Kitchen Chats

by Dorcas Akobundu

Abia, Nigeria

Ndidiamaka leans against the wall of her flat, trying to ease the weight stuck in her chest. The rough paint pattern on the grey wall, from a time when it was the in-thing, stabs her palms, and she’s sure it’s going to leave marks. But for now, she can’t be too bothered. Her long turquoise gown is tight at the stomach area, the silver gele is tight on her scalp, pulling at the soft, fragile front hair she’s managed to keep from falling off too much. Her stomach is screaming: hunger. She really should have eaten at the wedding.

"Breathe," she whispers to herself. It’s just stress, nothing more. It has been the best and most hectic week of her entire life—which is to say much given her age.

"Be happy," she whispers to herself, yet again. Her daughter is now a Mrs. Not just that, but married to a fine, young man. She should be happy.

But she’s not. She’s alone. Back to the very beginning with her wounds open, mocking, clear.

Then as if nothing is wrong, she straightens, unlocks the door and enters. Can’t stand there too long and have her talkative neighbour running off to add her to her new gossip mill.

The darkness dances in front of her, welcoming her back into this pit of a home. She's greeted with the bare corner in the parlour where Binyelum’s shoe rack would have been on any other day but is gone. Emptiness. Hasn’t it always been her companion?

The ridiculously high heels are the first to kiss the ground in a frenzy. A thing that felt normal when she was still in her twenties. Now she’s forty plus, and her bones are beginning to ache at any little strain. But Emeka says she doesn’t look a day over thirty-five. Good at flattering, that one. Maybe she really should take him more seriously with Binyelum gone. There should be someone to warm the house for her and. . .

No, stupid, you shouldn’t think of that.

Still, she can’t help but feel young at heart, and awkwardly so. There’s still a part of her stuck in that time she was a sweet chick, still living life—the high life. She was the popular departmental chick, and Binyelum’s Father, Peter, was the departmental high-life boy. Now look at what her life is, while he’s out there somewhere, not even caring about his child, or about her, their past long buried in the soil of the bitterness and hustle that comes with being a Nigerian.

She enters the kitchen to boil water for a warm bath, the upper part of her gown resting on the lower part like water on a river bed. She plans on savouring the rest of her evening in the best way she can. It’s unlike her other Saturdays, the ones where she would’ve been in the Pharmacy, trying to meet up with the steady weekend influx of customers and patients looking to undermine her professional advice with words like: My doctor said this, my doctor said that.

Her phone rings. It sounds far away, but she ambles to get it, stopping to adjust her bra hand and noting the stretch marks on her stomach. She manages to answer it before it stops ringing and retraces her steps back to the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“Madam, someone is asking for you.” It’s her Pharmacy assistant, James. Always one to ask silly questions and not obey the most basic of instructions. Yet, she keeps him out of habit.

“You are aware today is my daughter’s wedding, right?”

“But Madam, you suppose don come back.”

Rage swirls in the pit of her stomach, and she doesn’t think through the words before she lets them out. “If you call me again, I won’t answer, so listen, I'll come in tomorrow by 4 p.m. I need to attend my daughter’s Thanksgiving in church tomorrow. Don’t call me. When you see me, you can relay whatever it is you have to tell me so urgently.”

She cuts the call, drops the phone on the small table and stares off at the tiled walls of the kitchen. The seat opposite her is empty. The pots are empty too, she doesn’t bother to check. Her sister in-law will soon bring the leftover food for her, and she will eat it. But for now, she stares into thin air and waits for the water to boil.

There’s a certain twinge that comes with missing something or someone you never realized you had. That’s what happens to her. She didn’t realize she had a daughter still within reach, until now. Now, she’s gone. Gone with their kitchen chats. Gone with the gauze that covered her wounds.

___

“Mommy.”

She turns towards the source of the voice. It can be anyone calling her Mommy. Some of the church members do it to annoy her. It can be her brother or her sister-in-law, even. But she can’t forget her child’s voice, even though a dark, tiny part of her would very much like to. At the last minute, when Binyelum’s face comes into view, she smiles and says, “My daughter, how are you?”

