Page 76 of Cursed Daughters
Mo couldn’t even gather the energy to feel betrayed. She had thought she would be the one to defy the curse, but she was just another Falodun woman left broken-hearted.
On January 8, 1996, she woke up and stared at the ceiling. The sadness threatened to engulf her. It was six a.m. He would be up already. He was getting married in a family church that his parents and grandparents had contributed generously to over the years. Service would begin at nine a.m. Was he excited? Terrified? Was he getting cold feet? Was he thinking of her?
There was a water mark on the ceiling, a small brown patch. She wondered where it had come from. The house was quiet.
It was eight a.m. Surely they would be headed to the church now, he with his groomsmen, Mrs. K in a separate car, beaming with pride. She sat up and fingered the cool chain on her ankle. She had thought many times of removing it. But as she spun it around with her finger, she decided to leave it as a reminder of her emotional bondage.
Ten a.m. They would have announced them as man and wife. The door to her room creaked open. Ebun popped her headin.
“There’s food downstairs.” When Mo didn’t say anything, Ebun continued, “You should eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten anything in three days.”
It was true. Her head was fuzzy, her body lead. But if she ate, her body would come alive and so would the pain. Right now, it had receded to a dull throbbing at the back of her skull.
“Should I bring something for you?”
“I’m fine.”
And with that, her cousin was gone.
Twelve p.m. They would be at their reception, dancing with their guests. They were Barbie and Ken. Cinderella and Prince Charming. Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown.
It was the end of a chapter. And Mo was forced to look away.
PART IX
Eniiyi
(2024–2025)
I
How to tell if I am a reincarn
How to know if you are a reincarnated
Am I reincarnated?
How to know if I am reincarnated
How to tell if you are a reincarnation
She scanned the results and scrolled down to Quora and Reddit. Some users claimed to have memories that couldn’t have belonged to them—a child recalling how he liked to drive, a woman who remembered being a nurse in World War II, a man unable to shake the sense that he had been stabbed in a previous life. She did her best to suspend her disbelief; she wanted so dearly to reason with those individuals—a child could conflate reality and fiction, as could an adult. The subconscious often played tricks. But she was hardly in a position to doubt their experiences.
She didn’t have any memories of being Monife. Sometimes she had the uncomfortable sense of déjà vu, but didn’t everyone? She exited the sites and read a few related articles—recurring dreams, birthmarks, physical and personality similarities. But what did that really prove?
Sango rested at her feet whilst she swiped the screen of her iPad. “What can I do to get it to stop, Sango?” she asked, and then she remembered that Sango was likely making the same connection her family made. He had, after all, been Mo’s dog.
She sighed; she was being drawn back into the madness. As a child, she had taken it for granted that she was Monife, and thenshe had left for boarding school and gotten some perspective. But these days, having moved back home, she felt like her sense of self was slipping.
Even if she had the exact same DNA as Monife, even if she was somehow a clone of the dead woman, wouldn’t epigenetics come into play? But then there was no avoiding the fact that she was living in the same environment as her aunt, surrounded by the same three women…
She came across a comment on a blog about epigenetics and generational trauma, which wasn’t on her bingo card for the day but which sent her down a rabbit hole. What if the trauma of losing the love, stability and social standing that came with marriage had left epigenetic markers on generation after generation of the Falodun women? What if the neurons in their brains were triggering her mother, grandmother and grand-aunt to select the wrong partner, andthatwas the “curse”?
Her phone vibrated. Zubby had tagged her in an Instagram post. It was a picture of her threading her hair. You could only see her profile and he hadn’t written a caption, but it made her smile. She opened her WhatsApp chat and messaged him:
