What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky(6)

“May I borrow it? Just to make a quick call.”

“I don’t know, my mom said it would be expensive and I should buy a phone here and only use this one for emergencies.”

Chinyere didn’t push, but the air between us turned hostile. After a few moments of sitting in traffic, I shrugged and capitulated.

“Here, just make sure it’s fast,” I said, extending it to her, but she didn’t even look at me.

We were somewhere on the mainland bridge when she held out her hand again, and this time I gave it to her. She spoke excitedly to the female voice that answered, telling her to call my number if she wanted to speak to her and adding that since her cousin was here, her mother would have to let her go out sometime, so they could meet up then. After ending the call, Chinyere explained that her mother didn’t allow her to have a mobile anymore and she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere or do anything.

“I see.” This didn’t bode well for us having a good time.

At the house, Auntie Ugo rushed out, looking like a wider, taller version of my mother, and hugged me.

“Look at you so grown up. And so tall. You must have gotten that from your father.” She said her husband was in Abuja and wouldn’t be back till next week, but he was very excited to see me. Then she updated me on people I’d long forgotten, chattering about who was doing what and how proud my mother had been when I got into Emory and how I must be so excited. Not once did she look at Chinyere, who rolled my suitcase behind us.

After a few more minutes catching up, Auntie Ugo went to finish making dinner, pointing me to the guest room upstairs. Along the staircase were pictures of Chinyere as a child, alone, with her parents, with me on the last visit I’d made when I was thirteen. The pictures stopped a couple of years after that, and there were no images of the baby.

In my room, I found Chinyere rifling through my suitcase, pulling out tops and dresses and holding them to her.

“They’re all new. Did you go shopping just for this visit?”

I looked at the suitcase. Not a scrap of flannel or denim in sight. No doubt my shirts and jeans were being sorted at a thrift shop right that minute, or possibly aflame in our backyard fire pit.

“Ugh, my mom must have. I don’t dress like this.” I traced the beaded edge of a black jersey top that managed to accommodate folds and layers and creases. It was so lovely I resented it. “You can have it if you want.”

“I have my own clothes.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Auntie Ugo called us.

In the kitchen, she manned several pots while giving instructions to the housekeeper, Madeline, on what to buy, mentioning foods she remembered as my favorites even after all these years. Madeline bounced the baby on her hip and he pulled at her buttons.

“Chi-Chi, why don’t you take care of your brother,” Auntie Ugo said, and the cadence of the request carried the rhythm of one uttered many times. The boy was a year old, bug-eyed and cute. My mother had warned me I was to go along with the pretense in public, but I hadn’t expected that even in the privacy of their home we were to act as if the boy wasn’t Chinyere’s son. Madeline handed him to Chinyere and they both left the room, leaving me alone with my aunt. I didn’t know how to fill the silence after her casual malice. She was more than up to it.

“You know, we did everything for that girl, everything. The best schools, the best everything.” She tasted the soup and added Maggi, shaking the bottle so vigorously I resigned myself to dinner being a little salty. “But you children, you don’t know anything.”

She sounded just like my mother, and I knew that if I didn’t interrupt, the lecture would escalate until I wanted to slit my wrists just to give her something to mop so she would. Stop. Talking.

“I’m tired,” I said.

“Oh, sorry, my dear, go and lie down. Chinyere will get you when the food is ready.”

Instead of escaping to the guest room, I went to Chinyere’s, where I found her lying on her bed while the boy toddled around waving a comb in the air. She looked up when I walked in, then went back to tempting him with an unlit candle. When he released the comb, she snatched it up and slipped it under her pillow. He grabbed the candle and jabbed the air with it before offering it to me, grinning.

“Don’t take it, or he will come looking for the comb again,” she said.

The boy grew bored waiting for me to accept his gift and leaned over to tug at the neon-yellow straps of my flip-flops.

“He likes you.” She didn’t sound like she liked that. Or me.

“What can I say, I have a way with handsome young men. And aren’t you handsome? Aren’t you deliciously handsome?” The boy squealed and giggled as I picked him up and pretended to snack on his arms and belly. When I stopped, he settled his head into my neck.

“He must be tired,” Chinyere said. “Let me take him.”

She got up, pulled him out of my arms, and settled him in the hollow of the mattress she’d just vacated. A week ago you couldn’t have told me I would enjoy the weight of a child or feel intense satisfaction when he gripped my shirt as his mother removed him. I’d always thought of babies as blobby entities, sometimes powder scented, sometimes poo scented, that I wouldn’t need to concern myself with for another decade. But Chinyere had given birth when she was around the age I was now.