A Song for Mama

The piano had not been opened in seven years. Dust softened its black surface, and one key remained chipped from the night Bisola threw a glass at the wall and left home. On the morning of their mother’s funeral, her sister Teni found Bisola sitting before it with both hands in her lap.

They had once sung together. Their mother wrote songs, Teni played piano and Bisola possessed the voice people remembered. Then a record producer offered Bisola a contract that excluded Teni. Their mother advised her to refuse. Bisola signed, the family split, and the promised career collapsed within a year.

Teni entered carrying funeral programmes. “You missed the hospital,” she said. Bisola answered that she had not known how sick Mama was. “You would have known if you called.” The sentence landed exactly where Teni intended.

Relatives filled the compound by noon. Women stirred pots under a canopy while men arranged chairs. Everyone welcomed Bisola with cautious kindness. She heard whispers about the failed singer returning when there was nothing left to inherit.

After the burial, the lawyer gave the sisters a small wooden box. Inside lay a cassette tape and a sheet of music titled A Song for My Daughters. The final page ended halfway through a line.

They found an old player in the store room. Their mother’s voice emerged beneath static. She spoke of illness, forgiveness and the foolishness of leaving important words until people were ready. “You may never feel ready,” she said. “Sing anyway.” Then the piano began.

Grief remembers every note love was too afraid to sing.

The song carried the melody they had made as children. Teni sat at the piano. Bisola stood across the room. When the unfinished line arrived, the recording stopped with a click.

“She wanted us to complete it,” Bisola said. Teni laughed bitterly. “She wanted many things.” She closed the piano and walked away.

That night, a storm cut the electricity. Bisola lit candles and listened to the tape again. Behind her mother’s voice she heard a second sound: Teni humming harmony in the hospital room. Teni had helped record it. She had known about the song.

Bisola found her sister on the veranda. Teni admitted Mama had asked her to call months earlier. She refused. “I wanted you to come because you chose us, not because death frightened you.” Bisola sat beside her. “I kept waiting until I had something impressive to return with.”

They spoke until the rain weakened. Bisola confessed that she had followed every small achievement online: Teni’s music school, her students, her wedding. Teni confessed the wedding photographs were carefully framed to hide the empty chair she had reserved for her sister.

Before dawn, they returned to the piano. Teni played the unfinished section while Bisola tried words. Nothing fit until Teni said, “Home is not the place that never hurt you.” Bisola completed it: “Home is where the hurt still knows your name.”

Forty days later, the sisters performed the song at their mother’s memorial. Bisola’s voice cracked on the final verse, and Teni missed a chord because she was crying. Nobody cared. The song was not perfect. It was alive, which was all their mother had asked.