Hearing her quiver like that sounded like music to my ears. It had been four years.
Source
Four years after I looked into her eyes with tears, asking that she tell the truth, I wasn't going to do anything about it. I didn't even have the power to, I just wanted to hear her say she did it.
Now that she was quivering and sobbing before me, I didn't know what to say to her. She was slightly different now, not the blooming, young lady I knew in secondary school. She had added a lot around her middle and the thick hair she had then was cropped short. I would say she looked like a fine boy.
My older sister was rubbing her temples furiously.
“So why did you come back after all these years? We can sue you for plagiarism.”
She shook her head in the negative first, then nodded. I was tempted to giggle. Even if she was pretending, there was no way she wouldn't return with, at least, a headache.
“Treasure, what do you want to do?” My sister asked me.
“I want to hear the whole story and get it on record” I whispered back at her then winked. My sister smiled.
“Alright then,” she said, turning back to the sobbing girl, “Tell us what really happened. Your friend said she wants to hear it”.
“That afternoon….”
“Introduce yourself properly. I don't know you” I suddenly cut in. My sister turned her eyes to me, but I wasn't smiling this time. The girl whimpered.
“My name is Grace, Grace Romanus. I…I am a writer, but I don't write my own stories, I…I copy them…” I interrupted her because the last sentence was barely audible.
“I can't hear you.”
“I said I don't write my stories. I copy them”. Satisfied, I nodded so she could move on.
“Treasure was one of my close friends in secondary school because our houses were close to each other. She used to come and wait for me in the mornings so we could walk to school together. This closeness between us made me know that she was a good writer.”
My sister sighed wearily as her husband walked into the house.
“What's going on here?”
I greeted him as his wife asked him to have a seat and listen to what Grace was saying.
“Treasure used to bring her stories to me so I could read and tell her where she was wrong. I loved her stories and gave her ideas, but one day when I asked about her publishing plans, she said she didn't know”.
My sister's husband had to stop her there. He seemed not to be following the story.
“Wait, what is she really talking about?”
My sister attempted a brief summary, and my brother-in-law opened his mouth in shock as she finished up the story.
“Keep talking” My sister prompted her.
“I went to my father to talk to him about Treasure's publishing but he said he wanted to see what I had written first. An idea came to mind that instant. If I wrote a story and gave it to my dad, he could publish it for me, he already seemed very interested in doing that….”
“Was your father a publisher?” My brother in law asked, she shook her head.
“He had a lot of money….”
“Had?” She nodded. I knew her father but didn't know he was dead.
“The only way I could get a meaningful story to show my dad was to get Treasure's story. One of those days when she wasn't in class, I slipped her story out of her bag and took it home. She didn't notice for some time but just before we went home, she began searching frantically for it”
Something struck me and I rose furiously, barely listening to my sister who was asking me to allow her to talk.
“I asked you if you took that book that day, and you told me no! You're the only one I showed that book to. You're the only one who knew how important that book was and what my plans for it were! I knew it was you but I didn't have evidence” I yelled
“I'm sorry, Treasure. I gave my father the story and he published it but it seems I've been facing difficulties since then. I'm truly sorry”
My sister's husband sighed loudly and rose.
“There is no point madam. Go home and continue with your difficulties and leave my family alone”
She was pleading now, her sobbing increased as my brother-in-law took her by one arm and dropped her outside the gate.
I didn't know how I was feeling but it seemed a weight had left my chest. And I knew she in turn, would never be free.