Binyelum pulls her in for a hug, and she wants to tell her there’s no need. No need to pretend to be what they aren’t, what they never were—a loving Mother and daughter. Still, she goes along with it. Jasmine. She picks up the scent from her. All these years and she didn’t know her child smelled like jasmine.

“Mommy, I’m fine.” She looks into her daughter’s eyes, into the eyes of a young woman so startlingly different from her. She looks at the young woman that is more of Peter than of her. Is it really her who gave birth to this woman?

Before she can say more, her daughter’s husband comes around, and even in her ever-so-insensitive self, she sees the shift in her daughter. Her smile widens. That should be a good sign. Except, it widens to a fake point. The little she can boldly beat her chest and say she knows of her daughter is her facial expressions. She is wary of her big teeth, so she never lets herself smile so widely, and not without covering her mouth with those slender fingers that are nothing like hers. So watching her do it now seems strange, like seeing your daughter start to fly all of a sudden.

“Mommy, you look take-away,” Tonye says, wrapping his arm around Binyelum’s slender waist, and whatever more she is about to say is swallowed. Instead, they share a brief hug.

Ndidiamaka watches him from beneath the net covering of her fascinator and gives him a smile of hers. She didn’t steal hearts back in the days for nothing.

The Pastor comes over and begins to talk. Ndidiamaka doesn’t hear anything, instead, she focuses on Binyelum. There’s something she can’t quite place in her daughter’s expression, something different about it. Then her in-law comes to make a fuss about Binyelum looking so beautiful and she has to smile more and hug more.

When his Mother sweeps him away, she swipes on her daughter. “Binyelum, are you okay?”

Her daughter’s brows knit in confusion, and she glances behind her as if checking to see if her Mother knows anyone else answering Binyelum too. “I’m fine, Mommy.”

There’s that awkward air again. The one that is so familiar it tugs at the neck of her blouse. What’s with her and regretting her cloth choices? She adjusts the puffy sleeve and goes towards the back of the church, Binyelum in tow, greeting the church members.

If she were another person, she would be all smiles, shoulders high. It’s not everyday someone’s daughter marries from such a wealthy home in this local church. She hears the whispers: She hit the jackpot. Such a lovely daughter. Can’t believe this snob’s daughter got this lucky, and my daughter married a mason. At the last one, she lifts her shoulders higher. Let them look, let them gossip. She’s endured more than her fair share of bad luck, this should be good—her time to shine. Then she pulls herself together and thinks: Behave, woman.

When they all accompany the latest couple to the airport to say goodbye, she hugs Binyelum for show and yet a bit of realness is in it. And it startles her when she sees the tears brimming in the young woman’s eyes. All the same, she plays along with it. It’s all for show, after all. It is when Binyelum walks up to meet her husband and they stand side by side for a picture that Ndidiamaka realizes why her daughter seems different today. Love. Joy. Binyelum now has both. Something she hasn’t felt for so long.

___

“Madam, please I need change,” James says, entering her office, dragging her out of her land of sadness and regret.

“Why do you like to disturb me too much?” she snaps. He looks taken aback. Then he smoothens his shirt and stands at the corner, quiet.

“How much change do you need?”

“Just five two, two hundred naira, ma.”

She opens the drawer where she keeps some cash and hands him the notes he needs.

“Mr. Emeka will come today with the product samples,” he says before leaving. When she’s sure he’s gone, she melts inside. A tough woman with a gooey inside: Ndidiamaka. It’s just what Emeka tells her in his endless teasing, trying to win her heart over. Still, she doesn’t let him; she may never let him.

Today is Sunday—the days she and Binyelum used to spend together. After the morning service, they always wound up in the kitchen talking about their week—rather, Binyelum talking, and she acting like she’s listening. She laughs, slow at first, then bordering on manic. Stupid woman she was; stupid woman she is. She’d had a home companion, yet she’d never really been present with her.

It’s all Peter’s fault. Always blaming Peter. It’s been twenty-four years and she still cannot forgive and forget the man who had made her a mother too early. Far too early. In that crucial part of her life when she was aiming for best graduating student in Pharmacognosy and Clinical Pharmacy. And then the bouts of dizziness had come and her stomach had become rounded. And her life had become over. And a wound, preliminary to so many more, had been inflicted.

