As a kid, Daddy would rescue me from the pressures at home by taking me there—he was always, “Just do your best,” while Mum was more, “You must get A’s.” Upstairs in the children’s section, we would huddle on a beanbag as I would read aloud a Jacqueline Wilson book.
I’m about to cross the road when I remember Mum’s text message, and I make a quick stop at the African supermarket. After purchasing a bag of pounded yam, I power-walk all the way to Mum’s, thinking about how I’m going to bring up Alex with her.
* * *
—
As soon as I enter Mum’s—a third-floor apartment which is still decent enough in its appearance that the council hasn’t knocked it down yet—the aroma of dried crayfish hits me. Then I hear Mum’s singing, loud and hoarse. I shut the door quickly before the neighbors complain; the metal letter plate makes a loud clattering sound.
“Ah, ah! Why are you slamming my door like that?” Mum’s voice reverberates from the kitchen. “Are you now an immigration officer?”
I roll my eyes. After wrestling out of my coat, I fling it on the stand nearby that is in front of a portrait of a blue-eyed Jesus. Mum emerges.
“Hello, Mum.” I genuflect to greet her in the traditional Yoruba way, and then I hand her the shopping bag. She pokes her nose into it and frowns.
“Ah, you bought the expensive brand,” she says.
“Sorry.” I rub the back of my neck. “Mum, are you busy right now?”
At the same time, she says, “Your sister is in the living room.”
“Kemi’s here?” My eyes widen. I love Kemi but I really don’t want to talk about my love life in front of her. I mean, it’s embarrassing enough that she’s half a decade younger than me and already married.
“What is it?” Mum asks.
“Oh, nothing. It can wait.”
She takes the turn to the kitchen, leaving me to squeeze past a broken drawer that she refuses to throw away.
“Fine girl, Yinka!” Kemi says when she sees me.
I spread my arms and we hug. She smells like cocoa butter. “I swear, this bump of yours is growing every single day.”
“It’s the puff-puff.” She beams, then pats her stomach and we both laugh.
“What you up to?” I pluck a fluff from her short, relaxed hair.
“Just looking at old baby photos,” she says. “You know, to get an idea of what the baby might look like.” She nods to the cabinet where there are dozens of family photos crammed on each shelf and fighting for space. My throat catches as I spot one of Daddy, leaning against a vinyl record player. Like me, he is skinny in stature and has skin the color of coffee beans. Kemi is more like Mum. Fleshy and mocha.
I was ten when Daddy passed away. Kemi was only five. It was cancer that took him. Prostate cancer.
When Daddy was alive, he was my everything. My comforter. My best friend. He made me feel . . . seen. In primary school, I got bullied for having such dark skin. “Dog poo” I was called. I kept it to myself and would cry in bed, and yet somehow, Daddy always knew what to say. “You’re a beautiful girl,” he would often say to me. “Yinka, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, okay? Remember what I told you? What did I tell you, ehn?” And between sobs, I would say, “The midnight sky is just as beautiful as the sunrise.”
There have been many times when I’ve wondered how my life would be if Daddy was still around today. Though I’m not sure I could’ve asked him for advice on my love life.
“So, how’s things?” Kemi asks, stealing my attention. “Ooh, Mum said you got a promotion.”
My mouth falls open.
“Yes, she’s now a vice president,” says Mum, strolling into the living room. My heart pounds frantically in my chest.
“Wow! Congratulations, sis!” Kemi bundles me into a hug. “I swear, you’re bossing it. So, when do you start your new role? And what exactly will you be doing?” She is too busy firing questions at me to sense my discomfort.
“Th-th-thanks,” I say, my thudding heart now in my throat. I shoot a quick glance at Mum, who’s connecting her charger to her phone. “I don’t start for a few weeks,” I finally say. “It’s really just a change in job title. Anyway, we missed you yesterday. How was Uche’s mum’s birthday dinner?”
By the time Kemi is mid-sentence, Mum is thankfully out of the living room, and hopefully, out of earshot. I’m about to interrupt Kemi to tell her the truth, when I think, Do I really want to? She would only give me that pity-guilty expression of hers. It’s as though ever since she got engaged, anything bad or humiliating that happens to me is somehow her fault. I can’t bear her tiptoeing around me, and I know it’s why she doesn’t ask me about my love life—not like there’s much to tell anyway. Besides, she’s starting to hang out with Mum so much that she makes it easy for me to stay away.
“How was the engagement party?” Kemi asks, rubbing her stomach.
Femi and Latoya flash to mind. “It was fun, I guess . . . Oh my gosh! Do you remember this photo?” I swing the glass door open and pull out the first photo that I see worthy of that exclamation. The photo I’ve picked is one of Kemi when she was about eleven, wearing a black leotard. Her complexion was even lighter at the time, and her hair is standing on end in giant dudu plaits.
“Argh!” Kemi snatches the photo. “Mum did not rate me. Look at my hair!”
I laugh as I peer over her shoulder. “But look at your posture. You know you were made to perform, right? Best in your class, I remember.”
“Well, Mum didn’t rate my acting.” Kemi pulls a mocking face.
“What are you talking about?” I laugh. “Mum thinks you can act. We used to say you’d win an Oscar.”
“Come on, Yinka. Mum did not give two hoots about my acting. It wasn’t academic enough,” she says in a sardonic tone. “Do you know what Mum said when I got an A in drama? ‘But what use is that?’?” she finishes in a Nigerian accent.
I wince. Mum has always been more of a fan of STEM subjects. Whether her preference had anything to do with her being a nurse and Daddy being an engineer, I don’t know. I do know that when Kemi told Mum that she wanted to be a drama teacher, she wasn’t impressed.
“I thought this was just a hobby,” she said to Kemi with that baffled expression of hers which read, My daughter has clearly lost the plot.
Growing up I knew it was hard for Kemi to watch Mum praise my academic achievements, and that’s why I made it my priority to be her biggest cheerleader. I helped her practice her lines, and I made an effort to attend all of her drama productions, especially when Mum said she couldn’t because she had to work.
“Well . . . you’re in Mum’s good books now,” I say, substituting the photo for another one. This time, it’s a photo of Uche and Kemi on the day of their traditional wedding. Kemi looks like she could grace the wedding section of BellaNaija with her gold gèlè and her lace-sequin a?? ?bí and her regal-looking feathered fan. As for Uche, he’s all swaggered up in his matching agbádá and faux elephant-tusk beads.
“Aww,” says Kemi. She tilts her head to my shoulder. And for a moment, we just stare at the photo.
“Daddy would have been so proud,” I whisper. Kemi squeezes my hand.
“Okay. Now your turn.” She snaps back to the present and returns the photo, grabbing one of me on my graduation day. “My God, Yinka. Look at how long your hair was!”
“And she went and cut it all off!”
Kemi and I jolt apart. Mum is back, and she gives her wrapper a hoist before shuffling toward us.
“Let me see.” She beckons for the photo and stares solemnly at it.
“So long,” she says with great remorse. She shakes her head, glances up at me and screws her brows. “Yinka. Why did you have to cut your hair? This one suits you now.” She dabs a finger at the photo to emphasize her point. “You know this hairstyle you have on your head is for boys, ehn?”
“Mum!” Kemi covers her face.
“What, now?” Mum pushes out her lips. “You have your own preference and I have mine. My preference is long hair. Long hair! And Yinka’s not yet married,” she adds. Oh, great. I was hoping she wouldn’t mention the m-word for once. “If she was married like you, eh-hehhh, then she could do whatever hairstyle she likes.”