Page 74 of Cursed Daughters
“It’s nothing.”
“This isn’t nothing, Mo!”
“It’s…I was…” He was waiting. He would be patient. He would wait for her to speak. But this time, she wished he would talk over her. How to explain his name on a pad? “I don’t…”
“You don’t have anything to say?”
“I may have made a mistake, Kalu, but…I didn’t even go through with it.”
“For God’s sake, Mo, juju? I thought you were better than that.”
“I just wanted us—”
“No. This is aboutyou. About your needs and your insecurities. You’re not thinking about me at all.” He was looking at her as though he was seeing her for the first time; and he was disgusted with what he was seeing. “I would never have thought you would go this low.”
“Babe, I’m sorry. I was out of line. I…I…just panicked.”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses. You could have talked to me.”
“I tried that…”
“So you don’t get your way and…you decide to use juju?!” It sounded terrible the way he phrased it. It hadn’t been that way at all. She had to get him to see reason.
“I barely used it.”
“Oh! Great! Youbarelyused it!”
“I was just afraid I would lose you.”
He swore. He never swore. “I told you you could trust me.”
“But you’re still seeing her!”
He rubbed the middle of his forehead with his fingers, as if he were some long-suffering husband.
“If you can’t trust me, what are we even doing?”
“Kalu, please…” She began to walk towards him, reached for him; but he ignored the gesture and took several steps back.
“Maybe what my mum says is true. Maybe you’re not…not right for me.”
Falodun Family Curse
Afoke, daughter of Kunle, son of Tobi, daughter of Yemisi, daughter of Wemimo, daughter of Feranmi (the one who was cursed), was aggressive about acquiring a husband for herself. She was terrified of the curse. She sensed it in the corridors of the Falodun house, watching them, laughing at them. How could anyone deny its existence? To her, it was a tangible thing.
There were whispers amongst her sisters. They all thought she was unhinged; and her supposed madness reduced the probability that she would find a man and escape from the house. Already her two older sisters had earned the title of spinster, and the twenty-five-year-old was not so far behind them. What else was Afoke to do except throw herself at her younger sister’s boyfriend?
Sayo was playing the long game, but Afoke had no time to lose. She seduced her future husband whilst he waited for his girlfriend to return from the market. And she held him in her with her powerful determined thighs, as he attempted to disengage. When she announced her pregnancy, he was forced to do the honourable thing; no matter that Sayo was weeping and doing an impression of a stuck pig. The girl was only nineteen. She would find someone new.
But no one had warned her that there was life after the wedding. She had spent so much time obsessing over thecurse, and now that she had bested it, she did not know what to do with herself. It quickly became clear that her husband found her wanting. She was a lousy cook, a disengaged mother and an unenthusiastic lover. When he gave her money, instead of buying food, she would gamble with it. The gambling crowd welcomed her; she played fast and loose. She took ill-advised risks. She lost money and came back for more.
The day her husband caught her taking cash out of his wallet was the day he sent her packing. And as she carried her baggage out of her marital home, she thought she saw the curse, watching her through the window and waving.
II
Golden Boy wasn’t returning her calls, and it was as though she were floating in a black void. Monife wanted to tell him she was sorry, to explain to him how afraid she had been and to remind him she loved him. It had to matter that she loved him.
Eventually he showed up at her house on a Saturday. She was chewing on a sugar cane below the iroko tree whilst watching Sango dance around a line of ants. She recognised his car horn at the gate and ran down to meet him. He drove in and parked.
