The Key to the Secret

Ebere met me standing sober in the middle of mother’s room. My eyes remained fixed on her bed where she had given up the ghost. I swallowed a painful lump while trying to fight back tears. I could still picture those nights when I would come into the room and meet Ebere already fast asleep by mother’s left side, and I would hurriedly cuddle up by her side where I knew I would fall into a dreamless sleep. I could still remember the loving strokes she gave me that made me drift off to sleep without any thoughts in my head, and her pecks that meant “everything is okay”. I swallowed yet another lump and reminded myself that I had to be a man because if I broke down in tears, Ebere would end up crying. And we would never get the room cleaned.

“Why did you want to clean the room?” Ebere asked.
I could hear her tear-laden voice shaking.
I waited for about ten seconds before replying “I don’t know,” to be sure my voice would not betray my feelings. “But it was a strong urge.”
I looked at her. Her soft cheeks were stained with tears and her white eyes were now pink. “I’m sorry I had to make you do this…”
“It’s okay,” she replied, sniffing and wiping the tears from her eyes. “Let’s get to work.”

The room was dusty. I sneezed a couple of times. Apart from the fresh cobwebs and dust from the changes in seasons, there was little dirt in the room.
“Mom sure knows how to make a place look clean,” Ebere voiced out her thoughts.
“I was going to say so myself,” I said. “Good for us, we have little to do. You do the sweeping, I do the dusting and then we mop later?” I suggested.
“Sure,” Ebere said and picked up the broom.
I had just squeezed the rag to wipe the window when Ebere said, “See what I’ve found!” I turned to see her holding a big brown envelope in her hands. She passed it to me. “I found it under the bed,” she answered my unasked question.

On the envelope was written boldly “Lyrics to My Loved One”. I opened it to see things written by mother. A closer examination of notes revealed that they were poems.
“These are poems written by mommy,” I said, “I guess mommy must have been a poet.”

Involuntarily, Ebere and I sat down on the bed to go through the poems. They were all dated and arranged in chronological order.

The first of the poems was titled “Peeping Girl”. Ebere read it out:

Peeping Girl
How I marvel at the deeds of the Lord
Beauties to masterpieces he makes in accord
Wilful wanders of my eyes make me see
Perfections of God during my little peep;
I, Peeping Girl, peep out of my window
The mystique male I see makes my eyes glow
Indeed he is the one of every girl’s dreams
I not being an exception to this realm;
A little peep makes my heart skip a beat
My attraction to him builds a halting heat
I seem to lose control of my mind, now stray
My crush on him should not be wrong, this I pray.

After she had read it a second time, something occurred to me, which I told her.
“Assuming mommy was writing about herself, and she was the ‘Peeping Girl’, then she must have had a crush on a guy and wrote it down.” I paused then continued, “These might be poems she wrote to the guy she had the crush on.”
“This sounds interesting,” Ebere said with a chuckle of excitement. I liked it whenever she got into such mood because it meant she was not going to get bored with the venture.
“Listen while I read the second poem to you…”
I put the first poem aside and listened to Ebere as she read the next poem. All I was left to imagine was what could have transpired to inspire mother to write such beautiful poems.