her pepper
soup. It was a ploy to get
Damilola to leave the room, so she
could find her way to Dayo’s
room. When Bella reached home, anger
was etched on her face, she had
finally come to terms with the fact
that her plans had failed. She
entered the house and was met
with a bouncing Ken. He was even dancing shoki. Bella: “Ken, what is the happiness
about, I haven’t seen you this
happy in a while” she said
looking at him quizzically. Ken: “Mummy, Dayo was in an
accident, and he is dead. Daddy
has rushed to the hospital. Dayo
is never coming to this house
again, I am the only son Daddy
has” he said gleefully. Bella looked at him with concern, how
could a boy of eleven years be
happy about the death of another
boy, with whom he grew up
together. Nevertheless, she
pushed the thought aside, and told her son not to rejoice in the
death of a human being. Ken: “But mummy, I thought you
wanted him gone from our
house?” he asked in a confused
tone. Bella: “You are too young and I
have to protect your innocence”
she said to him. While Tania was pondering on
how she would end Dayo’s life,
the latter woke up, he felt pain in
his head, so he touched his head
and felt the bandage on it. Dayo: “Where am I, what
happened to me?” he asked the
empty room lit by white lights.
Everywhere smelled scrubbed
with chlorine, and he realized that
he was in the hospital. His memories came back to him. He
remembered the accident, and
how scared he had felt, as the car
made impact with the iron railings
of the bridge. Then he
remembered one important part of it all, the anger in Tania’s eyes
just before she swerved the car.
He also remembered that there
had been no car in front of them,
or behind them. Therefore, he
concluded that aunt Tania had deliberately swerved the car and
hit the railings with the side
where he was seated. Dayo: “She had wanted to hurt
me, but why, what have I done to
anyone. Why does mummy Bella
hate me, and why does aunt
Tania want to hurt me?” he asked
the empty room. He began to feel that for reasons best known to
them, they didn’t want him. He
decided therefore to leave and
find his way back to Madam
Lagos in Oshogbo, for she was
the only one who really loved him. But he remembered her
words, asking him to stay in
Lagos where there were
opportunities. If they kill me, I will
not be alive for those
opportunities, he thought. So Dayo stood up and walked
away from the ward room, he
passed the doctor’s office and
heard the doctor talking about
him. He looked through the glass
window and saw his foster father, Gberan. His heart constricted as
he thought of how much he
would miss him. However, he
walked on, he had just rounded
the corner, when Tania walked
into the hallway from the other axis and set her sights on Dayo’s
room. Dayo walked out of the
hospital amidst the little crowd in
the hospital’s lobby. When Tania entered Dayo’s room,
she saw the mound on the bed
which Dayo had arranged to look
like a person was under the
covers, so as to give himself time
to escape. She smiled wickedly and walked up to the bed. Tania: “Now, you are in my hands
and you will not escape it this
time. I will personally escort you
to your creator. It is probably not
your fault that you were born
illegitimately, but I will not allow you and your father to make a
fool of me. Under different
circumstances, I would have
loved you, sorry” she said and
gripped where she thought to be
the neck, but all she felt was softness. She flung the bed cover
and saw that there was no one
underneath. Her eyes widened
and nearly burst out of their
sockets. Tania: “Help! Help! Dayo!” she
screamed. Gberan and the doctor heard the
shout and he rushed out of the
doctor’s office. His heart was
beating faster in his chest as he
expected the worst. He thought
that Dayo had died and someone had raised alarm. But when he
entered the room, his eyes fell on
the empty bed, and the fear in his
heart turned into confusion. Gberan: “Tania, what is wrong,
where is my son?” he asked,
looking around the room, even
behind the door. Tania: “I don’t know, he left, or
someone took him” she said,
puzzled herself. She told them of
how the clothes had been
arranged to look like someone
was sleeping underneath. Gberan: “Why would Dayo run
away?” he asked, having
concluded that no one took Dayo,
but he left on his own. Doctor: “The boy was scared. But
what made him scared is what I
don’t know and cannot say” the
doctor looked perplexed. He
took out his phone and called the
police to report the missing child. Dayo was just leaving the hospital
gate when Bella’s car drove in.
Ken saw him first, dressed in a
hospital garb. Ken: “Mother, look at Dayo” he
shouted in fright. Didn’t they say
Dayo was dead, why was he
seeing Dayo.
.
.
.
Would Bella be the one
to see Dayo, would it give her an
avenue to hurt him?
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