5 days ago
21
"No! Absolutely not! He is not getting that room!" The dependable of my stepdaughter, Titi, past thirteen, wasn't conscionable a teenage tantrum; it was a shriek of betrayal that echoed disconnected the freshly painted, inactive bare walls. I gripped the doorframe, my knuckles white, watching the country unfold similar a slow-motion disaster.
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We hadn't unpacked the pots and pans yet, and the location rules were already being shredded. The country successful question was the astir oversized secondary bedroom, airy, with a beauteous presumption of the sprawling bougainvillaea successful the compound. It was perfect, I had reasoned, for my sixteen-year-old son, Kola.
He was preparing for his mock WAEC exams and needed a quiescent survey space. The program had been simple, fair, and practical: Kola got the bigger country for study, and Titi got the somewhat smaller but arsenic sunny country person to the shared bathroom.
I made a wide decision, arsenic I would walk weeks coordinating the logistics of this move. But Titi wasn't listening to logic oregon practicality. Her look was contorted successful a disguise of fury I hadn't seen since she was 8 and ever since I joined her father, Chike.
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"It's not fair! I saw it first! It's the champion room!" she screamed, stomping her foot, the dependable amplified connected the woody floor. Kola, bless his quiescent soul, stood there, a worn textbook clutched to his chest, looking similar a statue of undeserved innocence. He hadn't asked for the room; he'd conscionable accepted the assignment.
"Titi, shush. You request to calm down," I said, my dependable debased and dangerously steady, trying to incorporate the eruption. The movers were inactive outside, looking connected with that familiar, resigned pity Nigerians reserve for home chaos. "Kola needs the abstraction for his studies, and it's a determination that stands."
"No, it doesn't! Daddy!" She whipped her caput around, appealing straight to Chike, her father, who had conscionable walked successful carrying a container labelled 'Sensitive Documents.' His face, usually lukewarm and reassuring, was already a roadmap of anxiety.
Source: Getty Images
This was erstwhile I needed him to beryllium a partition of support, a agreed front, the instauration of our blended family. Instead, helium hesitated, shifted the box, ...
