Page 31 of Cursed Daughters
“He is not my boyfriend, Grandma.”
“You know, you are not getting any younger! I was married with a child at your age.”
“And a single mother a handful of years later,” Ebun muttered.
Grandma East ignored her daughter. “Is your friend Yoruba?”
“What does it matter, Grandma?”
“It matters!” Grandma West joined. Her grand-aunt’s voice was sharp, loud. Eniiyi was taken aback. Sure, their cultures were different, but that was nothing new. They all had friends and colleagues from diverse tribes—Igbo, Edo, Fulani…it went on and on. It had never occurred to her that when it came to marriage, her family might be tribalistic. She looked at her mother, but Ebun’s reaction was hard to read, essentially because she was studying the floor.
X
The waves were turbulent. That should have been her first sign. But she simply noted the change in the weather as she would have in real life. She walked towards Monife, as she always did. There was certainly comfort in familiarity.
She would stand beside her dead aunt, they would look out on the horizon; and eventually she would wake and go on about herday.
So when Monife turned her head round to her, Eniiyi was not prepared, and therefore her brain did not immediately process the fact that something was different this time. Then she saw it: tears were falling fast and free from Mo’s inscrutable eyes.
“What is it?”
And then the woman spoke with Eniiyi’s voice: “Not again.”
PART IV
Ebun
(2000–2006)
I
The first three months of being a mother were a blur.
Kemi was exactly the type of grandma that Ebun had predicted—she would swing by in the morning, dance with the baby in her arms, blow her darling several kisses, then disappear with one of several wealthy suitors into Lagos society.
She was caught up in a quest to ensnare a fourth husband and/or a secondary income for their household. She was a fifty-three-year-old mother of four, but thanks to the joint efforts of Spandex and Wonderbra, her waist was tiny, her breasts still perky. She rarely raised her voice, she laughed often and freely, and she knew better than to argue with a man. When the average man fantasised about who his wife would be, Ebun was certain it was her mother that their imagination conjured up. Kemi’s latest target was a twice-divorced second son of a multimillionaire. He had not done much with the privilege he had been born with, but he was the favoured child and so he wanted for nothing, which meant he would be more than happy to share his fortune with the woman of his dreams. And all the best to them.
The real threat to Ebun’s peace was Aunty Bunmi, who was by far the more hands-on of the two sisters. She had given the baby her first bath—furiously chewing tobacco leaves while slathering palm oil all over Eniiyi’s body, then proceeding to give her a far more vigorous wash than Ebun thought necessary considering the child was only a couple of days old. Eniiyi’s cries set her teeth on edge, but she resisted the urge to snatch her from her aunt’s arms.
But it didn’t end with the bath. Aunty Bunmi wanted to involve herself in every decision Ebun made. She wanted Eniiyi dressed in “feminine” colours and would huff and puff if Ebun did not comply. She would come into Ebun’s room at all hours to check on the baby. And she was constantly correcting the way Ebun carried her child, nursed her child, loved her child. Ebun wanted to be kind, she really did. Aunty Bunmi had lost her daughter and Eniiyi was a way for her to distract herself, but her patience was wearing thin.
The previous week, perhaps she had taken a beat longer than she should have done to respond to Eniiyi’s cries, but when she arrived in her room, she was surprised to see Aunty Bunmi sitting on the bed, holding the baby and feeding her formula.
“I thought I told you I wanted to wait to introduce her to the bottle…”
“Eh. You did. But you are always so tired. This way, we can all feed her. And the pressure won’t be only on you.”
“Did I complain about the pressure?”
“Yesterday, you fell asleep standing up.” That was beside the point.
“How long have you been doing this? How long have you been giving her formula?”
“I can’t watch her suffer. You want me to just look at Moti starving and not do anything?”
“Her name is Eniiyi. And yes, I want you to listen to—”
“Your mother and I have done this before. You should listen to our advice.”
