All pictures generated using Gemini
“Sit,” Adaobi commanded her twin boys, pointing at the wooden bench.
Her eyes glanced quickly to the wet earth outside. The rain had just stopped, though the roof still dripped with water
Emeka obeyed at once, book in hand. He was twenty-three, tall, quiet, and steady like his late father. The kind of boy people called a gentleman. He was a teacher in the community school downtown. He always wore neat ironed shirts, even if they were old.
Ebuka, on the other hand, dragged his feet sluggishly and leaned on the wall. An exact replica of Emeka. A twenty-three-year-old, restless, all muscle, and red and sharp eyes, like he had fire in his eyes. His shirts were always half-tucked, his breath loud. He had his father’s smile, but Adaobi often feared he had inherited his late husband’s reckless temperament.
“Ebuka, I said sit on the bench!” Adaobi yelled.
Ebuka sighed, rolling his eyes, but sat with a heavy thud. No matter what he never disobeyed his mother.
There was silence and for a while, the only sound that could be heard was the sound of water dripping from the roof.
Adaobi took a deep breath. She clasped her hands and spoke.
“I raised you both with the same love. I cooked for you every day of your lives, prayed for you every morning, and disciplined you when I needed to. Yet, it's sad that one is giving me joy, and the other.. I fear. Tell me, where did I fail?”
“Mama, you didn’t fail,” Ebuka said quickly. His voice was low but comforting.
"But you've chosen to put tears on my face every time. If it isn't calls of you fighting on the street then it's something else.
Emeka quickly cuts in. “It's sad that Ebuka has made his choices. Spends nights with those boys on the street other than doing something meaningful for his life ”
Ebuka scoffed. “At least I live a real life. And not you, who hide behind books. Do you think the world bows to your grammar? This is real life, not some fictional nonsense.”
“It’s better than rotting in a cell,” Emeka shot back.
“Say it again!” Ebuka’s fists tightened, and he stood up and walked towards Emeka.
“Enough!” Adaobi struck the stool with her palms, chest heaving. "And you sit!"
A soft wind blew from outside rattling the kerosene lamp, its flame dancing on the cracked wall.
She couldn't believe it. After she buried her late husband, she struggled as a widow should with her boys for comfort. She did her best for them and just now she's seeing them grow into strangers to each other. Honestly, it hurt her more than poverty did.
To Ebuka she yelled. "This… this attitude is exactly what I'm talking about."
"I'm sorry, Mama," her boys chorused.
“Do you know what people call me in the market?" She said in a low, tired voice. "They say, ‘Adaobi has one son for pride and one for shame.’ Do you want me to carry that name until I die?” She looked at both of them.
There was silence again.
Ebuka blinked, his bravado slipping. “Mama, do they really say that?”
Adaobi nodded. “And every word burns.” She stretched out her hands tapping her laps. "Come, come sit"
Emeka rose immediately but Ebuka was sluggish.
They both sat on her lap, and she held them like her babies, they were. “I remember how I carried you both for nine months. Maybe now you're cat and dog, fire and water, but you both came from the same womb. My womb. I trained you both the same way. I don't want you to waste your lives. I'm not ready to bury one child while the other lives.”
Emeka looked at his brother. His voice was gentler now. “Mama is right. I don’t hate you, Ebuka. I just hate watching you waste yourself.”
Ebuka’s jaw tightened. “I try to be better. Maybe like you or better. I know that every time I walk past people, they gossip. Sometimes it feels like that’s all they see in me.".
“Then prove them wrong,” she whispered. Her eyes softened to hear all that.
Ebuka looked from Adaobi to Emeka's gaze. For a moment, there was calmness in his eyes “I’ll try. For you, Mama.”
Adaobi smiled, tears spilling through her eyes as the flame from the lamp caught her tears, making it glow. “That... that will make me happy.”
Emeka reached and wiped her tears.
Adaobi sniffed, then gave a small laugh. “See na, a grown woman like me begging two grown men as if you are toddlers fighting over food to live by themselves and change.”
Emeka chuckled, shaking his head. He playfully shoved his brother who cracked a smile, awkward but real.
Maybe it wasn't peaceful yet. But it was the beginning of something peaceful.