Gold Coast Dilemma

Chapter 3 Ofosua

CHAPTER 3 OFOSUA

ADINKRA SAYING: (Adwo) Calmness. A symbol for peace, tranquility, and quiet.

HELEN ADDO: Strengthen yourself. Do not embarrass your family by carrying on.

Having a Ghanaian mother, especially a Ga mother, when there was a crisis, you might as well be listening to an announcer at a football match. With African moms, it didn’t matter where they were from—they always had a specific decibel of volume.

And in the emergency room of NYU Langone Hospital, my mother was in full form.

“Eh, Ofosua, what is this nonsense? A heart attack? My child, you’re only twenty-five. Hmm. I told you this job of yours is no good. You should have been a lawyer.”

Since my symptoms were no longer acute and my heart rate was mostly stable, and since this was my mother’s former hospital, I’d been seen quickly then temporarily placed on a stretcher in the in the hallway until a bed in the private wing opened up. I was already hooked up to an IV and a monitor just in case. I knew it wasn’t a heart attack. But there was no getting Mom to stop the steady stream of admonitions. Unless…

“Why don’t you go and see if you can force them into giving me a room?”

She patted my hand and was off at a clip that belied her age and Stuart Weitzmans. I knew Kukua was on her way. If I could just get ten minutes to myself, I’d be fine. I would figure this out.

In and out. Steady breaths. In for three. Out for three. Visualize my calm place. Just ten minutes. Long enough to—

“Ofosua?”

I peeled my eye open to find the last person I ever wanted or expected to see, ever. And definitely not today, the worst day of my entire life. Cole Drake.

It couldn’t be. What the hell? What was he doing in Brooklyn?

No longer was he the sexy stranger I’d met on a balcony who gave me a kiss full of promises. The best kiss of my… no. No, I would not be thinking that. Now, two years later, Cole Drake was my coworker, possibly future boss… and nemesis.

Though I was reasonably sure he was unaware of being that last part. I hid it. Plus, how could anyone not like Mr. Gorgeous, Rich, and Charming?

I’d be happy to tell them exactly how.

I still thought back to the moment we met often enough to make me want to stab things.

I’d finally clawed my way out of free-labor hell and gotten promoted to editorial assistant a year and four months ago, eight months after he’d asked me out then vanished. It had been my first day, and I’d been so excited because it finally seemed as if all the hard work had paid off.

I had, of course, worn my good-luck outfit. Fuchsia wide-leg, high-waisted pants; a more conservative silk cream blouse with slightly puffed sleeves; and my classic black red-bottomed slingbacks. I felt and looked amazing.

I was being introduced around by Brittany Mills, who had been at Drake for a year longer than I. As an intern, my interactions had been mostly limited to my team, and other interns. I didn’t get to interact with a lot of senior members of staff.

I remembered it like it was yesterday. We’d been right by the elevators when they opened and out stepped Mr. Drake and an all-too-familiar man. My brain had a hard time reconciling him there, in front of me, instead of on that long-ago balcony from months before.

Honestly, I’d thought I had imagined him.

I’d thought he was a figment of my imagination.

I’d thought at any moment the world was going to swallow me whole.

Instead, I’d had to stand there awkwardly that horrible day, in shoes that suddenly felt too tight and pinched my toes.

His uncle had stopped and welcomed me. He’d been one of my mentors when I was an intern. Then he’d turned to introduce me to his nephew. N-E-P-H-E-W . As in, a Drake .

I had made out with my boss’s nephew.

Cole did a stutter step and stared at me. For a moment I thought a spark of recognition was going to flicker. I prepared myself for hella awkwardness. But instead, when his uncle made the introduction and I stuck out my hand to shake his, he just stared at me.

And not just stared, but blankly stared. No recognition, no warmth, no apology, nothing.

What was worse, was he didn’t reach to shake my hand, which left me standing there like a fool for several long moments.

When I finally drew my hand back, he mumbled a greeting before following after his uncle. Fair enough that he hadn’t called, but why act like we’d never met? And worse, act like he couldn’t be bothered to shake my hand?

All I knew about Cole Drake at that moment pointed to him being an ass. Not only had he given me the kind of kiss that curled my toes, but he’d made it seem like… something more . He’d said he wanted to take me on a date, then ghosted me.

