Chapter II
II
Work felt like an out-of-body experience.
Ebun sat in meetings but struggled to focus on the financial reports.
Auditing the reports that came to her, checking for errors, getting the numbers to match the company’s expectations; it could be monotonous, but she had never considered it difficult.
These days, though, she had to read through a document three times before she could make sense of it.
The lack of sleep was turning her brain to mush.
Four months was all they had been willing to spare for her maternity leave, and just as she and Eniiyi had found some sort of rhythm, she was forced to rely on either her mother’s unpredictable schedule or her aunt’s flexibility at work.
Bunmi would take Eniiyi to the school, where she would be passed from teacher to teacher in the staff room; even the students were happy to hold on to her.
Tonight, the house was quiet as she walked through it.
Even now, she avoided looking at the photographs on the walls—she had not retrieved Monife’s in the end, and no one had put up new photos where her cousin’s had been.
Instead, pale rectangular gaps reminded you that something, someone was missing.
In the end, it was more traumatic than looking up to see Mo’s smiling face.
She rubbed her forehead with her fingers.
She would get something to eat, greet her mother and aunt, check on the baby and go to bed.
She grabbed a slice of bread from the kitchen, found the east living room empty and so headed to the west living room.
Her mother and aunt were there, but so was Mama G.
She tried to quietly back out, but it was too late, she’d been spotted.
“Ebun! Kúl??.”
“Mama G. Mummy. Aunty. ? káal??.” They were seated in a semicircle and their expressions were grim. She assumed she had disturbed some kind of weird ritual. She wanted no part of it. “I just came to say goodnight. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Ebun, wait,” said her mother. “You will want to hear this.”
“I doubt it, Mum.”
“Just come. It is about Eniiyi.”
Ebun was reluctant to join them, but her mother and aunt were watching her with worried eyes, and Mama G, who was now sporting a gold tooth, was fiddling with her gele.
She seemed nervous. Ebun had never seen the woman anything less than cocky.
The first time she had met her, Mama G had told her the G stood for Greatness.
Then she had overheard her tell Mo that the G stood for Genius.
But according to her mother, Mama G’s first son was named Gbenga. She was simply Mama Gbenga.
She sighed and sat down on the arm of the couch, somehow closing up the semicircle. Mo would have laughed if she could see her.
“What about Eniiyi?” she said.
“It is to do with Monife’s reincarnation,” began Aunty Bunmi. Ebun hissed and tried to stand, but Mama G clamped a strong hand on her arm, holding her in place.
“You need to listen o. One man from my village, na photocopy of his papa. Everybody say he talk like his papa, he walk like his papa. Then he begin smoke igbó like his papa, he dey even drink palm wine like his papa. And as Ogun is my witness, the same way his papa crash his motor and die, he too enter car, crash and die.”
“I don’t know what you are trying to say.”
“This reincarnation matter no be small thing o. Sometimes, the people wey return, they no dey live for long. And sometimes, dey die, the exact same way dem die the first time. You are her mama, Ebun—you no fit hide from this. You must save this child from herself.”
Ebun wrenched her arm from Mama G’s grip.
“And how would you suggest I do that? How would you suggest I ‘save’ her.”
“No be small matter at all; but I can start to beg the gods for her sake.”
“For free?”
Mama G began to hmm and ha. Ebun stood up abruptly. She had had a long day, and she hadn’t even had a chance to see Eniiyi yet. “I don’t want any part in your delusions. And I don’t want you anywhere near my daughter.”
“Ebun,” her mother warned. Ebun turned to face her.
“No. I thought you were better than this.”
“I want Eniiyi to live. I don’t want any more tragedy to strike this family.”
She considered the three women in the dim light—her mother with her weave on, and her polished nails; Aunty Bunmi, who was lining her cheek with tobacco; and Mama G, whose tribal marks were scored deep into her forehead.
She would be foolish to let them lead her down this path of fear and superstition.
Yet as she walked away from the west living room, she recalled her cousin’s visit in the hospital, Eniiyi’s healing scar, the uncanny resemblance between the dead girl and the baby; and she couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps something sinister was at play.