looked like Odenigbo.
The nurse made to give Olanna the baby, wrapped in a white woolly blanket, but she gestured to Odenigbo. “Let her father hold her.”
“You know her mother has refused to touch her,” the nurse said, as she handed the baby to Odenigbo.
“What?” Olanna asked.
“She has not touched her at all. We are using a wet nurse.”
Olanna glanced at Odenigbo, holding the baby with his arms outstretched as if he needed some distance. The nurse was about to say something else when a young couple came in and she hurried over to them.
“Mama just told me,” Odenigbo said. “She said Amala won’t hold the baby.”
Olanna said nothing.
“I should go and see to the bill,” he said. He sounded apologetic.
She held out her arms and as soon as he handed her the baby, the high-pitched crying began. From across the room, the nurse and the couple watched and Olanna was certain that they could tell that she did not know what to do with a howling infant in her arms, that she was incapable of getting pregnant.
“Shush, shush, o zugo,” she said, feeling a little theatrical. But the tiny mouth remained open and twisted, and the crying was so shrill she wondered if it hurt the tiny body. Olanna fit her small finger in the baby’s fist. Slowly the crying stopped but the little mouth remained open, showing pink gums, and the round eyes scrunched up and peered at her. Olanna laughed. The nurse walked across.
“Time to take her in,” she said. “How many do you have?”
“I don’t have children,” Olanna said, pleased that the nurse had assumed that she did.
Odenigbo came back and they walked to Amala’s cubicle, where Mama sat by the bedside, holding a covered enamel bowl. “Amala has refused to eat,” she said. “Gwakwa ya. Tell her to eat.”
Olanna sensed Odenigbo’s discomfort before he spoke in a voice that was too loud. “You should eat, Amala.”
Amala mumbled something. Finally she turned her face toward them and Olanna looked at her: a plain village girl curled up on the bed as if she were cringing from one more furious blow from life. She never once looked at Odenigbo. What she must feel for him was an awed fear. Whether or not Mama had told her to go to his room, she had not said no to Odenigbo because she had not even considered that she could say no. Odenigbo made a drunken pass and she submitted willingly and promptly: He was the master, he spoke English, he had a car. It was the way it should be.
“Did you hear what my son said?” Mama asked. “He said you should eat.”
“I heard, Mama.” Amala sat up and took the enamel plate, her eyes focused on the floor. Olanna was watching her. Perhaps it was hate she felt for Odenigbo. How much did one know of the true feelings of those who did not have a voice? Olanna moved closer to Amala, but she was unsure what she wanted to say and so she picked up the tin of glucose, examined it, and placed it back. Mama and Odenigbo had stepped outside.
“We are leaving,” Olanna said.
“Go well,” Amala said.
Olanna wanted to say something to her but she could not find the words, so she patted Amala’s shoulder and left the cubicle. Odenigbo and Mama were talking beside a water tank, for so long that mosquitoes began to bite Olanna as she stood waiting, so she climbed into the car and pressed the horn.
“Sorry,” Odenigbo said, when he got in. He did not say anything about what he and his mother had talked about until they were driving past the campus gates in Nsukka, an hour later. “Mama doesn’t want to keep the baby.”
“She doesn’t want to keep the baby?”
“No.”
Olanna knew why. “She wanted a boy.”
“Yes.” Odenigbo removed a hand from the steering wheel to roll his window farther down. She found a guilty pleasure in the humility he had cloaked himself in since Amala gave birth. “We’ve agreed that the baby will stay with Amala’s people. I’ll go to Abba next week to see them and discuss—”
“We’ll keep her,” Olanna said. She startled herself by how clearly she had articulated the desire to keep the baby and how right it felt. It was as if it was what she had always wanted to do.
Odenigbo turned to her with eyes widened behind his glasses. He was driving so slowly over a speed bump that she feared the car would stall. “Our relationship is the most important thing to me, nkem,” he said quietly. “We have to make the right decision for us.”
“You were not thinking about us when you got her pregnant,” Olanna said, before she could help herself; she hated the malice in her tone, the renewed resentment she felt.
Odenigbo parked the car in the garage. He looked tired. “Let’s think about this.”