Which would have been whatever. To then be introduced to me again months later and pretend not to know me and be a total asshole was too much.

He’d established our new rules of engagement in that moment. I’d just matched his energy. We’d been doing the same dance for nearly a year and a half now.

I blamed myself, though. How could I have not recognized immediately that he was a Drake? My boss’s nephew , no less. Surely, I’d seen a photo of him somewhere in the office. After all, Drake was a family-run publishing house.

But mostly, when I thought back to that first night, I wondered how I could have been na?ve enough to believe he might be different from every other rich nepo baby asshole just like him. The city was full of them.

Aren’t you currently enjoying the perks of being a nepo baby… and rich?

Not the point.

Shaking myself out of my reverie, I said, “Cole. What are you doing here? Isn’t Brooklyn off the beaten path for you?”

“My dad. He had an accident and is getting checked out, but they won’t discharge him without someone to take him home since he’s been sedated, so I got drafted. Wait, you’re on a gurney hooked up to a monitor. What happened?” He looked genuinely concerned. But I knew better.

I could imagine how I must look. My once-beautiful Afro now misshapen, streaked makeup, and threadbare blanket. To my horror, tears sprang to my eyes.

Of all the people to look weak in front of. It was too much on top of an already horrendous day. I didn’t want gossip at the office. And I especially didn’t want pity. I wanted respect. I needed it.

I’d started the day excited to get married. And now I was being humbled for the second time in a way I couldn’t ever have imagined. What were the fucking chances?

“Please, please don’t tell anybody at work you saw me here.”

His brow furrowed. “Why would I—”

My mother chose that moment to save the day. “Ofosua, your room is ready, although, I will say the nurse was very rude. I had to remind her that I am a former hospital administrator and that she had to treat me with—oh, I see your aide is finally here. Young man, please wheel her into room three-fourteen.”

God, I know you stopped listening to me ages ago, but can you please make her shut up? Ooh, or swallow me whole? “Mom, he doesn’t—”

“It’s fine. I’m happy to do it.” Cole’s voice was low as he lifted me easily, his cologne triggering a memory of the brush of his lips on that balcony.

He settled me in the wheelchair and hit me with one of his Cole Drake smirks, and I scowled at him.

“I need you to promise.”

“Relax, Ofosua. I promise. As far as I’m concerned, this never happened.”

On second thought, I knew for a fact that Cole Drake could deliver on that promise. He was good at forgetting me. I did relax at that. A little.

Then, with a little bow to my mother, he left.

Thirty minutes later, still wearing nothing but a hospital gown and a plastered-on smile, I watched my mom circle the room for the hundredth time and clenched my jaw to keep from saying what I was really thinking. Instead, I said, “Mum, please calm down. Your blood pressure.”

“ My blood pressure? Apparently, I’m healthier than you are. A heart attack. What child of mine has a heart attack? And on her engagement day. The way everybody will be talking…”

They’d be talking, all right. I wondered how I could have been so stupid about Yofi to have missed the signs.

I could feel it again. That sharp, stinging pain in my chest like I was being pierced by an ice pick. And the shortness of breath, and then that weird skipping beat, slow, slow, slow, and then rapidly catching up. Oh God, it was happening again. I tried to breathe through it because, God, I couldn’t lose my shit right now.

“Mum, stop. It’s not a heart attack. You’re exaggerating.”

All around me, machines beeped. And the faster my heartbeat got, the faster they chirped. Next thing I knew, some nurses ran in to check my vitals, and then a man followed. Tall, nicely built, lean but with broad shoulders. Light brown skin, dark eyes. Hair closely cropped.

My mother, catching one glance at the doctor, stopped talking and stared. “Eh, you’re the doctor?”

He nodded, his smile flashing. “Yes, I’m Dr. Banks.”

My heart was still doing that beating-too-fast thing, but the machines had stopped blaring.

Dr. Banks looked at them as the nurses checked my vitals, then he came over with the stethoscope, putting the ends in his ears and looking down at me with a broad smile and a nod. “May I?”

I nodded and shrugged.

He lifted the gown and pressed the cool stethoscope to my chest, right above my heart. Completely professional.

I tried to breathe evenly and not think about the night. To not think about how my husband had been screwing someone else at our reception. Humiliating me in front of all our family.

And… there went my heart again, running a race for the hills even when my feet were stationary. I tried to breathe properly, but all that came out was shallow little huffs… like that horrid moment. I knew. I knew what everyone would say. That I hadn’t been able to satisfy him. After all, why else would he cheat?

Everybody would be looking to place blame. Culturally, no one ever blamed the man.

When the room started to spin, Dr. Hot Stuff glanced down at me and frowned. “What were you thinking about just now?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

His eyes were kind. “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

I slid a glance over to my mother. “It’s really not—”

My mother jumped in immediately. “Ofosua, what is this nonsense? Tell the doctor. Eh, you would think I didn’t raise her right. Hmm, she caught her husband cheating at the big party to celebrate their union. Then she fell over. We couldn’t wake her.”

As she spoke, my breathing shallowed, and the edges of my vision started to gray. Legitimately anyone else could have kept me calmer than her. Hell, even Cole Drake had managed it. And we despised each other.

A nurse brought over one of those oxygen masks and placed it over my head. The doctor took my hand, squeezing it gently, then met my gaze.

“Ms. Addo, I want you to take one breath, as deep as you can. In, two, three, hold it for a moment, and out, two, three.”

What the fuck? This didn’t feel like any other panic attack I’d ever had. This was far worse. And he wanted me to breathe?

I kept trying to take off the mask, but he squeezed my hand in a firm way that told me he brooked no argument, his look reminding me of the one my mother always gave when she meant business. So I breathed like I was told.

My gaze kept sliding to my mother. All five foot two of her was pacing impatiently. I could tell she wanted to run over and shove the doctor aside to berate me into behaving, but she didn’t. I knew she was worried. Her wig was slightly askew. She had as much hair as I did. More, even. But dutifully, every week, she went and had her hair washed, pressed, braided, and tucked away under one of her many, many wigs.

She was still dressed to the nines, but she’d swapped her Weitzmans for the emergency Louis Vuitton flats she carried in her Birkin.

After the machine stopped beeping and my chest stopped hurting, Dr. Banks patted my hand again and then sat on the edge of my bed. “Ofosua, it would seem that you have been suffering from acute anxiety. More severe symptoms resemble a panic attack.”

“But my chest was on fire. And it feels different this time. More severe.”

He nodded. “Oh, I understand. But I’m telling you, it’s not a heart attack. It’s your body reacting to your senses being overloaded.”

Over his shoulder, I could see my mother staring at me. A heart attack was one thing. But good Ghanaian girls did not have panic attacks . You needed to be poised and always composed. My mother slid in with a cool, assessing smile as she looked him over.

“What do you mean, ‘panic attack’? She’s never had panic attacks. That’s a white people problem.”

Dr. Banks shook his head as he glanced over his shoulder at my mother, his smile wavering but never losing his patience. “No, Mrs. Addo, I assure you, panic attacks are not just for white people. Your daughter has been experiencing them. How long now, Ofosua?”

“It’s Dr. Addo, actually. Tell him, Ofosua. He’s wrong about the panic attacks.”

I swallowed, not willing to think about the times before a big presentation or every time someone brought up the wedding. Or before that, in college, high school, all the times I’d been under extreme pressure, when I’d felt that little twinge and too-fast breathing.

But all those times, I’d managed to suck it up, hadn’t I? I’d gotten myself under control. I rarely lost it. It was my one amazing quality. If I were a vampire, like in those Twilight books, super self-control would be my superpower. But my superpowers had seemingly fled. “I-it’s fine. I have the twinges all the time, and—”

He glanced at my mother. “If you’d like, we can speak privately.”

My mother was not having that. “There’s nothing that she’s going to tell you that she can’t tell me. I’m her mother.”

I sighed, then the pain twinged again, and he frowned, reading my charts and the machines around me. Softly, he said, “Dr. Addo, if you wouldn’t mind leaving us—”

My mother opened her mouth to yell at him and me, and to avoid it, I blurted out, “I’ve been having them for years. Since I was little. The only thing different about today was I was publicly humiliated in a way I could never have imagined, so that probably made it worse.”

The wave of silence that fell over the room was deafening. I’d never really understood what that meant before, but right now, it was as if someone had plugged my ears, complete with pressure. And even though I could see people walking by the doors and nurses rushing to call things out to one another, and the machines around me continuing to beep and blip, I heard nothing. I watched as my mother’s face crumpled, and she blinked at me. I don’t know how many seconds passed before the sound came back.

