The sound of breaking glass, Yemi’s shrill voice wailing in the background, Ejiro’s mocking laughter resounding in her ears…
Oma opened her eyes with a start. She blinked and straightened up on the hard seat of the pew. She looked around with the realization that she’d dozed off while staring at the monstrance. She had been staring at the golden monstrance for an hour since she came into the church. She could hardly summon any word of prayer, so she just sat and watched the altar, counting the spikes surrounding the monstrance, looking at the people as they came and left, forcing herself not to think of her marriage.
Her eyes fell on a woman kneeling behind the railing that separated the altar from the rest of the church. She was probably in her mid-thirties, only a few years older than Oma. The woman’s lips moved rapidly, her body shivering with the intensity of her prayers.
A prayerful woman keeps her family together and protects her home from outsiders.
“I am prayerful,” she whispered to herself. Wasn’t she?
The home she’d built in ten years showed evidence. She woke her family as early as six, chorusing songs from the hymnbook. She enjoyed compliments from neighbours that their voices were angelic. She would lead them in praying the rosary, alternating between Yoruba and English, and they would follow after her. They took the intercessory prayers in turns. Her son, Dafe, prayed for the day’s meal and the children with nothing to eat; he prayed for his exams, for his parents and then for his teachers at school. Her youngest child, Yemi, prayed for her parents, too, for her grandmother and that her brother wouldn’t tease her. Ejiro prayed the shortest, committing his job into God’s hands. She prayed the longest, starting from their small family to the extended family and then whatever bad news hit the news the previous day.
She had created a happy home. They were supposed to be happy.
Divorce. The word still tasted like an unwashed bitter leaf in her mouth, dry and dirty and bitter. Constant repetition of the word didn’t make it any more palatable. Neither did it reduce the sting of the word coming out of Ejiro’s mouth. His now-pink lips that he now used to kiss another woman. On their ninth wedding anniversary, she’d gifted him the miracle lip scrub and balm. Then monitored him for regular usage. Was it the pink lips? she thought. The last time he kissed her with those soft lips was on Yemi’s two-year birthday celebration three months ago. The framed picture replaced the one from the previous year’s wedding anniversary on her desk at the office.
I do.
Ejiro wanted a divorce. She scraped at the candle wax on the backrest of the pew in front of her. After ten years of marriage. Why? What had she done wrong?
A young woman, most likely in her early twenties, wearing jeans sat in front of her. A pungent smell clogged her nose making her slide to the other end of the pew. She looked at the woman. The white handkerchief on her head did little to cover her thick and curly wig. She knelt, made the sign of the cross then clasped her hands in front of her chest. Oma noticed the shiny silver on her middle finger. She looked down at the gold band on her ring finger. In the past, she hardly noticed its weight. But since Sunday, the 4-gram band was beginning to feel heavy on her hand. She blinked rapidly as she put her other hand over it protectively. I never want to take it off, she’d told Ejiro the night of their wedding.
She closed her eyes and attempted to pray again. Nothing. She licked her lips and then started humming a hymn. In her mind’s eye, she saw her and Ejiro walking down the aisle, then performing the traditional marriage rites. She saw Ejiro pacing the hospital corridors while she pushed Dafe into the world and Ejiro rushing through traffic as Yemi took her first breath. They moved into their current home six months after Yemi’s birth. Ejiro bought the furniture based on her requirements and they held hands and smiled at visitors as they showed them around the three-storey house. Her teeth were chattering now. A tingle of pain spiked through her nose. She bit her lips to still the chattering and squeezed the muscles of her eyes.
The pain was back. The fist squeezing her chest, threatening to steal her breath. Her mind went back to last Sunday.
“Oma, I want a divorce,” Ejiro said when she started clearing the plates. They had just finished lunch. The kids were watching a cartoon in the parlour.
Her hands stilled. She looked at him. “What are you saying?”
“I want to get a divorce.” His voice was cool as though he was just talking about what the kids would have for dinner.
“Where is this coming from? Why?”
“I’m in love with another woman. She loves me too.”
She scratched at an itch on her elbow, surprised at how calm she was being. “Since when?”
“I met her when I travelled to Abuja. For the retreat. I didn’t expect it to go this far.”
A hysterical laugh had escaped from her lips. The retreat. It was a church retreat that they were supposed to go to together. But Yemi had gotten ill and she had to remain at home. Ejiro looked at her with creased brows.
“Why?” she asked.
“I just told-”
It was at that moment that she lost her cool and shouted at him, “Why are you leaving the children? And me? What did we do wrong? Have I not been a good wife? Have I not given you a healthy home?”
His shock at her outburst was visible on his face, his lips opened slightly and his wide eyes stared at her. She’d always been the quiet one. But did he expect her to take the news with a smile on her face?
“I’m not going to agree to it,” she said finally and continued to tidy up the table.
He stood up. “I will let you think about it.”
“There’s nothing to think about,” she said but he already left the dining. Her hands stilled for a few seconds before she picked up the plates and took them to the kitchen. That night, she sat on the couch after Ejiro and the children went to bed, and cried.
A light tap brought her back to the church. She opened her eyes. The young woman stood in front of her. “Can I borrow your prayerbook?” she whispered, pointing at the book on Oma’s lap.
Oma handed the book to her. She stretched her leg over the kneeler and scratched at her knees. Ejiro had not said anything else since Sunday. She wanted to think that the conversation was a product of her imagination and that everything was okay. She preferred not to think about Ejiro not coming home on Monday night or the packets of condoms she found in his pocket while she was arranging his clothes that morning.
She touched her wedding ring and looked up at the monstrance. A child was now kneeling next to the young woman. His hands were joined together and his eyes tightly shut. She imagined the child praying for peace in the world or something as inconsequential as a toy gun. Dafe had once prayed for a toy car and she pulled his ears, cautioning him to be less selfish when he prayed: “Pray for the world. Pray for orphans. Pray for your parents.” He listened. But she suspected that during the moment of silent prayers, he prayed for himself and new toys. She looked away from the child, blinking rapidly.
A prayerful woman keeps her family together and protects her home from outsiders.
She knelt on the cushiony kneeler and clasped her hands like the young woman in the seat in front of her. She was not going to agree to Ejiro and she suspected he knew it. But it only had another implication for them—her, Dafe and Yemi.
When she closed her eyes again, a sigh of resignation left her lips.
Read – The Journey of the Black-eyed Susan – A Short Story by Nyaka Neo, South Africa
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