Dedicated to osare15 ❤

•

I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears. --Psalms 6:6 (KJV)

November 26th, 1987

Peju died today. She was such a sweet girl and I'm so sad she's gone. I don't know what we will do about her baby. All I know is that I feel this connection with him.

Like he's mine.

•

Tayo sat unmoving for what seemed like an eternity but was really a few minutes in real-time. His left hand held a worn-out journal that had been sitting atop the document. He had opened it only to see his mum's handwriting. He skimmed through the first few pages and became more puzzled.

November 30th, 1987

We brought him home today. 'Deropo has been unable to take his eyes off him. Even Ariyike has been fussing over him, waiting on him hand and foot.

It even seemed like the more he tried to understand the words, the more everything got fuzzy. He stared at the piece of paper he had dropped on the coffee table. His brain knew what it was but his mind just couldn't understand what it stood for.

What did it mean? What did the 'name of the adopted' mean? And what was his name doing there? He probably had a namesake his parents were trying to adopt, right?

But he knew that wasn't true.

After a few minutes, he heard the door to the office creak open and he didn't bother to look up. He didn't know what to think neither did he have words to say.

"Adekiitan."

He could hear the hesitation in his mum's voice, that was if he could still call her that. He was well-trained and he was a believer in honouring your parents, so he did the right thing.

Still looking down, he replied, "Yes, mu–ma."

He heard shuffling feet and saw a pair of legs standing in front of him. He had always held his parents in high esteem. They had stood by him even when he had gone down to the lowest of lows. The least he could do was to listen to an explanation. If there was one.

No matter what, they deserved to be heard. Tayo summoned on all of the courage he had left, blinked rapidly to clear the thin layer of liquid in his eyes and then raised his head.

What he saw was enough to break his resolve to stay hard-hearted at them. His mum's eyes were red-rimmed. She had obviously been crying before she came into the room. She looked broken like she had encountered a loss unimaginable. Even now, tears were flowing unhindered as she tried hard to form sentences that just remained voiceless.

His dad was no different. To an unobservant eye, his hands were just clasped but he could see the shaking and hear the uncertainty in each sigh he exhaled.

His heart couldn't take this; seeing his confident and loving parents so broken, uncertain and lost. So, he pushed his feelings of hurt and betrayal aside and moved towards the only woman he had ever known as a mum. As he stood, he saw his mum jerk with her arms stretched out before she paused with her head bowed low, as if she realized she didn't have the right to hold him close any longer. He could see her tears making watermarks on the rug in the room.

Tayo closed the short distance between them, held her hands and tipped her chin up to look at him. The sobs became audible and hiccups rapid. Tayo held her in his arms as he allowed her to weep it all out. He was in pain but he couldn't allow the pain to win over him again. He heard the soft groan of a chair and felt his dad walk to them to join in on the hug.

There will be words, explanations that he needed. He wasn't even sure he could handle the truth. However, one thing he was sure of was he wasn't in this alone.

**********

Posi had seen the reaction on the king and queens' faces. She had seen the way Olori Ariyike ushered Tayo's mum into the enclosed dining area.

And she wasn't the only one who had noticed. The rest of the gang, including Prince Adekunle, had too as they all glanced at each other and wordlessly sat still while the rest of the siblings remained oblivious to what was happening.

At that moment, Olori Ariyike walked into the living room. She quietly told Adetutu to ensure the younger ones went to bed and heralded the other children to bed. Prince Adekunle stood to speak but she put her hand up to stop him.

"We will talk about this later," she said. She was talking to them all, so they nodded as she shuffled back to sit with her head bowed in the dining area.

Posi could see the worry on the Prince's face but she didn't think she had the right to say anything, thus she kept quiet. From the corner of her eye, she could see GP's feet shaking rhythmically and looked up to see his lips moving.

Yes. We should pray. This seems like a serious matter.

As voiceless as she could, she muttered words her mind couldn't comprehend of its own and was glad to see that the others were doing the same.

*********

The atmosphere was a mixture of many differing emotions — love, serenity, contained chaos, uncertainty. The tears had ceased, the sniffling reduced to every minute or so and the uncontrolled shaking was down to a jerk.

Tayo sat on the lone one-sitter in the room while his parents —no, king and queen, shared the loveseat. Nobody had said a word. They all seemed to be awaiting the arrival of an intermediary, but none was set to come.

Tayo cleared his throat to speak but all that came out was a whisper. He tried again.

"I--Can this document be explained? I found it here. The journal too."

Maybe he was trying too much to sound nonchalant to brace himself for whatever it was he was about to hear.

"K--kiitan. Adekiitan, w--we can explain this. We were going to tell you." It was his mum that spoke first. He looked from her to his dad. The man was tapping his left index finger to a beat only he could hear.

Tayo watched the king take in a deep breath and exhale before he held his wife's hand to squeeze it. The man he had always known to be his father opened his mouth and he knew, just knew that things were about to change.

******** (Oba Aderopo's POV)

Oba Aderopo knew it was time to drop the heavyweight of the truth they had been carrying. He had always thought it was his and his wives' weight to bear. It was why they had waited till now to tell the truth. Besides, Adekiitan had had one of the most eventful and challenging time growing up. He wasn't the black sheep of the family. He was just a lost sheep that needed to find his way.

And in helping him navigate his way into being the man they knew he could be, burdening him with the truth of his birth just seemed unfair and the timing was never right. Even now, the timing wasn't.

