Before you got to our street, there was a woman who sold food. We called her mama Ose. Mama Ose was a widow who had lost her husband years before we knew her. She was plumpy and dark but very kind and she was the only one who had always looked past Akunna and told me that Ose would marry me. I laughed coyly whenever she said that because I didn't know what one responded when such things were said but I liked it because it made me feel wanted and beautiful and that someone can actually see I and my sister and still choose me without faltering.
Mama Ose was always busy with customers because her food was delicious and left this lasting taste in your mouth of you having had real food. I have heard before that she could be into something devilish like rituals but I didn't believe such superstitions, I felt those were formed and spread by people who were jealous of her success.
Mama Ose was fond of I and Akunna and it was at hers we stayed when we were younger and our parents came back home really late into the night. It was at hers we ate lunch and many times she wouldn't want to collect the money Father would be offering her for her food and those other few times she did, she made sure she reduced the price and gave Father more change.
Mama Ose was like the second Mother we had, it was at hers we played with Ose. Ose who was a dark boy who always had his hair completely shaved and his head would look like one of those translucent mirror which made me laugh. Whenever I saw him with the hair cut I made mockery of him but if he was embarrassed, he didn't show it instead he laughed along and I kept on taunting him.
"Ama, leave Ose's hair alone. Don't you know boys need to have freedom to think?" Mama Ose used to say.
"And if they have hair on their head, thinking would be strenuous or a near impossibility?" I would ask and Akunna would laugh.
"You are a girl, you wouldn't understand boys." She said.
"But you are also a girl only a bigger girl." I was thirteen or so at that moment.
"I am a woman, we women understand the anatomy of men and their psychology." She replied.
"Ose won't you tell your mother to stop barbing your hair in such way?" Akunna asked. "I mean, I can literally see the ceiling just looking at your head." I burst out laughing, she did too and Ose joined.
"You people should leave my boy alone, his hair makes him very handsome and original." I scoffed same as Akunna.
"Yes, but more like an original mirror." We all laughed including Mama Ose and she called Akunna a naughty girl for such savagery.
"But Ama, you are not doing well by watching Akunna shame your husband like that; that means you can't stand by your husband." I smiled sheepishly and scratched my cheek even though it wasn't itching me. "Anyway, I like the unity between you girls. That is how family should be, always supporting each other. It makes me remember when I was younger. My brothers would fight anyone who beats me even though I was wrong, they don't care, all they know is that once they see me crying, the source of my tears is in trouble."
She said and I looked at Akunna trying to communicate through my eye and heart that we remained this way forever even though we might get separated by life in the future, I hoped she would always be someone I could call on when the need arose. Akunna looked back at me as if she had gotten the message and she smiled. "That is the responsibility we elders have to bear."
That was how things were. Those days we didn't need to talk to understand what the other was saying, our eyes were more than enough and when I looked at her or she looked at me, we immediately understood what the other was trying to communicate. It was like some sort of telepathy or some psychic power which we possessed. But now I know it was the quiet and peace that reigned in our home; the peace that left room for communications that weren't voiced to be heard. The noise, shouting and unrest had left us all deaf to the other. It had turned us into unrecognizable group of people just sharing the same house but the home was long gone and it broke my heart to realize that.
When we weren't sitting still, laughing and taunting the other, we helped Mama Ose and Ose to serve the customers and for sure many praised Akunna's beauty and talk about how they would like to know her, some said they came because of her. Mama Ose would only scoff and continue with what she did. They asked for Akunna's number but Mama Ose always responded to that and told them she had no phone and they should let her be because she was only a child. But men would forever remain men and would always go after what attracted their eyes. Some would counter Mama Ose and tell her that Akunna wasn't a child, after all if she was in the North, she would be happily married with kids. "Thank God you said 'in the north' which means it only happens there" Mama Ose would say.
"But she is a big girl, look at the way her breast stands firm, I can't begin to imagine how suckling it would be." One drunk man had said and Mama Ose had sent him out of her shop. "You should be ashamed of yourself, you have a wife at home and you are talking about someone's child in such manner."
If Akunna was disturbed by their aphrodisiac complements, she didn't show it and her usual indifferent countenance didn't help matters. You could be insulting her and pouring hot oil on her and she would just stare at you. That look that I knew concealed more than locks and keys could conceal. Those eyes and looks I knew could mask a murderous glare.