“What do you mean, for years?” my mother prodded.

The machines started to go again, and Dr. Banks took my hand. “Uh-uh-uh, no, we aren’t going to do that. We’re going to practice that breathing I showed you. In you go. And out. That’s good. Mrs.—erm, Dr. —Addo, if you can’t help keep my patient calm, I will have you removed.”

My mother rose to her full height. “You will not have me removed. Do you know my husband and I donate to this hospital? I can have the board—”

“Oh my God, Mum, stop it. Stop.” She blinked at me as if I’d slapped her. I rushed to defuse the impending bomb. “Mum, please, I beg you, I’m so tired.”

But she was not quite ready to put it to bed. “Why, Ofosua? You’ve had access to everything you could ever need. But you went and picked up anxiety.” As if I’d picked it up from the store when I was supposed to be shopping for badassery.

I sighed. “I didn’t really know something was wrong until college. And then I figured it was something I could will away.”

Dr. Banks pulled his hands away and glanced around as if uncomfortable.

My mother’s voice went shrill. “What could you have to be anxious about? We’ve given you everything. Besides, you’ve never said anything. This can’t be right.”

“Mum, can we not right now?”

I watched the implosion in her head, her annoyance at the absurdity, then the slow dawning and the fury. But this was a fury I knew would be aimed at Yofi, his mother, his whole family. Helen Addo was ready for war.

Dr. Probably-Wished-He-Never-Met-Me turned back to me. “I’m so sorry. I’m going to prescribe something that you can take when you feel an episode coming. In the meantime, I also suggest maybe finding someone to talk to. I can give you some recommendations.”

I frowned. “No. I mean, I can get it under control. It’s fine.”

He shook his head. “As your doctor today, I am telling you not to do this alone. And when you say you have these twinges all the time, what does that exactly mean?”

“I don’t know. When I get stressed out or things seem overwhelming, I get that pinched, rapid-heart-rate feeling.”

“Okay, what do you do to alleviate it?”

I frowned. “I tell myself to suck it up and then go get it done.”

Something told me that was the wrong response. He blinked at me. Blinked again. And then his brow furrowed. “You’re serious?”

I nodded. “Yeah. But this time, I couldn’t. I don’t know. I couldn’t move.”

“Okay, so we should discuss some stress management tools.”

“Yeah, good luck with that.”

“This is important. It’s for your health. Do you understand me? I’m going to give you a couple referrals for people to talk to, as well as some simple basics, like the deep breathing you were doing earlier, meditation, yoga even.”

I nodded slowly. He was right. I’d never been rushed to the hospital before, and it was terrifying. Whatever I was doing hadn’t worked tonight. “I understand.”

He gave another squeeze of my hand and stood up, and then he gave my mum a fast nod. “I’ll be right back with her prescription. Hang tight.”

“Eh, I will get rid of the stress. Once I speak to Yofi’s parents—”

We were Ga. Which meant my mother would lean toward revenge. “No, Mum. I want nothing from him. I just want this over. I need to call Kukua and see if I can stay with her for a few weeks while I find a new apartment.”

“Hmm, I will make sure his mother knows this shame lies at her feet.”

“Mum, please… This isn’t Auntie’s fault. I need to get my life together and figure out where I’m going to stay tonight, and I don’t want to—”

Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean? Of course, you’ll come home.”

Oh God. No, no, no, not home.

The machines started to go again, and Mum scowled at them. “They need to take care of these stupid machines. We know now you’re not going to die.”

That was my mother for you, really boiling things down. “Mum, I’m not going to stay with you and Dad. Remember when I moved to Ghana after I graduated, and we were under the same roof? How we fought?”

Right after I finished high school, my mother had left her position at Mount Sinai West and taken a position with the WHO working in the West Africa region, stationed in Accra. Dad already did a lot of technology and investing work around the world, so he’d gone with her and just flew out for meetings and conferences.

Like a fool, I’d thought it would be good to go home for six months after graduation to regroup and relax before coming back to hit the ground running to pursue a job in publishing. I’d finally gotten an internship at Drake and jumped at the chance. I’d been okay with an internship to start because I didn’t need the money.

But those six months had been torture. I’d vowed to never live with them, my mother in particular, ever again.

