Page 71 of Cursed Daughters
They didn’t say anything, but her mother looked at her aunt and her aunt did not blink.
“Aunty?”
“What?!” cried Aunty Bunmi.
“Have you been telling Eniiyi that—”
“I only say she looks like her. It’s not a lie na. Moti is the spitting image of Monife.”
“That’s all you’ve said? That she looks like her aunty?”
“Maybe I mentioned once that some people come back to life…”
Ebun groaned. She wanted to throw herself at the older woman.
“Aren’t you making too big a deal of this, Ebun? What is really the harm?” Her mum’s voice was pleading, conciliatory.
“This is Eniiyi’s life.Herlife. Not a shared one with a woman who chose to end hers.”
“You will NOT talk about my daughter like that!” cried Aunty Bunmi
“If you won’t face the truth, that’s your problem, not Eniiyi’s. I do not want her head filled with all this rubbish.”
In the corner of her eye, a movement. Monife was standing in the doorway. No, not Monife. Eniiyi. How much had she heard? Then Ebun remembered she had been speaking in Yoruba, and her daughter’s grasp of the language was still rudimentary.
“Eniiyi, come here.”
Eniiyi entered the room slowly. Their eyes met, but Eniiyi’s gaze was steely.
“Listen to me. You are not a reincarnation. You are you. And if anyone tells you differently, report them to me.”
“We are not trying to hurt her,” interrupted her mother. “We love Eniiyi as much as you do, Ebun. You are behaving as though you need to protect her from us.”
“I don’t want any more talk of reincarnation or of Mo.”
“You can’t force me to stop talking about my daughter. This is not even your house!” shouted her aunt.
“Perhaps I should consider moving out, then, and taking my daughter with me!”
“Ebun, relax. There is no need for all—”
“If you both refuse to respect my boundaries, then it is no good for me to be here.”
They were quiet. Her mother focused on her hands, her aunt on a wall. Then Eniiyi spoke. “I won’t follow you. You can go by yourself.”
“Eniiyi, don’t talk to your mother like that.”
“I wish she wasn’t my mother,” and with that, her daughter left the room.
VIII
In the end, Eniiyi emancipated herself.
Ebun was catching up on work in the living room; since her promotion in the finance team, she found herself working even in her downtimes. Her mother was on a date and Aunty Bunmi was at a PTA meeting. Ebun had sent Eniiyi to her room with instructions that she finish her homework, so she was not expecting to see her daughter thirty minutes later with three brochures in her hand.
“I want to go to boarding school.”
“Excuse me?”
