The rhythm slowed as it drew closer to midnight and the dance floor emptied as bodies began to cling to one another, and he placed a cautionary palm on my hip, his brow raised, asking if I was okay with it. I nodded and his other hand moved to cover the opposite side of my waist. Of their own accord, my arms rose to circle his neck. And he smiled a smile of encouragement, like he could tell I was out of my comfort zone. A force beyond our control seemed determined to pull us closer, and by the time Joe’s ‘The Love Scene’ came on, we were plastered to each other, our lips inches apart. I’d never been kissed before but I knew I would enjoy kissing him.
The DJ changed the music then, a hammer shattering the glass of the moment, and the dance floor began to fill quickly. Zina emerged from the crowd, screaming my name. He pulled away as she rushed towards me.
‘I think your friend is looking for you. Hope you’ve enjoyed yourself,’ he said in that voice.
Questions floated through my addled mind. What was his name? Would I remember if he told me? Was he a student? What department? Would I see him again? But I could not force myself to mouth any as he turned away and moved through the crowd.
‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ Zina said the moment she was by my side. ‘Who was that?!’
I blinked. ‘I’m not sure.’
Haunted – that was what I was. For months afterwards, I looked out for him everywhere, listened for his voice: at the cafeteria, in class, at the school chapel. But it seemed I’d conjured him that day, a fantasy of my own making.
‘How is it possible for someone to just disappear like that?’ I asked Zina. And I thought to myself that I’d finally experienced a fraction of what it was like to live like my mother, stranded in time, longing for answers and closure.
When she returned from her journey seeking answers to Uncle Ikenna’s disappearance, I only asked one question, ‘Did you get an answer?’
She nodded mechanically, the tears spilling uncontrollably down her face, her shoulders shuddering and I put my arms around her.
On election day, my mother did not go out to vote. She lay in bed, a photo album in her lap, her eyes aflame. And I wondered if her patriotism had been because of Uncle Ikenna all along.
I liked Aunty Sally because she didn’t pretend to be Christian; she was incapable of pretence, speaking her mind at every turn. She said more people needed to be told they were stupid so they could be aware of that congenital defect in their persons. ‘Imagine going about not knowing how much your stupidity affects others?’
Aunty Sally was a woman comfortable in her success, appearing only in well-tailored clothes, having fought her way to the top of a bank, not an easy feat. Perhaps that was what inspired such confidence, the knowledge that she could take on the best. Her introduction into our lives brought a spark that had been missing, a fire that needed to be lighted, motivating my mother to do what she’d been unable to thus far.
‘Obianuju, you should get a divorce. I’m serious,’ she told my mother in our new living room with the fading paint and popcorn ceiling.
‘We went to university together,’ my mother had told us with a nervous smile as she introduced us to Aunty Sally for the first time. ‘We ran into each other at the market some days ago.’
We greeted her ‘good afternoon’ in unison as we’d been raised to do and Aunty Sally let out a guffaw. ‘You don’t have to be so polite, this isn’t the Sound of Music.’ Then she pointed at me and turned to my mother. ‘She looks just like you. My God! It’s like a time machine.’ And I felt it, that suffocating sensation that came when I was reminded of the similarities between us.
There was a Rolls-Royce parked outside my hostel, its grill badge glinting in the sun, the week my mother finally filed for divorce from my father, assisted by a lawyer Aunty Sally hired. I was aware of what the licence plate read even before it honked in my direction: Azubuike.
A tinted glass window at the back seat rolled down and my grandmother shouted my name – Nwakaego. I walked towards the car calmly, unwilling to create a scene by refusing to acknowledge them.
The leather of the seats smelled fresh, like they had just been pulled from plastic and I thought of my mother as she counted the change in her bag to make sure there was enough money for bread the next morning.
My sisters had become vocal in their dissatisfaction with our new lifestyle, complaining at every turn.
‘Why can’t we go back?’ Nwamaka said. ‘You and Mummy can stay here.’ We were the ones with an issue with my father.
‘I miss Daddy,’ Nkechinyere said. She did not miss him – there was nothing to miss – but the life we had lived with him.
‘And mosquitos are always biting me, just look at my legs. I was voted best legs in my class before,’ her twin added.
‘Will the both of you please shut up!’ I shouted.
Nwamaka opened her mouth to respond but froze as she looked behind me, and I turned to see my mother standing by the door, silent. I thought she looked smaller than her usual height, shrunken in herself.
‘My daughter,’ my grandmother said, her smile patronising as she shifted to make space for me in the back seat. My father stared at me in loaded silence, like a fighter evaluating his competitor.
‘Good afternoon,’ I said to no one in particular.
‘Good afternoon, my daughter. How are you? How is school?’ my grandmother said.
‘Fine,’ I said, waiting.
My grandmother stared at my father expectantly, as though they had a conversation planned, and he cleared his throat.
‘Erm, I’m sorry for what happened. It was never my intention to cause harm.’
I had never heard my father apologise, and for a moment I stared at him, mesmerised.
‘Ehen, your father has apologised,’ my grandmother said, placing a placating hand on my thigh. ‘He is very sorry. He has told me so several times himself. Please talk to your mother, encourage her to forgive him. You know she listens to you.’
I smiled, saccharine, nodded and said, ‘Okay,’ then opened the door to leave. I could feel their eyes boring into the back of my head.
‘Wait,’ my grandmother said as I was about to close the door. ‘Take,’ she said, stretching a stuffed envelope in my direction. I collected the envelope with a thank you, because I thought it would be stupid not to, and I gave it to my mother, telling her it was from Aunty Sally. I did not pass on their message.
The next time the Rolls-Royce was parked in front of my hostel, my mother’s lawyer had made demands of my father, moving ahead with the case.
‘You were married to him for how many years. You cannot leave with nothing. I won’t allow it,’ Aunty Sally said to my mother.
‘Did you not talk to your mother? Why is she acting like this?’ my grandmother demanded in the car.
‘No, I didn’t,’ I said evenly.
‘What kind of child are you? Your father has apologised. He said he is sorry. What more do you want?’
