“The jug?”
“Pitcher. Americans say pitcher, not jug.”
I pushed the jug (pitcher) across. The pounding in my head was loud, filling my ears with a fierce liquid. “You were married before?”
“It was just on paper. A lot of our people do that here. It’s business, you pay the woman and both of you do paperwork together but sometimes it goes wrong and either she refuses to divorce you or she decides to blackmail you.”
I pulled the pile of coupons toward me and started to rip them in two, one after the other. “Ofodile, you should have let me know this before now.”
He shrugged. “I was going to tell you.”
“I deserved to know before we got married.” I sank down on the chair opposite him, slowly, as if the chair would crack if I didn’t.
“It wouldn’t have made a difference. Your uncle and aunt had decided. Were you going to say no to people who have taken care of you since your parents died?”
I stared at him in silence, shredding the coupons into smaller and smaller bits; broken-up pictures of detergents and meat packs and paper towels fell to the floor.
“Besides, with the way things are messed up back home, what would you have done?” he asked. “Aren’t people with master’s degrees roaming the streets, jobless?” His voice was flat.
“Why did you marry me?” I asked.
“I wanted a Nigerian wife and my mother said you were a good girl, quiet. She said you might even be a virgin.” He smiled. He looked even more tired when he smiled. “I probably should tell her how wrong she was.”
I threw more coupons on the floor, clasped my hands together, and dug my nails into my skin.
“I was happy when I saw your picture,” he said, smacking his lips. “You were light-skinned. I had to think about my children’s looks. Light-skinned blacks fare better in America.”
I watched him eat the rest of the batter-covered chicken, and I noticed that he did not finish chewing before he took a sip of water.
That evening, while he showered, I put only the clothes he hadn’t bought me, two embroidered boubous and one caftan, all Aunty Ada’s cast-offs, in the plastic suitcase I had brought from Nigeria and went to Nia’s apartment.
Nia made me tea, with milk and sugar, and sat with me at her round dining table that had three tall stools around it.
“If you want to call your family back home, you can call them from here. Stay as long as you want; I’ll get on a payment plan with Bell Atlantic.”
“There’s nobody to talk to at home,” I said, staring at the pear-shaped face of the sculpture on the wooden shelf. It’s hollow eyes stared back at me.
“How about your aunt?” Nia asked.
I shook my head. You left your husband? Aunty Ada would shriek. Are you mad? Does one throw away a guinea fowl’s egg? Do you know how many women would offer both eyes for a doctor in America? For any husband at all? And Uncle Ike would bellow about my ingratitude, my stupidity, his fist and face tightening, before dropping the phone.
“He should have told you about the marriage, but it wasn’t a real marriage, Chinaza,” Nia said. “I read a book that says we don’t fall in love, we climb up to love. Maybe if you gave it time—”
“It’s not about that.”
“I know,” Nia said with a sigh. “Just trying to be fucking positive here. Was there someone back home?”
“There was once, but he was too young and he had no money.”
“Sounds really fucked-up.”
I stirred my tea although it did not need stirring. “I wonder why my husband had to find a wife in Nigeria.”
“You never say his name, you never say Dave. Is that a cultural thing?”
“No.” I looked down at the table mat made with waterproof fabric. I wanted to say that it was because I didn’t know his name, because I didn’t know him.
“Did you ever meet the woman he married? Or did you know any of his girlfriends?” I asked.