Letters to God
I eat my vegetables. I do my homework. I even brush my teeth before going to bed. I do what I’m told. Then why, God?
The box was placed between old grimy paperbacks. It had been there for a long time. She could tell by the layers of dust that enveloped it, obscuring it. She removed it from the iron shelves and opened it while her heart slammed painfully against her ribs.
It had been a home for her letters, the ones she had written a decade ago.
The envelopes sealed by glue had been opened-mother had read them.
She didn’t care.
She picked up the first one and went through it.
She finished. The tear stained page now dampened by fresh tears. Maybe taking a trip down memory lane wasn’t the brightest of ideas, she thought as she remembered that fateful night when her father came back with his ‘friend’, now his other wife, and asked Aminah to call her ‘mama’ too.
The pain never did go away after that day.
Missed birthdays and preferential treatment for his other children became a norm.
Angry tears blurred her vision as she remembered the death of her mother from internal bleeding after a severe beating from her father.
Life just sent her misery after misery.
She took the letters and burned them one by one wishing she could set the memories that haunted her to fire too…
It had been a home for her letters, the ones she had written a decade ago.
The envelopes sealed by glue had been opened-mother had read them.
She didn’t care.
She picked up the first one and went through it.
She finished. The tear stained page now dampened by fresh tears. Maybe taking a trip down memory lane wasn’t the brightest of ideas, she thought as she remembered that fateful night when her father came back with his ‘friend’, now his other wife, and asked Aminah to call her ‘mama’ too.
The pain never did go away after that day.
Missed birthdays and preferential treatment for his other children became a norm.
Angry tears blurred her vision as she remembered the death of her mother from internal bleeding after a severe beating from her father.
Life just sent her misery after misery.
She took the letters and burned them one by one wishing she could set the memories that haunted her to fire too…