Mm

 The woman drew back, surprised by the child's rage. The child stood up speechless momentarily as the full meaning of all the woman had been saying dawned on her. Those vein traits in her mother were the same in her elder sister.

"You would not be the first to be abandoned by a mother. She was also neglected by her own mother," the woman continued. "You've been raving since you arrived yesterday, I'm afraid it has to stop. I can't take it any longer! What did you expect me to do? Cuddle you for taking your damn father to your mother's White husband' house.? I can't believe you wanted to ruin her happiness!"

That was not true! In what language hasn't she tried to tell this woman who she knew not before this past two days. What does this woman thought her father was, by the way? And how dare she reduced her to dirt. Who the heck was her younger sister that she framed this sort of degrading lies around her and her father?

 Cecil stared intently down into the woman's eyes. "You mean to say that it doesn't matter that your sister abandoned a three month old baby that is almost thirty years of age now, and have to be going about saying diminishing things about us?"

"Maybe," woman snapped. "Of course not. I -" she broke off knowing she had really messed up.

Cecil's mouth fell opened,  and her steely honey gaze melted into the ugly, bleached, woman's face. They stood still for several minutes, actions dancing round in their heads.

Something unexpected passed between them, something that caused everything else to slip away in a gloom several minutes. One could call it unresolvable hatred. Cecil wanted desperately to reach out and strangled the woman. And yet she didn't dare. It frightened her as much as it attracted her...

Cecil saw her life as an unplanned and disorganized one, but others rarely saw it that way. All they saw was a spoiled , comfortable, brat who had all the love in the world and a perfect life. But somehow it is their illusion that has somewhat given her life its purpose and focus. It was only her career that she could count on, and it had never let her down. Even though it had left her alone a good deal of time, she had never let anything interfere with it. And never will. With all the past tragic memories of a mother she had only briefly set her eyes on, on a few occasion; now here, she stood locked in steaming gaze with the elder sister.

Everything didn't quite connect. Was this the woman who had told the whole of the mother's family, that she had been the one avoiding her, that if only she could just pay her a visit, she would give her the world?  Cecil frowned trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together just then, the woman dropped yet another bombshell.

"Please, stop saying Jesus Christ of Nazareth in my house. This is not His dwelling." 

This was the woman that claimed over the weekend that she was at the Redeem Camp Ground for the Holy Ghost Service. 

Shattered, Cecil moved from the spot she was standing, walked some pace, then sat down shaking. After several minutes, she picked up her big handbag and started shoving her things inside. The woman really had burned her up.

Mm. The sound she made was an expression of deep grief, regret, unanswered questions in her injured heart. For a very long time some of her mother’s siblings  had been troubling her to go onto this wicked woman who was in possession of her mother’s property. But was that how it all began? No. The grandmother happened to have the six of them for different five husbands. Her own  mother and the elder sister had a very wealthy father, who did not send any of his girl child to school no matter how bright or brilliant the child was. Today, is not the day of  story narration.

With heart heavy as rock, Cecil got on a public bus back home. Despite the bustling around her, her tears poured unheeded. As she made her way back home, she tried to collect her thoughts together, gathered her wits, and tried to ask herself why she had to be the one to come through such … she couldn’t find the right word. 

"Why did her father choose such a woman, from such a family to be her mother? She questioned quietly.

She remained seated in a daze for the remainder of her journey back home.

Now in her home, with the door shut behind her, shoes flying about with the handbag, slumped in the bed, she wept bitterly until there was no water yielding to her grief.

If only we really could choose our own family, Cecil would start her life afresh with a new birth...