Later, she thought about the conversation, a mix of emotions within her—a burst of bliss followed by a moment of self-loathing.
She called Uzomma to ask her over for dinner. On the third ring she gave up. Perhaps Uzomma was asleep. Still, Uzomma didn’t pick up her phone the next day, or the day after. By then Lipe was worried enough to go to her room for the first time. The bronze nameplate holder rattled as she knocked on the door. She heard a sound, like a tumble of things, and then Uzomma opened the door. She seemed unhappy to see Lipe.
“What’s wrong?” Lipe asked.
Uzomma shrugged and stood aside. A splay of sunlight fell across the rumpled bed. A suitcase lay open. Lipe sat down beside it. “You haven’t returned any of my calls.”
Uzomma started humming. She went to the closet, flung out clothes, stuffed them into the suitcase. Because Lipe now noticed the dim arcs beneath her eyes, she asked, slowly, “Where are you going?”
“Enugu.”
“You didn’t tell me you were travelling.”
“Well, you didn’t tell me you were leaving, Madam.”
“What?”
“The foreign policy lecture. You just disappeared. I was worried at first then I guessed you were in one of your moods.”
It took Lipe a while to respond. “Something came up.”
“Something you couldn’t tell me since I’m only good for lectures and boring parties.” If she had raised her voice, Lipe might not have felt so ashamed.
Uzomma folded a maxi dress, her motions filled with an unsettling solemnity. “My son is well. That’s why I have to go home.”
Lipe kept her voice neutral. “You have a son?”
“Yes. And he’s well.”
For a perplexing minute, Lipe wondered what she meant. Then she remembered Mrs. Owolabi, her neighbour in Lagos who would say she was well whenever she was ill. A Pentecostal custom steeped in professing the positive, in stating what one desired, not what one had. Lipe had always thought it unrealistic, but with the desolate slump in Uzomma’s shoulders and the ashen sheen to her face, that ideal collapsed. “Oh my God. Uzomma, I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” Uzomma smiled. “You’re not the only one who can keep a secret around here.”
To think Uzomma of all people had a child. It was like being dropped in a foreign country where nobody spoke English. “What’s his name?”
“Chibuzor. Don’t ask me about his father.”
When Chibuzor was two, doctors found a hole in his heart. After his surgery in India, Uzomma decided to go back to school. This caused some family trouble. Past hurts were wrung out until her parents agreed to care for him. They didn’t tell her he had a relapse, but then he needed another surgery, and they couldn’t hide it anymore.
“I feel as if I caused this somehow,” Uzomma said. “I shouldn’t have abandoned him.”
“Stop being overdramatic. You didn’t abandon him. You left him for a while. And even if you hadn’t left him back then, you would have still had to leave him one day. Life must go on. It’s a universal law.”
“Please. This is not the time for big grammar. Allow me to be angry with myself.” Uzomma played with the ends of her cornrows, dry and fuzzy like lint on her neck.
As Lipe watched her, she remembered her own anger when Dafe said there was a situation. She imagined a future version of herself, burdened by mysteries, her entire life on hold for him. She could just see him crouching in a basement, whispering, “What colour are your panties?” to her on the phone, while his real lover slept in their bedroom. After hanging up he’d go to his real lover and ask, “So what colour are your panties?” and she’d say, “Blue,” and he’d roll them down her thighs and laugh and laugh because they were in fact red, not blue. The scene made Lipe a little sick. She could no longer put off what she had to do. When next Dafe called, she would tell him to fuck off, and then delete his number. No. She would lead him on, receive his calls two more times, maybe three. Only then would she gain the courage to say what had to be said.
“Should I take this with me?” Uzomma asked, holding up a neon sweater with a limp neckline.
Lipe didn’t bother reminding her that she wouldn’t need it. She would put it into her suitcase no matter what, Lipe knew. She would wear it in the seething Nigerian heat whether or not people mocked her. And she would scowl if she saw anyone in a miniskirt or a low cut top.
“Lipe?” Uzomma called, a slight edge of impatience to her voice. Yet there was something else in it, a kind of eagerness, as if Lipe’s opinion really mattered. She was still holding up the sweater.
“Take it with you,” Lipe said.