She remembers Mamma. She remembers the slaps, the curses she received when she went back home to Abuloma, after deferring her admission for a year, stomach looking ripe. She remembers the joy when it was a baby girl. And her very own Mamma had told her to her face: I’ll make sure this child never becomes like you, God helping me. She’d not seen her child or her Mamma until seven years later, and by then, the child was a big girl, asking questions she couldn’t answer. By then, Mamma was two days cold in the mortuary. Yet, Mamma’s prayers are being answered till date. Binyelum is not like her. She’s now a beautiful young woman. Now a Mrs. Something she isn’t, something she may never be. Just like she never became the best graduating student in any department in her Faculty.

Years ago, she thinks back, she used to write down her goals. She’s wondering when she wrote down in her diary how she wanted her life to be. But she remembers how it looked like.

Life goals:

sixteen - enter the university.

twenty-one - finish studying Pharmacy.

twenty -two - do your internship.

twenty-three - NYSC.

twenty-five - get married.

If she ever finds those words in any book, she swears she’ll tear it, shred it to pieces. Life deals you blows you never plan for, blows you never pen down. Blows that eat into your plans and goals and leaves you messed up for years, or sometimes, a lifetime.

Seated in her air conditioned office, the owner of SmartNewLife Pharmacy after so many years of toiling and saving, all the while trying to raise a child she has never willingly loved, she should feel like an accomplished woman. But her mind flitters back to their kitchen chats. Always harbouring past thoughts, never living in the moment. Always her mistake. And her redemption, still.

___

“Mom, do you know that this lecturer told me to redo my chapter four because I couldn’t find the correct bottle of fanta?”

Ndidiamaka remembers how she kept cutting the atama leaves on one of their many Sundays of neutral talk. “Hmm,” she grunted, bending to sharpen the knife on the stone kept for that purpose on the kitchen floor.

Binyelum continued, “Like, I was so annoyed. See me being a good girl and she wants to come and frustrate my life. And she’s even a woman oh.”

She tapped her, making her cut her fingers. Blood oozed out, and she licked it.

“Hei, sorry Mommy.”

“Don’t worry, Binyelum. What were you saying again?” she said, hiding her irritation with the girl.

“The lecturer now said I should come back next week. That’s why I came home oh. I was supposed to stay and do my remaining chapters this weekend.”

Her daughter tapped her again. “Are you listening, Mommy?”

She continued cutting the leaves. “I am listening joor. Continue.”

The chats became more frequent, and it would go like this: Ndidiamaka did the cooking, Binyelum did the talking and a bit of helping. She had one of Mamma’s attributes—talkativeness. It was endearing and annoying all at once.

On that day when everything changed, when even she with her nonchalance knew things wouldn’t be the same, Binyelum was glowing like the sun under the white fluorescent bulb.

“Nne, you won’t guess what happened yesterday.” The girl-turned-woman squealed and jumped in the small kitchen.

She looked up immediately, a part of her tugging, strung by the Igbo word. Binyelum hardly spoke Igbo, even though Mamma had trained her with the language. That could only mean one thing: it was really important information.

“Speak, Binye,” she said, growing impatient, suddenly feeling very much like a Mother. She was tired from her late night at the Pharmacy, and even though she’d skipped church, it had done little to help.

“I got engaged!” She lifted her hand, and sure enough, there was a shiny-new engagement ring on it.

“Chineke!” She stared from the ring to her daughter, battling the envy and joy that choked her. “Who is this man that is stealing you from me?” This was the truth—the hard truth. It would take her almost a year to realize this. Now that she remembers, it all clicks perfectly.

Binyelum had opened her pearly whites and said, “Don’t you remember Tonye Brown?”

Ndidiamaka, beginning to rack up excuses, turned back to turning the pot of vegetable soup. “I can’t remember.”

“But Mommy I told you about him now. We’ve been going out for three months.”

“I didn’t know. There’s too much work to do at the Pharmacy.”

Binyelum brushed it off, eager to keep talking. “Well, he told Pastor Lenu, and he asked me today at the bank. Mommy, you need to see how I was screaming. You need to see the way my colleagues now treat me. Mmm.” Binyelum looked on dreamily, seeing stars in the horizon. Ndidiamaka looked on, trying to garner joy.

