I was still contemplating how else to pursue the subject further when we heard a knock on the door. It was Aunty Florence, my mother’s younger sister who lived in Lagos.
“Ah! Florence, what are you doing here in the village? I thought I won’t see you again until Christmas,” mother said after they had exchanged pleasantries.
“I didn’t know I will be travelling down here, I came to buy some goods that I want to sell in the office in Lagos,” she returned. “And why is Rosemary looking sad and pale like this?” she turned to me. I looked away from her.
“Even you, Aunty, you’re not looking bright, is everything okay?” she asked mother. But mother said nothing. She seemed like one battling to keep her emotions in check. Then, suddenly, the tears began to run down her face.
“Ah, Aunty, why are you crying now? Tell me, did somebody die? What is it?” Aunty Florence became terrified.
“Its Rosemary o…” she said s she wiped tears off her face.
“Rosemary?” Aunty Florence turned to look at me. “What is wrong with her?”
My mother let out a heavy sigh. “She is pregnant!’
Aunty Florence was stunned. She turned to me, her jaw hung open, absolute shock written on her face.
“Rosemary, is that true? You, pregnant? I can’t believe it.” she was in total disbelief of what she heard.
“I was..I was…I was raped, Aunty,” I stuttered as I forced the words out of my mouth.
“Raped? By whom?” she asked me before turning to my mum, searching for a quick response to the question she asked.
“By a boy she met in church,” mother answered, wiping tears from her eyes.
“A boy she met in church? So, he raped her inside the church premises or what?” she inquired further. The more she probed, the more my body cringed at the shocked manner she would react when she gets answers to the questions she’s asking.
“She followed him home,” mother responded quietly, looking away from me.
“What? You followed a boy you met in church home? Is that true, Rosemary?” Aunty Florence was shivering with anger.
“No, Aunty, I didn’t follow him, it was weeks after I met hijm in church that he asked me to come to his place…..”
“And you went?” she didn’t even let me finish. “Rosemary, you went to see a boy in his house and then he raped you?” she thundered, her cold gaze settling firmly on me.
“How old are you that you have now started going to visit boys at home?”
“She’s only seventeen o,” mother answered.
“Okay, so when you went to visit him and he raped you, who did you tell? Why didn’t you shout so people could hear you and come to save you?” her probing questions continued. And I continued to shudder at the way she would react at the answers she would get.
“I didn’t…I didn’t tell anyone,” I responded.
“So you waited till you got pregnant?” she’d fired at me. “Okay, so what were you looking at when he was raping you, couldn’t you shout for help? How are we even sure he actually raped you?”
“He drugged me…he put some some substance inside the drink he gave me and I slept off, thats how he was able to rape me, Aunty…” I explained to her, my voice laden with emotions as I spoke.
“My God! What kind of boy is that one! That’s criminal” she exclaimed in utter shock. “And where this boy that raped you and got you pregnant? Have his parents come here to see you, sister?”
Mother gave a rueful smile. She shook her head dejectedly. “Nobody has been here to see us and I don’t think we will see anybody.”
“Ah! Why? Why haven’t his people come?” Aunty asked. This was the final one that would shock her to the marrow.
“The boy ran away to Lagos. And the uncle he was living with too has moved out of the house and disappeared,” mother told her sister.
“Yeeh! Rosemary, what is this? What have you gotten yourself into? You that everyone calls a good girl with a bright future, why did you do this to your parents?” She turned to mother. “Sister, dress up and slet her take us to the house where she was raped, somebody must know where the boy and his uncle are.”
It was my turn to speak now. “Aunty, the boy has gone back to Lagos, same with his uncle!” The woman nearly fainted. My story is too hard to believe!
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