He held his wife's hand as she sniffled with her head bowed. She looked at him and in the most intimate non-verbal communication known to man, he let her know that they had this and he would do the talking. At least, till she felt okay enough to speak.

He looked at his son and smiled. "We want you to know that we love you, Adekiitan. We always will. Nothing can ever stop that. You are our son, no matter what."

He watched his son's gaze flicker. The boy had been through so much and they were about to drop a bomb on him.

He cleared his throat again as he began. "Your mother and I had just gotten engaged when we discovered she was pregnant. We were happy about it even though we weren't married yet. We weren't even believers then. We were just two young Nigerians in London trying to find our way. She wanted to have the wedding before she started showing so we had a small ceremony against our parents' wishes. We were glad to finally be a family."

Oba Aderopo paused and he felt his wife squeeze his hand. Encouraged, he continued, "We lost the baby and your mum blamed herself. We had a lot of what-ifs and should have dones. But none was going to bring our baby back. Then, news of my brother's death came and shortly after, I received that of my dad too. I was next-in-line so I had to come back to Nigeria. As soon as my coronation ceremony was over, pressure began to come on us to have a son but it just wasn't happening. The doctors advised against stress for your mum and placed her on various drugs and diets but it was still the same."

He saw his son shift in his chair. He was sure he was wondering how all these played into how he came to be.

"Anyways, the extended royal family and chiefs began the pressure me to marry another wife so that there could be progeny for the family."

Oba Aderopo thought he heard a snicker from his son but when he looked up at him, his face was as serene as it had been for the past hour.

"The pressure became so much it began to strain my relationship with your mum. We were constantly fighting and getting into arguments. But we had to accept it later. Then, your second mum was brought in. She was young and so smart-mouthed; there was friction when she came. And that friction increased many folds for a while after then till we had to talk like grown adults to make living together work. Adekunle was born and everything settled for a while as we all tried to live as friends."

Olori Aderonke exhaled a long breathe and continued. "I still wanted a child of my own but that prospect seemed bleak the more we tried. One day, I got a call from a friend, Olapeju. She was my school daughter when I was in Junior Secondary School; I was in JS3 when I left for London and we kept in touch for some years. When we came back to Nigeria, she was one of the few people I contacted. She was in her second year of University. Apparently, she had had some delays. When I finally met her, she was pregnant."

There was a heavy cloak of deafening silence in the room that a piece of thread falling on the ground would have made a sound.

"I wasn't happy with her. She shouldn't have gotten pregnant at that point but the deed had been done and she was all alone. She was an orphan and she hadn't told her aunt who was her guardian at the time. She called me because she wanted me to go with her to tell her aunt. After some persuasion, we went to her aunt's. Surprisingly, her aunt just broke down in tears and hugged her. She accepted the baby and we began to make plans for the baby's arrival. I tried to find out the name of the guy responsible but she was adamant saying he wasn't worth it."

With a shaky breath, she continued, "The day the baby was to be born came. He was delivered with no hitches and she named him. However, some days later, she developed an infection that wasn't detected till it was too late and before we knew it, she was gone."

"With the blessing of her aunt, your father and I decided to adopt the baby." She paused as she looked up at him. "Peju named the baby Olatayo. The baby was y--you."

Oba Aderopo had stayed quiet beside his wife, silently offering support with the timed hand and shoulder squeezes. Olori Aderonke was doing everything not to dissolve into another round of tears, but it wasn't easy, especially since her son just sat there, motionless. She understood that this was too much information for him and he would need time to adjust. But he had to know that she, they had never once considered him not their son.

********

The Peju in the journal.

Tayo felt like his heart stopped for a bit but he knew that couldn't have happened.

His fears had been confirmed.

I am adopted? Do I still have a place here?

"So, are Tutu and Gbenro adopted too?" Tayo asked when he finally spoke up. It was the only thing that had broken through his mind to ask. If he was handling the truth this way, he wasn't sure how his siblings would react if they were also adopted.

His parents stared at him for a moment before a smile shone on his mum's face. "When we brought you home, it was like your arrival was all we needed to have a peaceful, strain-free atmosphere. The fights stopped totally and I felt so blessed to have you. Even Olori Ariyike couldn't resist your smiles. She carried you more than I did. In fact, when you cried from your crib, she oftentimes got to you before I did. We named you Adekiitan; the crown doesn't end. And the crown really didn't end. It was a miracle that I conceived twice after we brought you home and delivered them both safely. You were our miracle baby," she said.

"Okay," he said in a whoosh of exhaled breathe. "I am glad to have you as my parents. But I'll need some time to process this."

He stood from his chair and saw how his parents stood too. He moved towards them and hugged them again. "Goodnight, mum, dad. You should get some sleep."

Tayo strode out of the room without looking back. At the moment, he felt and understood what Lot's wife must have gone through.

It wasn't like he had been told not to look back but he felt if he did, it would feel final; like it would be the last time he saw them and he didn't want that. But he also wanted to look back to give them some form of assurance but he couldn't.

"What do you think would happen now?" Olori Aderonke asked her husband.

"I don't know. All I know is that everything will work out for all our good." He patted her on the back. "Let's go to bed. We have had a long weekend. An emotional one, at that."

She nodded and allowed herself to be ushered out of the room. They had done what they could. It was left in Kiitan's hands how this would play out.

They wanted their son but they would give him the time and space to figure things out.