This is my seventh day in the shower, attempting to wash away the sorrows of losing my lover.
The hot water streams down, but it can’t cleanse the memories. It wasn’t always like this. I remember the first time I felt such profound loss. I had to grieve for my mother when I was just fifteen. I’m unsure if I remember how I managed to endure it, or if my memories have twisted themselves into something bearable over time.
But it was a period marked by hardship, sadness, and a profound sense of loss—so intense that I believed I couldn’t survive without her. Yet, I reached twenty-five seemingly unscathed. Or so I thought.
So, I knew the death of my lover would trigger a profound reaction in me, especially since I didn’t see it coming. Everyone, I suppose, is destined to experience such devastation, at least, once in a lifetime. But, for me, it was more complicated; working at Kyauta Orphanage Home brought its own set of rules and boundaries: it’s against the rules for caregivers to fall in love with orphans under their care, and for a good reason. The power imbalance, for instance, makes it nearly impossible for orphans to freely consent to a romantic relationship thereby creating a fertile ground for potential exploitation.
I don’t know what kind of message you’re supposed to decipher from my inability to justify my actions. Call it what you will, but I was in love. And my reasons were pure.
Back then, when I resumed work at Kyauta Orphanage Home, falling in love was the last thing on my mind; my days were filled with diligent routines: checking on a few special orphans, helping them with meals, and simply sitting with them as they played.
Nights, however, were different. I would go out and buy a bottle of cough syrup, a habit I had picked up during my university days. I never smoked or drank alcohol; the smell of both repelled me. Instead, I abused the dosage of the cough medicine. Most nights, I downed a full bottle, letting it lull me into drowsiness. By morning, I’d wake up feeling as fresh as a daisy.
Naturally, a bond existed between me, a caregiver, and Jiddah, an orphan. This bond felt like the unseen roots of an ancient tree. It was not merely the comfort I could trace in her eyes, nor the warmth she said she felt when I was beside her. Rather, it was a sanctuary where both our souls drifted free—a kind of sanctuary likened to a “man and his bed’s”: An intimate space where vulnerabilities are laid bare and the essence of one’s being is unburdened for a few hours each night.
Eventually, when the man falls sick, the bed takes on a dual role; it becomes both a sanctuary and a prison–a place where the man is simultaneously cared for and constrained. The rhythms of his life slow, marked by the rise and fall of his fever, the restless shifting of his body, and the quiet moments of fitful sleep.
Such was what I felt when I fell in love with Jiddah, a deaf orphan I had cared for for over two years.
Our bond began as something I couldn’t explain. At that time, it sounded wrong in my head when I tried to articulate it. Perhaps I never felt the need to articulate it until now…
I remember her laughter: defined by her shoulders moving up and down, her smiles, her lips slightly parted, her eyes slightly squinted; and the way she would touch her chin with two fingers to indicate “Thank you.” Those moments made everything else fade away…
And when she taught braille to younger blind kids, her fingers would trace the dots with rhythmic precision while her eyes were shut. In those moments, as she immersed herself in the world of braille, everything else in my mind seemed to fade. To truly appreciate the world of braille, one must witness it firsthand, and Jiddah was a master at it.
But alongside those moments are memories of her that I tried to forget. One she passed to me in the most inconspicuous way: the secret of her violation by the house manager and her dream of leaving the orphanage someday to become a tailor.
Perhaps, I tried to forget these things because, deep down, I knew they were actions I should have taken. I had my own problems, like my drug addiction, which was getting out of hand. I couldn’t go a night without drowning myself in several bottles of cough medicine. My speech slowed whenever a sound left my mouth. Each night blurred into the next, the haze of the medication masking my pain.
But even in that fog, I knew I lacked the courage to take the appropriate steps to help her. I was trapped in my own cycle of self-destruction, unable to break free.
And then came the day that changed everything.
I was standing in the shower, letting the water wash over me, when the news of her death hit me like a cold slap. The shock froze me in place, the water pounding down but unable to wash away the sudden, overwhelming grief.
“I know who did this to her, but I can’t come forth to say,” I murmured in the shower, repeating the words like a broken record, a thousand times more than my mind could count.
Two days after she died, I sought out the house manager—the very man accused of betraying the trust of the vulnerable girls in our care. I told him about my need to leave the premises permanently. His face was somewhat expressionless, but I sensed an undercurrent of guilt. It wasn’t as pronounced as mine, but it was there, etched in the lines on his forehead.
It took an immense effort to restrain myself from striking the man before me. Although what I really needed was to escape, to be anywhere but Kyauta Orphanage. Yet, strangely, I found myself unable to gather my belongings and leave. So, I resolved to confront him instead. Perhaps in the depths of his eyes, I would find a hatred profound enough—for him and for myself—that I would finally report him.
“Don’t sweat it,” he said with a shrug. “These things happen. We do our best for the kids, but some things are just out of our hands.”
His words reminded me of what she had narrated he did to her on her 16th birthday. How he pressed his torso against her slender figure, consuming whatever space she occupied, while his hand stole the air from her throat and mouth.
I stared at him, feeling a surge of anger. “Maybe I should just quit. Disappear. I can’t stay here with all these memories.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Take some time off then. A few weeks, maybe.”
“But…” I felt my resolve waver.
He cut me shut . “No buts. You’re under my wing; nothing’s going to touch you. Ka ji.”
Then, I tried to block the mental image of the last time I saw her: her dark silhouette outlined against the stillness of her room, her slender frame lying motionless on the bed, surrounded by an aura of melancholy. Her bed was pushed against the far wall, its disheveled sheets tangled as if in a struggle. A lone pillow, stained with tear streaks, lay abandoned on the floor beside her.
I tried to avoid imagining the perpetrator in the act. He was my reflection, aged and thickened, his features honed by the years. Clutching a bottle of pills that I eventually retrieved, I struggled to banish the vision of her frail hands. Some of the pills had fallen out of their container and were now scattered aimlessly across the room. On the floor laid the sentence she had written, a last farewell to a man she loved who had failed her: “Drowning myself.”
Right now, in my shower, I am haunted by a truth I cannot utter. My hands, bound by invisible threads, mirror the act of swallowing the same pills she once did, seeking silence in the way she found it. Water cascades down my chest, mingling with my labored breaths as memories and emotions converge, battering me with their relentless force. I stand there, helpless, beneath the crushing weight of it all.
And there it was—the hands that had stripped Jiddah’s innocence and left her shattered, now trying to rejuvenate me.
“Don’t do this, Yassir. Don’t do this. Someone, call a doctor!” His voice resonates through the corridors of my memory, reaching back to the earliest moments of my life. It’s a voice I have come to despise. It is my father’s.
Haliru Ali Musa is an engineer whose passion for storytelling knows no bounds. Hailing from Katsina, Nigeria, he now calls the bustling city of Lagos his home.
