And she lived happily ever after

“Don’t go out in the rain.” Those were her grandmother’s last words.

Insignificant as they might seem to an outsider, they were very significant to Bisi. They meant: don’t run into the rain to save plants because they’ll be no one waiting at the door for you to get back anymore”.

Grandma Dumebi had been her granddaughters rock. A rock that shouted when the work was not being done fast enough, a rock that screamed that she was not being taken care of. Bisi knew her grandmother had been afraid that her little granddaughter would pack up and leave her one day. She must have dreaded the day Bisi would come home, dragging a young man along and proclaim him her fiancé.

All these unfounded fears were defeated one day when she fell down the three short stairs at the front of the house.

“What? Did you think I would die of old age? Who dies of old age around here?” Her grandmother had croaked in pain when Bisi had managed to get her on the bed. Yet it was obvious that she too was shocked at the sudden turn of events. An 85 years old woman falling from a considerable height was no small thing.

When the doctor arrived, her grandmother was singing old songs and telling the doctor that she felt just fine and young, and if he wanted a wife he could ask her hand there and then.

Doctor Tunde laughed at her antics, throwing pitying looks over his shoulder at Bisi as she paced the length of the two room house. For once, her grandmother didn’t scream at her to stop pacing and go get some work done. She didn’t say “stop pacing silly girl, you’re making a ruckus in my head” and it scared her. After the examination, Doctor Tunde took off his gloves and beckoned for Bisi to follow him outside.

“Your grandmother is very weak, don’t mind her singing or her sharp tongue” he said with a wry smile. Bisi nodded, she knew very well the old woman was just putting up a front. When she had picked her up from the floor, she had been gasping for breath in the most horrendous manner. Bisi looked up at the doctor, his brown face framed by soft black beard. He was looking off to the right and towards the farm.

“Nice corn you have there,” he said.

“Thank you” Bisi replied

“I have placed the drugs she needs on the table, make sure she takes them,” he said. Then he shook her hand and walked away.

“Hey Bisi” he called. Bisi turned around to see him standing near his bicycle. “Take care of yourself,” he said. His face was serious. Bisi looked at him and didn’t answer, opened the door and went inside to her grandmother.

That was a year ago, since then, Bisi had lived alone in this house. After her grandmother died, she sewed the old lady’s blanket to hers so she could sleep every night feeling that she was close. Farming was going on as smoothly as ever, only that she could no longer farm late into the evening. Preferring to finish up during late afternoon and get back home early for safety sake.

It was October and the rain poured angrily outside the house. Bisi cuddled into her straw blanket, worrying about the corn that were being plummeted in the fields. Young corn shoots, green and safe because they weren’t tall enough for the rain to feel insecure about them. Her thoughts strayed from the farm and she could hear the noise of a rat chewing noisily under her bed.

So reminiscent of her grandmother chewing noisily on a chewing stick that she fell easily back to sleep.

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***

Amaka puts down her pen and stares out the window at the blue sky and the sun on the hibiscus flowers lining the walls near the gate. When she rented this place, the landlady had been surprised that she chose the cheapest and least comfortable room in the house.

She couldn’t tell her that she loved its view of the gate. How it helped her feel less tied down, made her feel at ease because, whenever she felt caged she could look at the gate, touch the key that she always left within reach on her writing table and feel better.

Her stomach rumbles and she closes the book and walks towards the general kitchen. The problem with writing is that it makes you lose track of time and even forget to take basic nourishment like food.

“Good afternoon ma” she greets her landlady. The old woman was busy chopping up vegetables for a pot of soup. Amaka begins to salivate so she quickly turns away lest the woman sees the spit dribbling from the corners of her mouth. Opening her cupboard, she brings out two eggs from the rack and a loaf of bread.

“Don’t you eat anything other than bread?” The old woman asks.

“OK then” the landlady says and goes back to her cooking. Amaka shakes her head. She had been hoping the old woman would suggest she joins her in having that delicious soup for lunch but no luck. She decides she will write that in the story. A benevolent inn keeper inviting Bisi to dinner with her. Interesting turn of events, but then Bisi would have to leave her house and we all know how hard it will be to get Bisi out of her house.

