Borrowed without Asking, Episode 1

 

By Adebanke Abel

It was a Saturday morning. I was wearing my father's old t-shirt, the one I used to sleep in anytime my mum allowed me into their room when she was in a good mood. The smell of Close-Up toothpaste was thick in the air. Generator was humming outside, someone was already pounding yam next door, and NEPA, as usual, had taken light before 6am. I was seated on the edge of the bed, pretending to press my Barbie phone, but I was listening. They were arguing again. My parents. The same fight with different words.

“So you mean you cannot leave just ₦5,000 for food? Are we supposed to start begging neighbors?”

“I said I’m expecting money next week. You think I’m hiding money from you?”

“Is it not money you’re saving for that your useless business that hasn’t even started? We need to eat now!”

The next sound was the bathroom door slamming. My dad had gone in to bathe. The air was quiet again… but heavy. That was when she called me.

“Titi… come here.”

She didn’t look at me as she spoke. Her eyes were on the drawer where my dad dropped his wallet every morning before bathing.

“Go and bring that wallet for me. Don’t say a word.”

I froze. My tiny heart started beating fast.

“Mummy…?”

“Did you not hear me? Go and bring it. Now.”

I stood, walked slowly, like someone walking into a lion’s den with a bell on her neck. I opened the drawer. The brown leather wallet sat there. I picked it like it was hot coal. Gave it to her. She opened it. She knew the compartment. She took out a bundle of ₦500 notes. “He will not kill me in this house,” she hissed. Then she looked at me.

“Don’t ever tell anyone. Go and keep it back quickly. Arrange it exactly how it was.” 

That was the first time. That’s when something inside me cracked. I was just a child… but I knew what I did wasn’t right. Still, the way my mum looked at me that day—like I had helped her survive something—made me feel oddly useful. Like a soldier in her war. From then, it became normal. Sometimes, she would say,

“Titi, just check inside his pocket if he dropped any cash… we need to buy garri.”

Other times, she would give me the exact amount to take and where to put the wallet back. And the thing is, she wasn’t a thief.

She was just a tired woman trying to feed her children in a home where love had packed up but everyone was still pretending like they were one big happy family.

But me…? I became the one who carried the habit. The one who could no longer separate need from urge, or survival from shame. Years later, I became everything they prayed I would be—educated, smart, employed, ‘doing well’—but behind all of that, I was still that little girl standing by a drawer, heart racing, wondering if this is what love and loyalty looks like. Until last week… I stole from my boyfriend. And this time, he found out.

There was CCTV footage. And he looked at me, not with hate, but with heartbreak. He said, “You need help. You’re not a thief. But something is broken inside you.”

And I cried. For the first time in years, I cried like a baby because I knew he was right. Something is broken. And I don’t know how to fix it but I want to.

Watch out for episode 2