Chris alighted from the car, shouting profusely while the veins in his neck were a few inches away from popping. Nora held her black purse in a fashionable catwalk, ignoring her husband.
“Am I not talking to you? How dare you insult my family like that and disrespect me before them?”
A neighbor was hanging clothes on a line with a baby strapped to her back. Chris realized he looked stupid and hurried inside. As he shut the door, he grabbed Nora’s hand and she laughed at him.
“Are you mad, Nora?”
“I should be asking you and your mother that stupid question. How dare she bring up my dead child in the midst of her father’s burial? How dare she call me a witch? She said I ate the child in my coven and as is typical of you, you kept quiet. So who is mad?”
Chris saw the coldness in her eyes and slightly fidgeted. He knew his mother’s words had hurt her deeply.
“Even though, you should have ignored her. That was what I did. You’re not the only one that lost a child. However, you chose to insult me.”
“If someone had been looking while Dede was playing with naked wires that I had been telling him to fix for two weeks, probably our child would not have died. I told you I had a bad feeling on that particular day, but it was that day you wanted to eat stir fried rice with lot of proteins so I had to drive to the market to make sure your cravings were satisfied–”
“Let the past go!”
“The past was barely a month ago,” Nora scoffed. “Yet your mother had the effrontery and guts to bring it up at her father’s burial, in front of those relatives and people but you didn’t tell her to bury the past with her father’s body. What a hypocrite!”
“You’re biting more than you can chew. Stop this… this behavior or whatever it is.”
Nora nodded as tears poured down her face and soiled her makeup.
Chris sighed as he sat down on the brown leather couch. He bowed his head as regret washed over him.
“I don’t think I want to do this anymore. I’m going back to Abeokuta to stay with my family. I would appreciate it if you don’t contact me again.” After saying this, Nora walked out of the living room while Chris sat there, gobsmacked.
In the room, Nora pulled out two big boxes from the bottom of the wardrobe and dusted them with an old shirt that had transitioned to a rag. She kept the wardrobe open as she dumped her clothes into one of the boxes.
Chris walked in and at that moment he realized she actually meant what she had said.
“There is no need for this. We can see a counselor and work this out as a couple.” Nora ignored him as she fished around for her shoes which were scattered about the shoe rack. “Nora, the loss of a child is not enough to end a marriage. We both loved Dede.”
Nora ignored him as she zipped one bag close. She fished out an old Ghana-must-go and threw in clothes she had no interest in wearing anymore.
“Baby girl, please,” Chris’s voice shook as a single tear escaped from his eye. “I miss him too. He would have walked in here with his pudgy cheeks and thick laps while playing with his favorite aeroplane.”
Nora’s hands froze as the memory flashed before her eyes. Fresh tears began to pour down her face and she sat down for the first time since she entered the house, the cold tiles reflecting the emptiness in her soul.
“He would have said, ‘yayamu’. I would have been looking for his cup by now.” Chris said and wiped his face.
“It’s not…” Nora sobbed, “It’s not ‘yayamu’. It is ‘mama, yayamu’. He probably had a covenant with akamu(pap).” Nora said and managed a smile.
There was a thick fog of silence in the air, only this time, it was not heavy with anger.
“I am sorry. I should have listened to you about the wire,” Chris said as he crawled towards her, his heart pounding as tears trickled down his cheeks and hid away in his beards. “I should have fixed that darn thing.”
Nora looked up as his forehead towered over hers.
“I should have watched him instead of focusing all my attention on that Manchester game. I could have noticed that he was sticking his tongue on a naked wire. He would have clocked a year today.”
“Stop talking about my baby.” Nora said weakly but Chris had already pulled her in an embrace and her tears soiled his luxury brown kaftan.
“Mama, we’re in this together.”
Nora cried as she struggled to break away from his hug, but he did not let her go. Instead, he cried with her. He knew how hard it had been for them to conceive and he was very excited when Dede was born. Regret washed over him as the memory of the child’s still body lingered in his mind. He had not been able to process his grief so he took work too seriously to drown the pain, but it never went away.
“I’m sorry,” Chris said as Nora quieted down.
“Will you let me go home to my mother?” Nora asked quietly.
“Is that what you want?” He asked.
“I want my baby back. I want to hear his cackles and baby language. Can you give me that right now? If you can’t, let me crawl to my mother’s lap and let her console me. You’ve been emotionally unavailable until now.”