***

The day dawned bright and fair that morning. The rain of the night making everything look and smell so fresh and so new. Bisi put on her long sleeved shirt and her rubber boots and started the journey towards the farm.

The corn stalks were bowing towards the ground. Only a few of them had managed to keep their head high by some miracle. Even her small vegetable patch had been assaulted. The green leaf and scent leaf plants had their heads touching the ground. They all seemed to be waiting for the suns cue to get up and begin a hard day of photosynthesizing. There was nothing Bisi could do but wait with them.

The little shelters she normally erected around them when it rained were lying close to the farm shed. Before her grandmother died, her work had been to run over to the farm and quickly join all the components of the shelters and place them over the vegetables.

She couldn’t do that now because of her grandmothers edict. Now she had the whole farm to herself, all the corn and the vegetables and the air and the birds and all the little sounds. The house had a certain smell these days, not the morbid smell of death definitely but the smell of loss, as though it knew that grandma was gone. Amaka sat down on the soft earth and began to pick the little grasses around the vegetables.

When she was done she picked some tomatoes and peppers and took them to the house. When she approached her house, she saw the doctor sitting at her doorstep with a parcel in his hands.

“Hello doctor” she greeted as she neared him

“Bisi, call me Tunde” he scolded for the umpteenth time. Bisi ignored him and walked into the house. She wasn’t pleased with the manner in which he called her name as if claiming her. She took the parcel from him and opened it, rolls of powdered milk spilled out. The gift raised the bar on her opinion of him, afterall it was only a sensible man that knew the appropriate gift for a girl who farmed corn and vegetables.

“What are we having for dinner?” He asked. She stared at him nonplussed.

“What?!” She watched as he emptied her basket of vegetables.

“What are we going to have for dinner?” he asked, he washed his hands and picked a knife from the utensil hanger on the wall.

“No, no! You don’t have to do that!” Amaka said trying in vain to take the knife from him.

“But I am hungry!” He pouted. She glared at him, but her glares only made him smile and resume washing the vegetables.

They had a meal of yam and vegetable sauce prepared by the doctor himself. Bisi had to admit it was delicious and that he wasn’t bragging when he said he cooked well.

“The food is delicious “ she says. His fingertips suddenly made contact with her lips, and for a moment she was confused before she registered that he was trying to shush her.

“Don’t talk while eating” he said with his infuriating smile. Making her feel as though she was uncouth and totally lacking manners. She contemplated leaving the table on the pretext that she didn’t want to eat anymore, but the meal was just too good.

After they had eaten and washed up, Tunde picked up his bag and bid her farewell. She watched him walk through the gate and disappear. Then she sat down heavily and began to think. What was the reason for the doctor’s sudden interest in her? Did he pity her? Or was he a monster who just desired to take advantage of a lonely orphan living alone and without protection of any kind?

***

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Amaka drops her pen and scratches behind her ear, the moon is already shining outside at this time. She gets up, puts on her slippers and walks into the moonlight. Idly playing with the possibility of Bisi falling helplessly into the arms of the young doctor. How would it be to paint her in the same canvass with a lot of other young women characters who just live to use men as emotional crutches and wheelchairs?

The house door behind her opens and her next door neighbor walks out shirtless.

“Amaka good evening o” he greets.

“Festus, How you dey nau?” She asks him.

“Heat wan finish me o!” She notices that he is holding a cup of water in his hand which he proceeds to put in his very muscled and smooth body.

Amaka stares appreciatively at the beautiful display of masculinity. Then she thinks how indecent it would have been if she were the one out here shirtless and his total ignorance on the effect his state of undress was having on me.

“Hey Amaka” Mr hot body calls and she turns to him. “How about we hang out tomorrow?” He smiles encouragingly at her, his eyes and her body almost forcing her to say yes.

“No, I’m sorry. I have too much to do” she tells him, waves and goes back into her room, her hand itching to hold her pen.

***

The next morning all her fears were confirmed. Bright and early she heard a knock at her door. She glided quietly off her bed and tiptoed to the window. The blasted young man was standing there in green overalls, with a hoe slung over his shoulders.

“What are you doing here?!” She asked him, her heart beating fast. She knew too well how a how could be used as a weapon so she wasn’t taking any chances. The wood she held behind the door weighed heavily on her hand.

