SEAMS: The Next Decade - Episode 11

The phone rang as they joined into Ikorodu Road from Ojota. On instinct, Gozie felt for the Bluetooth button on the steering wheel and righted himself when he remembered he wasn’t in his own car. Kike noticed and chuckled, a weak laugh that didn’t quite reach her eyes. 

“Thank you for doing this.” she mouthed, answering the call on Gozie’s phone charger in the cup holder, and putting it on speaker. Chibuzor was on the other end.  

“Where the fuck are you guys? What’s going on?”

He was practically screaming into the receiver. Gozie met Kike’s eye in the rearview mirror and mouthed an apology. Kike still trembled lightly as she tried to still nervous energy coursing through her, strapped in by her seat belt. He’d offered to drive her, scared that she would crash her if she tried to drive in her state. 

“Guy calm down. Kike had an emergency, and you guys were still in the middle of your interview so we left without telling you.”

“What kind of emergency?” Worry crept into his voice.

Kike sighed. “Saanyol’s maternal grandmother had a heart attack.”

“Oh wow, I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s fine.” Kike replied, reassuring him. “Gozie is driving us to the airport from Adeola’s school, his family lawyer booked tickets in advance.”

“I’m sorry again. Gozie, don’t stress about me, I’ll just take an Uber home.” 

Kike ended the call and rubbed her temples. They turned into Jibowu, driving down Herbert Macaulay to take the long road through Sabo to get to Unilag Staff School. They idled in the parking lot while Kike texted, thankful that she had agreed to Adeola’s nagging to get him a mobile phone. 

A few minutes later, Adeola skulked to the car, squatting low so his teacher couldn’t see he was moving in the opposite direction from the school restrooms, or that he had taken his school bag with him. Kike cranked the back door open and squeezed his arm as he got in. 

“Hey baby, we have to head to the airport. Daddy needs us.”

#

“Are you sure this isn’t an inconvenience, we’ll be back in 2 days max. It’s not that expensive to leave the car in the car park.”

Gozie rolled his eyes at Kike, who stood with Adeola outside the departure lounge at MMA2. They looked like an odd pair with their matching knapsacks, her in her lounge wear and flip-flops and Adeola dressed smartly in his school uniform. 

“I told you, it’s fine. You’ll miss your flight if you don’t go now.”

Kike nodded, and watched as Gozie drove away in her Honda Cross Tour. She led her son into the departure lounge, and straight to the Air Peace station, where she sorted out her online reservation, and had her luggage checked in. As she turned, looking to find an empty seating row, Adeola tugged at her arm and pointed. Barely recognizable without her usual wigs, Tariebi sat in the waiting room, a few rows in, hiding behind large sunglasses.  

“It’s Aunty Tariebi.” 

“She’s not your aunty.” Kike replied, out of habit. 

Saanyol was an only child and treated everyone who waltzed into his life like a beloved sibling, relationships she then had to maintain, setting boundaries, excusing Saanyol’s flakiness to these new friends, and his abject refusal to acknowledge this behaviour put strain on her. It was one of the reasons why they didn’t work out.  

Tariebi raised her head from the book she was reading and spotted them, standing like startled deer in the middle of the lounge. She took off her glasses and smiled, and waved them over. Adeola wrested his arm free and ran to Tariebi, and Kike followed reluctantly. Tariebi swept him into a hug. 

“My small husband, this our marriage will not survive if you keep avoiding me o.”

“Please, stop calling him that.” Kike said, plopping into the seat beside Tariebi.

Tariebi let the boy go and gave a small salute. Kike was too drained to address it. She knew the others sometimes joked about her being an ‘iron lady’ and that Saanyol knew but did stop them. She was too drained to really do anything other than dread the flight ahead. 

“It’s been so long,” Tariebi said, more to Kike, than to Adeola who didn’t share his mother’s hostility and had lodged himself on her lap. “Way too long.”

“Life and what not.” Kike offered as her customary non-reply. She’d hoped Tariebi wouldn’t want to strike up a conversation, but clearly that wasn’t happening. 

“Where are you guys headed?”

Kike looked at the ticket stub the attendant had printed for her. “Asaba. Apparently, the earliest flight to Enugu is tonight, and by then it would be too late for the matter we are going to deal with.”

Tariebi’s forehead twitched with suppressed emotion, before she split into a smile. “That means we’re on the same flight. You’re lucky, they delayed the flight by 25 minutes, if not for that we’d already be in the air.”

Kike smiled so she wouldn’t have to respond. Just then the overhead intercom crackled to life. 

“Air Peace 6280 from Asaba has just arrived. Passengers for Air Peace 6280 from Lagos to Asaba please proceed to the boarding gate.”