Chris cradled her chin in his hands and stared into the pool of her light brown eyes. “If I said I would take time away from work for a week and be more available to you emotionally, will you stay?”
Nora closed her eyes and winced momentarily. “I’m not sure I can. I don’t want to. You had promised to be around when we had Dede but I was the only one around. You even shut me out emotionally and kept your focus on only your business and your career. You’ve been emotionally distant even when the boy was alive. What is going to change now?”
Chris bit his lips as the accuracy of her accusation smeared his confidence.
“See,” Nora said, “you won’t be able to keep that promise if I stay. Excuse me.”
Nora stood up and resumed her packing.
“I promise, Nora. I promise on my life and I swear on Dede’s life that I will be a better husband to you and a more attentive father.”
Nora didn’t even glance at him. “Tell that to the dogs.”
Chris held her from behind and inhaled her dulce de leche fragrance which was coated with a peachy topnote. His hands traveled up her bosom and she sighed. Nora turned around and he kissed her.
She broke away from the kiss but he held onto her waist.
“This will not work. It will not fix the insults your family has hurled at me all these years. It will not fix the fact that your mother accused me of sleeping with someone else when Dede was born because she thought he didn’t look like you but God nor dey shame Him pikin(child). This thing you’re trying to do will not fix the loss of my baby.”
“But it can mark a new start.”
“Prove it and maybe, just maybe we’ll mark a new start.” Nora resumed her packing while Chris stood there. Without even turning around, Nora said “if you’re done talking, please excuse me.”
****
Two hours later, Nora was sitted on a bus going to Abeokuta from Lagos. Her eyes were hooded by big sunglasses while a handkerchief occasionally mopped her face.
The traffic was very bad but she was determined to just sit there until she was in her mother’s arms. She heard her phone ring as the traffic cleared up.
“Omo mi. That boy called me and told me you are coming to Abeokuta. Are you on your way or did you go to a hotel like you did last time?” Mama Nora’s voice spoke softly when Nora picked the call.
“Maami, I’m really on a bus. I don’t think it will work anymore. Five years maami, five and the only baby I conceived died because a man could not look after a baby. Who told men that looking after children was only the duty of a wife?” Nora said and began to cry.
A woman seated next to Nora patted her on the back and a tear escaped her big eyes. It did little to comfort Nora as she broke down into more tears.
“My door is open. A mother can understand another mother especially since this new mother is my daughter.”
Nora nodded and bent her head as people were beginning to look at her, some with pity, others with nonchalance. The phone clicked and Nora wished to get home to her mother as soon as possible.
Some people in the bus started badmouthing men who could not care less about children and how society always blamed the mother for the loss of a child. A feminist argued that it was better not to have children than marry a man who claimed to want them but did not know how to be cooperative in training and raising the children.
Some minutes later, the bus driver was cursing at another driver who had blocked him on the road. The driver got down from the car and waved a placard.
“Who be Nora for this bus?” The driver asked and Nora raised her head. “Who be Nora?”
“Me,” Nora replied from the backseat.
“One crase man dey middle of this road dey wave card say make you nor vex.”
Nora stretched as she looked through the window and saw Chris waving the placard. “You fit jam the man bros,” Nora said. “Na mad man!”
The woman seated next to Nora smiled as she turned to Nora. “I fit advice you, fine girl?”
The driver tried to drive but Chris got on his knees.
“I have lost a child before and I know how you feel,” the woman seated close to Nora said. “However, it is profitable that you forgive him, more for yourself than for him. Men are daft but some are teachable. Go home with him.”
The word pricked Nora’s heart and when she looked outside the window, Chris was still on his knees despite the fact that some people had gathered around him and were trying to pull him up.
“Driver, I go like come down. Help me open your booth make I carry my load.”
A few minutes later, Chris was loading her luggage inside the trunk of his car. She sat on the passenger seat as he entered the car but she said nothing and they drove away.
****
“Nora, I promise to do better.” Chris was on his knees as they entered the room.
“So you called my mom and told her I was going home. You wanted her to convince me otherwise, abi?”
“Yes.” Chris looked at her remorsefully. “ I am truly sorry baby. Please, let us work this out. Let us deal with the pain together and heal together.”
“Chris, I’m tired.”
“I know,” he stood up and hugged her but she didn’t flinch like she used to. “I want us to start again. I want us to–”
Nora’s lips locked his lips into a passionate kiss and before long, their clothes were littered on the floor.
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