Page 102 of Cursed Daughters
“Who do you think I am?”
“What?”
“Who do you think I am? Am I me? Or…am I Monife?”
Again Ebun failed to respond, and again Eniiyi walked deeper into the water.
“Okay, okay! You are you, Eniiyi. Of course you’re you.”
“So why are you so afraid?” she asked. Her mother hesitated, then turned away, headed back towards their parked car.
—
She spent the next week in her room, with only the ancient bulk of Sango for company. She hadn’t planned to stay locked away, but even deciding what to wear gave her anxiety. Was she selecting this top, or those shoes, becauseshewanted to, or because Monife favoured this style of top or that colour shoe? It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did, and it meant she was unable to move forward.
How much autonomy did she even have over her body? It moved of its own accord when she sleepwalked, and she was not certain her heart was her own.
She passed her nights in a feverish state. She tried to drink to avoid dreaming of Monife, and she stumbled through the passing days. She ignored the knocks on her door, and her endlessly vibrating phone. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, especially not Zubby. She felt a sharp pain in her gut whenever she thought of him. She needed to figure out how they could move forward—ifthey could move forward—but for now, she would rather not think of him atall.
On the eighth day of her solitude, she took scissors to her hair and cut her glorious afro off. Then she proceeded to shave her head. She gathered her hair together and shoved it in a black bag, and as she did so, she caught sight of Zubby’s leather bracelet on her wrist.
She took it off and resolved to toss it away with the hair, but then she found she couldn’t. She looked around for a place to hide it out of sight, then she saw the iroko tree, stretching up from the bareearth in the garden. She paused; she had the idea to bury it. If she and Zubby got back together, then she could unearth it, their love renewed. If they didn’t, then…in a grave was where it belonged.
She went to the shed in the garden and took out a trowel, then came back to the tree. She started to dig. She felt as though she was in a trance. She kept digging until the shovel blade hit something that sang. She pulled it out. It was a biscuit tin—Royal Dansk.
IV
Grandma West died that night. Eniiyi went to bring her down for breakfast. She entered and opened the curtains to let the light in. It didn’t initially alarm her that the old woman was still in bed. Sometimes her grand-aunt would oversleep, but hearing Eniiyi rummaging about, having the room filled with light, was generally enough to wake her.
“Grandma?” There was no response, and the figure on the bed was still cloaked in the little darkness provided by the angle of the room. “Grandma.”
She inched closer, the dread increasing with every step she took. She reached out her hand. Her grand-aunt was cool to the touch. She ran out of the room and shut the door behind her, and then went to find her mother. Ebun was seated at the table, talking quietly to Grandma East.
“Mum, can I speak to you for a second?”
Grandma East’s mouth fell open. “Eniiyi, what have you done to your hair?!”
“Mum?” she said in a quiet voice.
“You haven’t gone to get your grandma yet?” was her mother’s reply. If she was surprised by Eniiyi’s low cut, she chose not to mention it. “The ogi will get cold.”
“I just want to talk to you first.”
“Okay?”
“Alone.”
“Since when did we start keeping secrets in this house?” Grandma East complained as they left her in the dining room.
“What is it?” her mother asked as they stood in the corridor. Eniiyi struggled to say the words. “Spit it out.”
“It…it’s Grandma West…” She didn’t have to say more than that. Perhaps it was the look on her face, perhaps it was the way her voice broke. But her response sent her mother racing away from her and towards the west wing’s staircase. Eniiyi followed. When she got to the bedroom, she saw her mother holding Grandma West’s wrist, looking for a pulse.
“Okay,” she said, laying the old woman’s hand gently back on the bed. “Okay. Okay. Okay.”
V
It was Ebun who broke the news to Grandma East, Ebun who held Grandma East as she crumpled and cried, Ebun who gathered the things Grandma East would need to wash her sister’s body, and Ebun who led her mother to Grandma West’s room, then closed the door behind her, leaving the sisters alone. Eniiyi stayed hidden in her own room, buried under her duvet, unable to face the fact that the family she’d always known would never be the same again.