Kike let Tariebi leave first, and waited a few minutes before she roused Adeola and headed for the boarding gate. She fished in her utility knapsack for their passports and went through the metal detector. They boarded the plane, scanning for their seat numbers. Kike suppressed a sigh when she found her row and saw Tariebi seated in the window to her aisle, Adeola’s seat between them. 

“The universe is messing with us.” Tariebi said, laughing. 

Resigned to her fate, Kike buckled Adeola in and leaned over to get Tariebi’s attention. 

“Sorry about earlier, today hasn’t been easy. And I still have to be back in Lagos in time for Panlam’s award thing this weekend.”

“Oh yeah, she gave Saanyol an invite to give to me.” Tariebi replied over the drone of the flight attendants, walking passengers through the safety procedures. “Saanyol told me about the interview. We were together when he was arrested, the director, Basim Adiemen. It was this morning yeah?”

“Yeah, everything around this has been a mess, but at least everyone understands why Panlam had to do it.” 

The intercom crackled to life announcing that the flight was approaching the taxiway for take-off. Adeola’s eye widened and he turned to his mother. 

“Mummy?!” he squeaked. 

Kike leaned in to hold his hand, “Mummy’s here, just shut your eyes tightly and hold my hand.”

The airplane started to taxi, air whooshing around them as the engines fired. Kike closed her eyes shut and squeezed her hand around her son’s, trying as hard as possible to be strong for him as her own panic began to build. Thoughts raced through her head, urgent and fearful as the gravity pulled on her core, creating the sensation of sinking. She winced as the aircraft seemed to lop to one side and gasped as the cabin rattled under some turbulence. She counted to distract herself like Saanyol had taught her during their honeymoon flight and waited as the plane stabilized. When she opened her eyes, it was to Tariebi holding Adeola’s other hand and rubbing his arm to calm him. 

“Thank you.” she croaked, her throat still tight from all the anxiety

Tariebi nodded and released the boy’s hand, looking away to give Kike and her son some privacy in the crowded plane. 

#

“The matter we’re going to Nsukka for… It’s Saanyol’s maternal grandmother.”

Tariebi looked up from the carousel where they all waited for their baggage. She hadn’t heard Kike walk up, even with a dozing Adeola on her hip. She had both their knapsacks in her free hand. 

“They said she had a heart attack, might not survive the day.”

Tariebi didn’t bother with platitudes. She knew Saanyol had a strained relationship with his maternal family, he had found out about them after his mother died and reconnected with them during their divorce. She knew Kike hadn’t feel she had a right to get involved and they were both in agreement that Adeola was too young for that kind of upheaval so he’d done it alone. 

“Why now?” She asked instead. 

Kike’s resignation seemed to return, like storm clouds rolling over a plain. 

“The inheritance. As his mother’s surviving child, her part of Grandmother’s inheritance is coming to him as well. Her living will says she wants to pass surrounded by her descendants. She was a second wife who had fertility issues, so as far as we know Saanyol and Adeola are her only living descendants.”

Tariebi did the only natural thing that came to her in that moment, she pulled Kike into a hug. Kike didn’t resist her, she just stood there and let herself be enveloped in concern for the first time in weeks. She would have cried if she could, but she was too drained for even that. Tariebi let go when her bags, two giant Ghana-Must-Go bags rolled came down the carousel. Obligated, Kike helped them pull them down. 

“That’s a lot of stuff.”

“Yeah, I never go home empty handed.” Tariebi said, evasively shifting her cargo behind her. 

Kike called to Adeola, and helped him pull on his knapsack. “Our car to Enugu’s waiting outside… thanks, for helping with Adeola during take-off.”

Tariebi held her hand to stop her as she made to leave. It felt intrusive, what she was about to do, but she felt compelled to do it anyway. 

“You’re a great mother, I want you to know that. You both might not have been great together, but you are great parents to him. That’s what he will remember when he is older, not all this mess around his inheritance. Trust me, I would know.”

Kike, a little thrown by Tariebi’s candor, mumbled a thank you and left. Tariebi wrung her palms as she watched her leave the arrivals lounge, worried that she’d overstepped her boundaries as the porters who she’d hired loaded her bags onto a trolley. 

# 

It was nearly noon when Tariebi’s chartered taxi rode up the dirt road and stopped in front of a giant white gate. The street was a dirt road, bridged on each side by forest saplings. She never understood how Ogwuashi-Ukwu could be so backwards when it was literally 20 minutes away from Asaba by road. She always took a rickety cab from the airport in Asaba, the worst she could find. Anything to repel attention. 

She asked the taxi man to wait as she dialled a number and waited as it rang. 

“Mama, it’s me.” She said into the handset. “Is Sergeant with you?... Please ask him to open the door.”

