They couldn't just let me sleep, huh?
The noise—one I was a hundred percent sure came from my sisters quarrelling over something trivial yet again—dragged me out of sleep. I sighed, already preparing myself to go through the routine I'd grown used to over the past week since returning home from university for the Christmas break.
In hindsight, coming back might have been a bad idea.
But I loved them too much not to.
"Will the two of you shut up? What's all this noise this early in the morning?" I hollered as I pushed myself into a sitting position on what I could only call a bed in name alone. It was old, torn, and barely holding together—the only thing preserving its dignity being the sheet draped over it.
After my shout, the quarrel died down. I took the opportunity to look around our crappy apartment. We lived in a single-bedroom apartment as a family of four… well, five technically. My younger brother hadn't come home for the holidays and was staying with a friend, leaving me with the three women of the house—my mother and my two younger sisters.
Technically, our dad would make us six, but since the divorce six years ago… well, I wasn't sure he counted anymore. In all honesty, to me, they'd never really been married. I'd never seen them display the love I saw other couples show—whether in movies or real life—and I often wondered how they even had all four of us. Maybe five, if my mother's miscarriage hadn't happened before I was born. Teenage love, maybe? They had us very early, and this was the '80s—apparently that was common in Nigeria.
Despite how it sounds, and though he was a terrible husband and partner, he wasn't exactly a bad father either. He checked in from time to time—just not enough to be called a good one.
…This was hard to explain.
Anyway, how we all managed to fit into this space was something I'd rather not describe. I was too ashamed to.
My eyes eventually landed on what I was looking for—my Android phone. Contrary to what you would think, it only had a single crack, courtesy of someone stepping on it at a neighbour's place while it was plugged in to charge. Whoever did it was never found.
I double-tapped the screen.
8:00 o'clock.
"You're finally up?"
I turned toward the voice at the door and froze.
It was my mother.
Looking at her a sharp pang struck my chest.
Before I'd travelled, she'd looked like someone who still had things working out for her. She was light-skinned—something few Nigerians were—and carried what people liked to call an exotic look. Beautiful, dark, lustrous hair. I'd inherited some of it.
Now she looked emaciated. Her skin had lost its lustre. Her eyes were sunken.
I shook the dark thoughts away.
"Degwo ma," I greeted instinctively before asking, "what are they fighting about now?"
"Vrendo, please don't mind your sisters. Mercy is throwing a fit because Grace wore her shirt and didn't wash it," she replied.
I sighed. I understood the frustration—my younger brother had the same habit—but it didn't justify all this noise so early in the morning.
As if summoned, Grace—the youngest—ran past my mother and hugged me.
"Brother! Degwo!"
I didn't respond immediately. Instead, I studied her.
Grace had just turned fourteen. Light-skinned like my mother and me. Her hair was cut short—maintaining Grace's hair was Mercy's greatest fear, considering how stressful her hair was to maintain. It didn't help that Mercy didn't think Grace was respectful enough to deserve the effort anyway.
Like most last-borns, she was mischievous to the core. She wore clothes carelessly and had a terrible habit of moving on to other people's clothes without washing the ones she'd worn.
Worse, she chose who she respected—and Mercy wasn't on that list.
I patted her head and followed my mother into the living room, Grace trailing behind me like a duckling.
"Grace, the day you get beaten for this behaviour, I'll just stand by and watch," I teased.
She jumped onto my back, giggling.
"Who will beat me? Aren't you here? Besides, I have hands."
"So you think I'll let your elder brother fight for you?" my mother asked as she sat on the only chair in the room.
The living room was nothing special—one chair, a wooden table older than I was, peeling paint, and no television.
I pried Grace off my back as she pretended to struggle.
"Degwo, brother," Mercy greeted as she entered. A brief smile crossed her face before vanishing the moment she saw Grace.
Mercy, like me, took after our father in complexion. Dark-skinned, lean, sharp-eyed—at least according to my mother. Her hair was dyed pink, ironic for someone training as a hairstylist who rarely grew her own hair out. If there was a single label one could use to describe her, it would be :Tomboyish. Only dressed feminine when absolutely necessary.
"Vrendo, why must you two disturb the peace of the neighbourhood this early?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"It's her fault," Mercy snapped. "She knows how to wear clothes but not how to take care of them. Worse, they're not even hers."
"I said I'll wash it la—" Grace began.
One look from our mother shut her up.
"Mercy, you're the eldest. Try to ignore this behaviour," my mother said tiredly. "It's not like we don't see what's happening."
I stayed quiet. I understood both sides.
"Grace, comport yourself," I said. She nodded, still pouting.
I went back to grab my toothbrush. On the way, I overheard Mercy telling our mother that there were no ingredients left for stew.
My chest sank.
We were broke. Truly broke.
A year ago, my mother's oil distribution shop had been robbed—cleaned out completely. Loans had been taken. Stock planned. Repayment expected.
Instead, everything vanished.
Then came housing. We moved from a barely decent two-bedroom apartment to this backward town and this… place.
I was a first-year university student. Not working—not because I was lazy, but because every job clashed with my class schedule. The pay barely helped anyway. Still, it saved me from constantly asking her for money.
Back in the living room, toothpaste already on my brush—
"Do you have any cash on you?" my mother asked quietly.
She couldn't meet my eyes.
It hurt. She felt like a failure.
But I felt worse.
"I don't have any on me," I said, forcing a smile. "Let me clean up. I'll go make a transfer to the woman out front."
I stepped outside toward the rundown structure we dared call a bathroom—separate from the house, shared by occupants of eight different buildings. If you didn't wake up early, you'd be late for whatever appointment you had that day.
And don't even get me started on using the toilet.
The shame hit me again.
"Well," I sighed, "beggars can't be choosers, huh?"