THE BITTER DRINK 2

Beatrice’s patience had finally run out. Her daughter had refused to say anything to her, not even a single angry word or insult in almost two weeks.  Ekene on the other hand had been hatching a plan of her own and still refused to break the news of the doctors’ diagnosis to her mother. The doctors had still not confirmed if the tumour in Ekene’s brain was cancerous or not as she had refused to go back to the hospital. “What you don’t know can’t kill you” she concluded on the night after the CT scan results came back. “I’ll just organize my life and live like I’m about to die. I won’t spend the little time I have hanging on to flimsy hope. “

Ekene decided that she had more important things to focus on and set out to start achieving them immediately. She had already begun negotiations with a few property agents. The first agenda on her bucket list was to finally get a place of her own and move out of her mother’s house once and for all. While Ekene went about pursuing her business, Beatrice stayed enveloped by her own worries. She was considering confronting her daughter about what was going on with her that kept her more distant. “She’s still my daughter no matter what and it’s better we fight all the time than for her to totally ignore me and not say a word to me”.  Beatrice is a strong resilient woman who never gave up hope that her daughter would love her. There would be no backing down for her as long as she is alive.

Two weeks had passed and Ekene’s house hunt still proved fruitless. She had been unsuccessful at finding an apartment that met up with what she had in mind as they always came with on comma or the other. Ekene had slowly begun to grow impatient, although she kept her desperation in check. After work and a short house tour, Ekene headed home. A wicked headache was bashing her head again but she was getting used to the pain and had learnt to ignore it. Beatrice was at home by the time Ekene got home and opened the door for her as soon as the bell rang. She stepped aside to give Ekene room to walk in then closed the door after her. Ekene went straight into her room without breathing the fainted word to Beatrice but Beatrice didn’t let it worry her too much. She glanced at the house clock as she sat back on the sofa. She wasn’t going to bombard Ekene right after she came back, she would give her some time to settle down before going in to talk with her.

30 minutes later, Beatrice decided it was ok for her to go check up on her daughter. She walked in to find Ekene’s door open while Ekene herself lay in bed whining in pain, saying “Oh God, my head... Oh God, my head... Oh God my head” repeatedly. Beatrice ran into the room and held Ekene in her hand asking her what was wrong. The pain was so excruciating that Ekene didn’t have the time to notice that she was in the embrace of her arc enemy. Shortly after Beatrice held Ekene in her hand, Ekene passed out. Thrown into panic, Beatrice dumped Ekene on the bed and ran out of the room...

...TO BE CONTINUED...