I looked away. Amaka took my hand in hers. It felt warm, like the hand of someone just recovering from malaria. She did not speak, but I felt as though we were thinking the same thing—how different it was for Jaja and me.
I cleared my throat. “Obiora must really want to leave Nigeria.”
“He’s stupid,” Amaka said. She squeezed my hand tight before letting go.
AUNTY IFEOMA WAS CLEANING out the freezer, which had started to smell because of the incessant power outages. She wiped up the puddle of wine-colored foul water that had leaked to the floor and then brought out the bags of meat and laid them in a bowl. The tiny beef pieces had turned a mottled brown. The pieces of the chicken Jaja had killed had turned a deep yellow.
“So much wasted meat,” I said.
Aunty Ifeoma laughed. “Wasted, kwa? I will boil it well with spices and cook away the spoilage.”
“Mom, she is talking like a Big Man’s daughter,” Amaka said, and I was grateful that she did not sneer at me, that she echoed her mother’s laughter instead.
We were on the verandah, picking the stones out of rice. We sat on mats on the floor, beyond the shade so we could feel the mild morning sun emerging after the rain. The dirty and clean rice were in two careful mounds on the enamel trays before us, with the stones placed on the mat. Amaka would divide the rice into smaller portions to blow the chaff out afterward.
“The problem with this kind of cheap rice is that it cooks into a pudding, no matter how little water you put in. You start to wonder if it is garri or rice that you are eating,” Amaka muttered, when Aunty Ifeoma left. I smiled. I had never felt the companionship I felt sitting next to her, listening to her Fela and Onyeka cassettes on the tiny tape-player-radio, which she had put batteries into. I had never felt the comfortable silence we shared as we cleaned the rice, carefully, because the grains were stunted and sometimes looked like the glassy stones. Even the air seemed still, slowly rousing itself after the rain. The clouds were just starting to clear, like cotton-wool tufts reluctantly letting go of one another.
The sound of a car driving toward the flat disrupted our peace. I knew Father Amadi had office hours that morning at the chaplaincy, yet I still hoped it was him. I imagined him walking up to the verandah, holding his soutane in one hand so he could run up the short stairs, smiling.
Amaka turned to look. “Aunty Beatrice!”
I whipped around. Mama was climbing out of a yellow unsteady-looking taxi. What was she doing here? What had happened? Why was she wearing her rubber slippers all the way from Enugu? She walked slowly, holding on to her wrapper that seemed so loose it would slip off her waist any minute. Her blouse did not look ironed.
“Mama, o gini? Did something happen?” I asked, hugging her quickly so I could stand back and examine her face. Her hand was cold.
Amaka hugged her and took her handbag. “Aunty Beatrice, nno.”
Aunty Ifeoma came hurrying out to the verandah, drying her hands in front of her shorts. She hugged Mama and then led her into the living room, supporting her as one would support a cripple.
“Where is Jaja?” Mama asked.
“He is out with Obiora,” Aunty Ifeoma said. “Sit down, nwunye m. Amaka, get money from my purse and go and buy a soft drink for your Aunty.”
“Don’t worry, I will drink water,” Mama said.
“We have not had light, the water will not be cold.”
“It does not matter. I will drink it.”
Mama sat carefully at the edge of a cane chair. Her eyes were glazed over as she looked around. I knew she could not see the picture with the cracked frame or the fresh African lilies in the oriental vase.
“I do not know if my head is correct,” she said, and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, in the way that one checks the degree of a fever. “I got back from the hospital today. The doctor told me to rest, but I took Eugene’s money and asked Kevin to take me to the park. I hired a taxi and came here.”
“You were in hospital? What happened?” Aunty Ifeoma asked quietly.
Mama looked around the room. She stared at the wall clock for a while, the one with the broken second hand, before she turned to me. “You know that small table where we keep the family Bible, nne? Your father broke it on my belly.” She sounded as if she were talking about someone else, as if the table were not made of sturdy wood. “My blood finished on that floor even before he took me to St. Agnes. My doctor said there was nothing he could do to save it.” Mama shook her head slowly. A thin line of tears crawled down her cheeks as though it had been a struggle for them to get out of her eyes.
“To save it?” Aunty Ifeoma whispered. “What do you mean?”
“I was six weeks gone.”
“Ekwuzina! Don’t say that again!” Aunty Ifeoma’s eyes widened.
“It is true. Eugene did not know, I had not yet told him, but it is true.” Mama slid down to the floor. She sat with her legs stretched out in front of her. It was so undignified, but I lowered myself and sat next to her, our shoulders touching.
She cried for a long time. She cried until my hand, clasped in hers, felt stiff. She cried until Aunty Ifeoma finished cooking the rotting meat in a spicy stew. She cried until she fell asleep, her head against the seat of the chair. Jaja laid her on a mattress on the living room floor.
Papa called that evening, as we sat around the kerosene lamp on the verandah. Aunty Ifeoma answered the phone and came out to tell Mama who it was. “I hung up. I told him I would not let you come to the phone.”