Three minutes later, one half of the giant swing gate groaned as it opened to receive them. The compound inside was the size of three football fields, with a crude concrete sculpture of a bespectacled chief announcing a small roundabout. Beyond it, bungalows stood in silent witness, slightly dilapidated from years. Only one was freshly painted and low music played from inside, a Catholic hymn sung in Ibibio. The driver circled around the roundabout to park in front of the renovated bungalow. Sergeant, a uniformed man in his mid-30’s jogged over to meet them and helped the driver remove the bags from the boot. He never spoke to Tariebi, only deferring to her with a non-verbal language of slight nods and hand gestures. She waited until he was done before she took a deep breath and entered the bungalow. 

“Nene!” 

It always took her a few seconds to suppress the reptilian response that raced ahead of her conscious brain every time she reunited with her mother. Nene sat bare-chested on a mat in the middle of the living room, like a posed caricature in an old painting. The design of the furniture and the lace trimmed curtains was very much of the era from when it was made and betrayed her mother’s age. She never wore shirts or blouses if she didn’t absolutely have to, the thing with acid burns was that it melted your pores shut and made it impossible for the body to self-regulate with sweat. 

“Tari!” Her mother said, craning her head to look at her with her good eye. 

The other was milky white and partially closed, by a sheet of smooth skin that seemed to pour down one side of her face and down to her chest and forearm like a mudslide. Tariebi’s emotions sufficiently in check, she walked over and sat beside her, hugging the good side of her mother’s body, the side that didn’t feel papery to the touch. 

“You suppose to come last week, you promise and fail.”

Tariebi hugged her mother tighter. “I know, I’m sorry. I had this really big job and I couldn’t get away until it was done.”
“I miss you, this house lonely without you.” He mother replied, the longing heavy in her voice. 

Tariebi detached herself gently and helped her mother into the only new chair in the living room. It was cushioned and orthopaedic, with an adjustable back. Much like everything else in the house, her mother wouldn’t let her replace the rest of the furniture which was constructed to resemble tiny thrones, with baroque carving around the high backs and defined cushion armrests. 

“How is work, are you still doing model?” Her mother asked. 

“Ummm…. Yes, but not really. I still work with models, but not like that anymore. Too many sleazebags”
“I don’t understand.” Nene said, sensing Tariebi was being facetious. 

“It’s not important Nene, work is fine.” Tariebi said distractedly and escaped into the kitchenette in the bungalow’s open courtyard. She brought back a sizable bag, dragged the chrome and glass centre table towards her mother’s chair and poured the contents of the bag on to the table.

Together they gushed over the organic lotions and ointments strewn on the table, arguing the merits of antibacterial properties over analgesic ingredients. Her mother loved skincare and cosmetics and had been training to become a beautician when she met her father on one of his trips to Akwa Ibom. It was one of the few things that still delighted her. 

“I’ll start with these ones.” Nene said, finally settling on a routine of 6 products. 

Tariebi swept the rest back into the bag and set it aside, busying herself with stacking the dry groceries she’d brought from Lagos in the pantry beside their kitchenette. She could hear her mother trying to hide her laboured breathing as she fanned herself, in spite of the air-conditioner humming in the corner. They’d been so engrossed, she had noticed it was almost 6. 

“Is Sergeant treating you well?” Tariebi asked as she laid out a plate of pounded yam and Egusi she’d warmed from one of the pails of pre-ordered soups she’d come with. 

She usually brought a few litres each time for the deep freezer in the courtyard, enough to last two weeks if Sergeant kept the large generator running through the night when it was hardest for Nene to sleep. 

Her mother laughed. “He only does professional work when you are around. When its just us, he is like my small boyfriend, always coming to the house to watch film with me.”

They shared the food plate and Tariebi watched to see if she winced when she strained her bad hand, if there was any difficulty swallowing, if her good eye could follow movements with ease. It was hard to not hover, Tariebi knew it was pure luck that her mother’s health had persevered this long. Tariebi waited till she was fully engrossed in her DSTV telenovela on the widescreen TV, the only things she’d conceded to, before she broached the subject. 

“I can’t stay long, but I’ll wait till tomorrow if you’ll let me take you to the doctor in Asaba.”

Her mother pretended not to hear her, turning up the television. Tariebi saw Sergeant patrol the compound out of the corner of her eye, his rifle at his side, truly hamming it up for her to notice.

“Mama.” She said, returning her focus to the more pressing matter. She only called her when she wanted to speak plainly with her. 

“Tari, please.”

“But Nene, this is important to me. Why won’t you just do it for me? You haven’t gone for your annual health check in two years. Hell, you haven’t left the compound in two years. I’m worried about you.”

Her mother wouldn’t meet her gaze. 

“I don’t want to leave the compound. I have my television and my house, I have my Sergeant. I feel safe here.”

Tariebi, propelled by anger, took the remote from her mother and switched off the television. Her mother shrank, instinctively wrapping her wrappa over her exposed torso. 

“This house, this compound, it’s too much for one person to have to deal with. It drives me crazy, and I don’t even live here.” She heard Sergeant go silent, her ranting loud enough to reach him at the other end of the compound. She didn’t care.  

“You keep saying it’s my inheritance, the thing Papa left for me, but you won’t let me do what I want with it.” 

 “It’s my house too. The only thing they keep for me of me. Why will I let you sell it?” Her mother said quietly. “Why will I carry myself back  there?” 

Nene never shouted, being in constant pain had taught her her limits.

“Because I don’t want you living in the past. The world is different now, you can get skin grafts, reconstructive surgery. You don’t have to live like this.” Tariebi said, lowering herself to her knees so they were at eye level. “I want better for you.”

Her mother’s good eye glazed over, signalling any hope of reasoning with her was over. 

“I know that I’m his third wife.” She said to herself, “and he pursue the senior two out because of me, but I never ask him, I never ask any of this.” 

She always started the story like this, and told it in full, like a spell that needed to be recited correctly to keep its potency. The foreign wife from Akwa-Ibom who her father had met and married in 3 weeks, and brought back to Asaba and bought houses for his first two wives in the city so they’d allow him to start afresh. It was easy to call her a witch, no one knew her family, she wasn’t educated like his other wives. 

When her father died of a heart attack 6 years later, when she was 5, they wouldn’t let Nene join the burial rites. But they were too scared to kick her out of the house he had insisted belonged to her. One morning she went to open the door after someone wouldn’t stop knocking. She didn’t see his face, just the acid as it left the container in which it was ferried to her gate. She had just enough time to turn to her side before it began to eat at her skin. Tariebi still remembered the screams, tortured as her mother writhed on the floor. The screams were what saved her, that and the fact that they were only halfway through her father’s burial and his umunna had left their homes at twilight and were almost at their house to begin the day’s preparations. 

The other wives felt guilty, so they paid for a hospice, and took Tariebi in while her mother recuperated for the better part of a year. By the time she’d healed miraculously enough to leave the hospice care, Tariebi was 15 and hollowed out. All the wealth her father had left for her was gone, funnelled towards her care while they waited for her to die. Everything except the house.

“I see you only for Christmas time for 8 years. 8 years, I pray God keep me so I take care of you, and once I leave that hospice, you run away from me, to Lagos. How do I let you sell this house; if it is why you come back?”

“I’m sorry.” She said and laid her head in her mother’s lap, and allowed her pat her cornrowed hair. “I didn’t mean it like that.” 

Nene’s palm was hot to the touch, as was the rest of her. Tariebi made a mental note to get a second air conditioner as soon as she raised enough money. They watched the telenovelas together till her mother slept in her chair. Tariebi’s used the chair remote to recline the back and headrest so it didn’t put strain on Nene’s neck and turned off the television. 

She tossed in her room the entire night, stuck in an endless nightmare loop of her mother writhing in the red sand of their compound. It was why she had run to Lagos, not because they were broke and her mother couldn’t work, not because the rumours that had trailed her mother had begun to trail her. Living in that compound had felt like being trapped in a waking nightmare to her 15 year old sef. She’d had no choice but to escape. 

#

The driver who’d brought her to Ogwashi-Ukwu was waiting at the gate before sun up. She went to the Sergeant’s room and knocked quietly on the door. Her mother was still asleep on her orthopaedic chair. 

He opened the door a peep, enough for her to see that he’d retired for the night once he’d confirmed she was asleep. 

“I have to go.” She told him unceremoniously. “Thank you for being so patient with me these last few months.” 

He nodded, and pointed to the iPhone in her hand. She unlocked her phone, opened the messages tab and showed him the most recent text. It was a bank statement, with a debit alert for N900,000

“I might not come back next month. The doctor is coming from Asaba tomorrow, please ensure she allows him to do the check up. Your two month arrears plus this and next month’s salary should come to about 750k, the rest should be enough to cover his fees and any medication he prescribes.”

Sergeant gave her a small salute and exited his room, shutting his door beside him. She caught a glimpse of his gleaming assault rifle, propped beside his bed. It gave Tariebi some comfort that he was the one protecting her mother. 

He walked her to the gate, put his head out before her to case the street before letting her pass by him. She got into the backseat, and asked the driver to turn up the radio as he shifted into gear. The giant white gate of her father’s village mansion disappeared from view as she began to cry.