NWAKAEGO

Nwakaego, on that Thursday morning in Atlanta, you finally run mad.

The day begins like any normal vacation morning, really. The bright blue sky wakes up too early at dawn, complementing the midnight blue sea. As you watch, the waves slowly spring up, then recede. Spring up again, then recede. Much like the slow-burning fever in your eyes. From your position at the floor-to-ceiling window, it is quite a peaceful, magnificent view. During this month-long vacation trip, how many times had you lain on that queen-sized mattress and watched the sunset for countless hours? How many times had Mecha curled up in bed with you after another amazing tour, star-gazing as you both drank the most expensive champagne or ate the most tender lasagna?

As your memory floods you, your hands curl up into tight fists at your sides. They are vibrating. You want to scream, but you are trapped.

It had all been a lie. Fourteen years had all been a damn lie…

As if to sound a warning, your ears start ringing; so you calm yourself. You must remain sane. For Amarachi’s sake, you have to be sane. You keep repeating those words till they become a prayer on your lips. And just like a mockery to that very prayer, the wooden door creaks open just moments later.

Swallowing the thick lump in your throat, you force yourself to turn around, slow and steady.

When you do so, your eyes land on the battered room: the broken stools, the million-dollar paintings torn to pieces, the entire bed scissored to shreds, feathers, and murdered dreams by your very own hands.

Then you look up at your husband’s face. You just know you can never be sane again.

14 Years of Memories

‘Mecha’s Own Soul’ was what his mother used to call you. How she loved you back then. You came into the Ejiofor family at a time when things were bleak. Mecha’s fiancé had abandoned him with a 2-month old baby, and Mecha had been going through a rough patch in his life. At that point, he’d just quit his job and decided to go ‘Self-Employed’ as an IT consultancy firm.

The first day you met him was while you were a cashier in Zenith Bank. You were amazed at this customer who made you laugh so hard in just the few minutes he’d appeared to cash a cheque. And just like that, one phone call became two, three and then led to dinners and movies, then the amazing sexual chemistry afterwards.

To this day, you’ve never really understood what had drawn you to Mecha. Was it the promise of a bright future in his eyes? Or was it his hustling spirit that had turned you on so badly that you moved from your bank job in Owerri to be with him in Lagos?

Regardless, you blame your ill-fated love on your own Mother. You grew up in a not-so-ideal home where breakfast was watching your mother getting punched for the slightest mistakes, and dinner was watching your father delimit every single good thing you and your brother strived to do; while Mama slapped you harshly for defending her dignity in front of Papa.

Ever since you were little, you made an eternal vow to never become your mother. To never marry a man who made you feel worthless. To become a mother who made her children the priority. It became your mantra so much so that you got married only at the age of 30. At that point, Mecha and Amarachi came into your life and altered it forever.

It was impossible not to fall in love with Amara. As a baby, she had been a sweet child whose smile lit you up and whose presence you craved all the time. However, your seemingly fulfilled married life had always been incomplete.

You needed a child to call your own.

At first, it had been a subtle longing. You and your husband had grown to new financial heights: Mecha’s consultancy firm was booming and you became a General Manager in your bank. Everything was changing but you were getting agitated, feeling flighty. It was perching on your mind every day. You spoke to Mecha several times about it and he would sigh every time and say to you: “Relax, Ego. It is just not our time yet. Your own baby will come, my love.”

But he did not understand. He did not see the slow dip in the happy glow on Mama’s face, or the judging looks from in-laws and friends. You were already 36 but had no child. Mecha did not understand. He was not a woman.

When you finally lost it two years later and demanded you both see a doctor together or else you would kill yourself, Mecha dropped his hands in defeat and went with you.

The doctor confirmed your worst nightmare: there was nothing wrong with either of you.

And then, it all began.

The depression set in with a vengeance: those days when you became so lost in yourself that you forgot to live. The rift in your marriage grew with every derogatory word your family gave. ‘Mecha’s Own Soul’ had changed to ‘Barren Woman’ and ‘Empty Damsel’. Through it all, you’d found a way to get through each day as you died slowly. Amarachi and Mecha had been your anchors.

But the straw that finally broke the camel’s back was the day Mama brought Another Woman into the house as his wife.

You lost it.

You threw things around the house like a maniac and demanded that your husband take action. Filled with a rage unlike any you’d ever seen, Mecha called you crazy and said Mama’s action was your fault. You were barren.

That day had been an inflection point in your marriage. You left him.

But when he pulled up two weeks later at your brother’s Maryland apartment with a live band and a thousand roses, you accepted him back like the fool you’d always turned out to be.

Present Day

If he had cheated, you might have been relieved. If you had simply just gone through his phone and found chats with all those infamous runs babes, you would have eventually glossed over it. Marriage was not an easy thing, after all, and you both were getting old. He was allowed some dalliances. But no. That was not what you found on that bright Thursday morning in Atlanta on your 14th wedding anniversary.

That was not what was on the old, crumpled-up letter you’d found stacked in that gauche jean jacket you’d gotten him for Amarachi’s pre-school graduation. A paper so rumpled from years of squeezing, years of folding and refolding that you could barely register the words at first. And at that very moment when Mecha comes in and sees the room all beaten up and in tatters, he looks up at you in utter shock and astonishment. Out of experience, he approaches you tentatively, questioningly. But you stand still, readying yourself.

Then you hold the paper out.

The second Mecha’s eyes fall on it, he staggers visibly, his entire body wrecking. He knows. He falls to the ground, shaking. This is the first time you’ve ever seen your husband defeated. “Ego, I can explain. Please, let me…“

“Tell me. Tell me why you had a vasectomy fourteen years ago, Emecheta!” Dead silence.

“Tell me why you severed your tubes and MADE ME CHILDLESS!”

You wait. Endlessly, tirelessly, you wait. You wait for the only person you’d trusted in your life to justify himself. To give you the answers you so badly need that you can almost feel your brain boiling over in your skull. You wait for him to explain how he singlehandedly destroyed your life like it was nothing.
And at that moment of tense silence, you hear a sleepy, confused voice. “Mummy? Mummy, what’s going on?”

Amarachi enters the room. She sees the scattered room. She sees her father nearly convulsing on the ground. She stares up at your maddened, bloodshot eyes. She does not recognize you anymore. In fear, her legs retreat- just one a beat. Then another.

Suddenly, your mind takes another twirl. You remember your silent vow to yourself and your mother. That is when you finally lose it. Your head throws back and you laugh. Loudly.

Check out the next story from our finalists in the Short Story Challenge#1