She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, nonsense. We have the extra apartment here in the city. Right next door to ours. It’s a doorman building, so it’s safer. And your father bought it to take the wall down to give us more room, because the 2,500 square feet we have feels a bit cramped, as you know. But we can hold off on that. I keep telling him we don’t absolutely need to increase our square footage. Who does he think will clean all that extra space? Not to mention, even though it was renovated to add all those floor-to-ceiling windows, I’ll want to change some of those back to stone. I don’t like feeling like strangers can see inside. But that’s a large project I do not have time for at the moment. This is a better arrangement. You will have your own space, and that way I can cook for you every day.”

I blinked at her. “Mum, I don’t need—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. What, you’re going to stay with your cousin and live in Brooklyn on her couch?”

That sounded fabulous, actually. “Yes, why not?”

Kukua had her own place, completely free from her parents. But she only had one bedroom, and she had an active dating life, so if I moved in, I would have to make myself scarce often.

“Mum, I don’t want to move home.”

“You’re not living at home. This is just until we get you someone new.”

My voice was small when I spoke. “Mum, I don’t want someone new.”

She clucked her tongue. “What did that stupid, foolish boy know about love? When you make a commitment, you stay with it. This is nonsense. When I speak to his mother, we’ll sort it out.”

I could see it then. Yofi hadn’t only broken my heart today, he’d broken my mother’s too. All her plans. The way she’d intended to lord our brilliant marriage over her friends. This wasn’t about me . Culturally, when you agreed to get married, it was the families agreeing to get married. Not two people. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll fix all of this.”

That was what I was worried about. My mother jumping in to try and fix everything. She thought this would be as simple as returning the drinks presented, but it wouldn’t be.

To have this whole thing reversed, we would have to go through the process. First, she would have to call the church elders. And that would be a shit show where they all met and if not blamed me, at least put the onus on me to fix the marriage.

They would meet to discuss how I could better sexually satisfy my husband. Because of course, what was poor Yofi to do since I was so bad in bed? Next would be how I should bring myself closer to God and learn forgiveness. Not once would anyone lay any kind of blame at Yofi’s feet.

Though his parents would plead their case and try to save face and say I was excitable and a small thing like this shouldn’t dissolve a union. My personal favorite would be them suggesting that I needed to learn to accept his failings. And the sooner I had children, the more settled Yofi would become. And then everyone would meet with me and my parents to try to force me to do the legal courthouse thing and stand by my cheating man.

I’d seen this before with my friend Ursula. She was two years ahead of me at school. Her divorce had been more traumatic, though. He’d put his hands on her and the elders had still tried to make her stay. She’d left. And wouldn’t you know it, when the asshole’s father died, his people still called her with tasks that she needed to perform.

None of this would be simple. But it would be worth the pain.

In the words of a certain perky blonde pop star, Yofi and I were never, ever getting back together. He’d humiliated my entire family. They had no choice but to release me from this farce of a marriage. But there would be a song and dance to play out first.

“Don’t worry. When you come home, we’ll fix everything, and then it will be better.”

I tried not to show her, but I saw the panic I felt reflected in her eyes. The Tutus were wealthy. Yofi’s father was some multimillionaire hedge fund manager. His mother worked at the World Bank. Some high-up VP.

My mother was probably concerned I would never make another match like this again. Possibly true. Or worse, worried that public humiliation would taint future prospects. She and Dad had stood by me, but I think that was more about their public embarrassment. Women of her generation had been taught to stay. After all, family was the bedrock. Once you picked your family, you made it work.

There would be whispers. So many whispers. But this blatant insult on my wedding day was pure disrespect. We’d lost face. The only way to save my reputation—and hers—was another match. A better one.

The pressure would really be on now. Now I had something to prove.

But I wanted nothing to do with that. I was so tired.

“Mum, we’ll figure it out, but now I need to sleep.”

“Fine, you sleep. When you wake up, I’ll take you home.”

“I don’t want to go home.”

Her eyes were dark. Everyone said I looked like her. The same high cheekbones, wide-set eyes, hair, lashes. “This isn’t over. Trust me. Everything will work out. You’re twenty-five, still plenty of time to find you someone better. He will see.”

All I could do was blink up at her. The exhaustion threatened to overwhelm me like a tsunami. “I know you believe that, but I really, really don’t.”