“Good morning to you too” he said brightly. “Can I come in?”

They stood there staring at each other for a while before she finally exhaled and stepped out of the way. After breakfast, which he insisted on preparing, they went out into the farm. It was the first time in twenty years since her parents died that she was going to the farm in the company of someone other than her grandmother.

“It is beautiful” he said as they stood under the shed and watched the sun suck up all the moisture from the leaves.

“I work here everyday” Bisi said. Claiming her land and all its beauty for herself. Even her knew trust would come late for her and It would take her time to learn that sometimes it is alright to share things with someone else.

***

Amaka stands by her window watching the dawn, one more day in which she will be forced to confront the fiction that is her life. Her thoughts travel to her husband a thousand miles away who being tired of all her comings and goings had told her that if she were to leave then she must not leave as his wife.

Yet the part that hurt her the most was having to leave her children behind and enduring her husbands satisfied smirk of “yes, you won’t be taking anything with you”. The cruel man, she could not and can not blame him for his hostility, neither can she blame herself for wanting to be alone.

How would a child have fared in this environment? She touches her flat belly, feeling its hollowness, realizing she barely ate anything except her daily ration of white bread yesterday. She stares at her brown skin, and almost hears it yearning to see the sun. Starved of warmth from long days spent cooped up in a corner, bent over the table writing.

What do you gain from this finally? Her husband had asked in a rare moment when he was feeling less hateful of her. That day as today, she had no definite answer to give him or herself. When they met in their university days, her husband had told her she was blessed. God had been partial to her, he claimed, giving her so much of everything.

Ten years later he was singing a different song. He hated that she always chose writing over him and wanted her to quit it. Amaka didn’t know what to do, so she ran away.

***

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Bisi ran a hand over the gate as she closed it. The iron was cold to her touch and the moisture clung to her fingers. Tunde stood behind her waiting, he was in his smart doctor’s coat because yesterday he had come straight from work to have dinner with her.

“Have you ever thought of leaving this place?” He asked her.

“Yes, many times,” she said, dropping her fork and staring out the window.

“When will you leave?” He asked.

She turned to him sharply “I don’t know!”

“Let us leave tomorrow” he said earnestly, reaching for her hand “we needn’t go far and it is not as if we are disappearing”

“I don’t know”

Throughout the night she thought about his words as she listened to his heavy breathing at the other side of the house. It was true that the only thing that kept her tethered to the house and the farm was fear and heartbreak.

She felt that by leaving she would be betraying her grandmother and her parents. Even the corn would definitely miss her, and the vegetables. Who would cover them up when it rained? Besides, she had very little money. How would she fend for herself. Yet he said she didn’t have to leave for long.

The inn was a squat house painted brown and yellow. When she stepped inside, the warmth of the place swallowed her.

“Hello darling” an old woman greeted from over the counter.

“Good evening ma” Amaka greeted, and the old woman’s eyes crinkled at the corners.

“Come on, join me in the kitchen” the old woman said walking into the house. Amaka followed her from a safe distance.

In the kitchen, a pot of soup bubbled on the stove. The atmosphere in the kitchen was simply delicious. As the soup bubbled, the women turned fufu in another pot.

Later Amaka sat at the table with the old woman and a young man. The young man reminded her of Tunde. She wondered what he would be doing now, maybe turning off the lights in her little house and preparing to sleep. In her heart she thanked him for deciding to stay back and take care of the house and farm for her. Then she concentrated on eating her fufu.

***

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Amaka holds her pen poised over the paper. She considers continuing the story or stopping here and just writing ..and she lived happily ever after. Then she looks around her room, the unmade bed, the dirty clothes littering the floor, the dirty cups in the corner and she realizes it would be hard for her to give someone else a happy ever after while she lives in such depression and squalor.

A knock sounds at the door and she gets up to answer it, knocking down the book in her haste.

“Can I join you?” Mr hot body asks at the door. He is carrying a plate of something that smells so nice, so she quickly opens the door for him to step in. Once in, he hands her the plate of food and walks towards her writing space.

What are you writing about? He asks her, bending to pick the open book on the floor.

“A happy ever after” she replies, licking off the yam pottage coating her fingers.