Agnes had always been prone to having premonitions.
The first time it happened, she was only eight years old. She had a strong feeling that something terrible would happen if her father went on a particular trip. She begged him not to go, cried and even held tightly to his leg, but he shoved her aside and left anyway. He never returned.
His corpse was brought back later that day. There had been an accident. Everyone else involved had survived with only minor bruises, but Agnes’s father had died on the spot.
The next time it happened was with her brother, Chima. He woke up one morning complaining of a headache. He never liked going to school and was always coming up with excuses to stay home, so their mother did not take his complaint seriously. But there was something different about that particular morning. Agnes could not explain it, but she felt deeply uncomfortable.
She begged her mother to let Chima stay at home. Her mother rebuked her and insisted that Chima was only pretending to be sick because he did not want to go to school.
Agnes cried and pleaded with her. Even when Chima threw up his breakfast, their mother still believed he was only pretending and pushed him out of the house.
Agnes and Chima started their journey to school together, but she stopped at a store to buy a pen. That was when she saw it.
A car had lost its brakes and crashed into Chima. He was flung into the air and landed heavily on his head, cracking his skull. He died on the spot.
Their mother fainted when she heard the news. But when she recovered, her grief turned into anger and that anger was directed at Agnes. She blamed her for what had happened. She said that if Agnes had not opened her big mouth to talk rubbish, her husband and son would still be alive.
It was the beginning of a painful change in their relationship. Her mother began to detest her. She called her possessed and accused her of being an ogbanje. She made Agnes’s life miserable, and the young girl could not understand why.
The blame was unfair. Agnes was just as heartbroken by those deaths. She had not caused them. She had only tried to warn the people she loved.
Then there was T-boy, their neighbour’s son. Unlike his other siblings, T-boy was kind, respectful and helpful. He would run errands for anyone without frowning or grumbling. He was loved by almost everyone in the neighbourhood.
One day, his mother sent him to get fufu from the junction, which was only a stone’s throw away. T-boy would normally trek there, but on that particular day, he decided to use his bicycle.
The bicycle had been a gift from
De Callistus, who had recently gotten married and moved out of their compound.
Everyone heard Agnes begging T-boy not to take the bicycle but they all shushed her and told him to hurry up before the soup got cold. Since riding the bicycle would be faster, they encouraged him to go with it.
Unfortunately, nobody remembered the soup or the fufu when the news came that T-boy had been knocked down by a hit-and-run driver.
He landed on his chest and became unconscious. T-boy never made it to the hospital. He died on the way.
That incident marked the beginning of the end of Agnes’s relationship with her mother. The only thing her mother did not do was disown her.
She still provided everything Agnes needed, but they barely spoke to each other. Her mother avoided her like a plague. Their relationship became so stained that they could go for months without speaking, except when Agnes greeted her.
If her mother had anything to tell her, which was rare, she communicated through Agnes’s siblings.
Over time, Agnes grew up and learned to mind her business. She stayed in school more and only returned home when it was absolutely unavoidable.
There were two incidents at the university when people lost their lives after ignoring warnings she had given them. Agnes never told anyone about either incident. She kept everything to herself. She was tired of being blamed for things she could not control.
When she met Dike and he began talking about marriage, Agnes accepted, not because she was ready for marriage, but because she saw it as a means of escaping from home.
Life had not turned out the way she had imagined. Her plan had always been to get a good job and leave home, but that plan did not work out.
Dike, however, turned out to be a really good man. He was an answer to her prayers. He adored his wife and went out of his way to make her happy. He was generous, thoughtful, patient and deeply involved in their home.
He did not believe household responsibilities belonged to women alone. He went shopping, cooked, cleaned and took an active role in raising their children. He was affectionate, dependable and the kind of husband who noticed when something was wrong without waiting to be told.
He was also a present father. He deliberately planned his annual leave around the children’s holidays so he could spend more time with them. He enjoyed being around his family and never treated his role as a husband and father as a burden.
Apologies to the Igbo men, but Dike was not your average Igbo man. He spoiled Agnes silly, and for the first time in her life, she felt safe with someone.
Dike had planned to attend his cousin’s wedding, and for more than a week, Agnes had pleaded with him not to go.
They went back and forth over the matter until he finally agreed not to attend.
The children were on holiday, and Dike was also on leave. That morning, he suddenly came up with an idea.
He decided that the children would only eat healthy meals going forward and insisted that they must have unripe plantain porridge for lunch. He knew the children did not like it, but he insisted.
There was ripe plantain in the house. There were also different soups, but Dike insisted that lunch had to be unripe plantain porridge. That meant Agnes had to go to the market, even though she did not want to.
She left the house and returned about thirty minutes later. Her heart sank when she discovered that Dike had hurriedly packed his travel bag and embarked on the journey he had promised not to make.
He had ignored her warning and travelled. Agnes broke down in tears.
She already knew what the outcome of that journey would be.
She prayed that this time would be different. She desperately wanted to be wrong. But that familiar feeling was back, stronger than ever. Something bad was going to happen.
She began to feel jittery, uncomfortable and scared. She kept looking at her phone, expecting that dreaded phone call. Every time the phone rang, she was startled. Her heart pounded violently in her chest. Three hours had passed. It felt like the longest three hours of her life.
Then her phone rang again.
It was an unknown number.
Agnes stared at the screen.
She was too scared to answer.