“Congrats my daughter,” she said, then proceeded to hug her, enveloping her with the scent of spices and vegetable soup.

Now that she remembers it, she wants to hit herself. She wants to hug her daughter more, cherish her. But she can’t turn back time, and she can’t do it again.

It’s too late.

Their last chat was on the Friday night before her introduction ceremony, a shift from their conventional Sunday chats. She had just finished phoning her senior brother in Port Harcourt, the only one who was close by, and they’d done the arrangement. The foodstuffs were on standby and his wife would be coming over to help—take over, really, if she was using past experiences to judge the woman’s actions.

“Nne,” Binyelum said, coming to touch her back. She turned, still clutching the phone warm from use. With her constant joy, the young woman had taken to calling her Nne, meaning Mother in Igbo.

“You should be resting,” she said, noting Binyelum’s tired face.

“Says the woman who works her ass out at the Pharmacy everyday.”

She managed a smile, warm enough to please Binyelum. She watched her daughter, seeing her Father in her all over again. Was it the tiredness or was it the sneaky envy that made it so every time?

“I’ll miss you, Mom.”

“You’ll have Tonye for the rest of your life.”

“So you won’t miss me?”

“Of course, I will.”

“Why don’t you say it then? Is it so hard for you to tell me even now? What is it I haven’t. . . I haven’t done as a daughter?”

“What are you saying?”

“Mommy. . .” Hiccups chased away the words from her daughter. She watched, helpless. What was she to do? Something tugged at her chest—a war going on. Helpless, all she could do was watch the young woman sob.

Conflict. That’s all she felt. What if she had gone to meet her and held her, only to be pushed away and left in the dark? She never did get the benefit of holding her. So she stood up and gave her privacy instead. A woman who never learnt to be a mother. A woman who never let her wounds heal.

___

She’s bent on her desk now, the receipts and drug samples rained on with her tears. She is crying, she realizes, as she touches the wet trails on her cheeks, feeling the wrinkles that she doesn’t notice every other day—just once in a while, when the pain hits so hard, does she remember how wrinkled she’s becoming; how old.

Binyelum. The name is on the tip of her tongue, on the small of her back. She feels it deep in her pelvic bone, in her uterus that carried her. Binyelum was born premature, and she, still full of regret and shame, had refused to look at the fragile thing. The Nurses had tried and tried to make the baby cry, but she would not cry. It was when Mamma began to shout: stay with me o, stay with me, child, that she gave a weak cry. And it had stuck—the name. Binyelum: stay with me. The envy slowly dispels, and all that takes its place is cold, bitter regret, and longing for a time she never appreciated. Tiny, yet still there, there’s love blossoming from her bowels for her baby girl.

But her baby girl is no more, now replaced by a young woman on her way to Dubai for her honeymoon. Still, she knows a baby will always be a baby in their Mother’s eyes.

She rarely gets this feeling—this certainty that she has to do something, this certainty that this is the healing she needs. She hasn’t gotten it in over twenty years but she feels it now. She knows what she’s supposed to do. And she goes into action immediately.

It’s a comical sight, really. A big Madam Pharmacist, barreling through the Sunday afternoon crowd in her equally big Pharmacy, making her way to her car parked at the edge of the Pharmacy. She speeds off towards the airport road, and every sign of traffic has her looking at the clock. Her red Toyota Corolla is not fast enough, because suddenly she needs speed—the kind of speed that made her feel high back in the days. She needs time—the time she wasted lost in regret when Binyelum was right in front of her.

She arrives at the airport, runs in and scans the area to see that their flight has already taken off. There’s no shame in the tears that trickle down her face, there’s no shame in the way she slumps on the seat beside a family of five waiting for their flight. It feels like a movie, one she would later find funny and repeat over and over to her grandchildren. Somehow, she knows she will never get to say all the words at the tip of her tongue. So she sits there, imagining all she could have said, the hug she could have given. She imagines all the attention they would have gotten. A Mother finally seeing her child as a human and not just a product of her mistake. A woman finally finding healing. She laughs and she closes her eyes, laughing louder from the pit of her stomach.

Right then, it is enough for her to imagine, it is enough for her wounds to be soothed by the invisible balms of unhindered joy. Just like those kitchen chats were enough for Binyelum to call her Mother.

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