Chapter IX
IX
After that, it was a flurry of activity.
A friend of the man’s insisted on taking him to the hospital.
Eniiyi was about to offer to accompany him, but Funsho gripped her arm and started fussing over her, asking her if she was okay, as though she was the one who had been in danger of losing her life.
The adrenaline was gone, and the cold was beginning to set in. She grabbed her towel and wrapped it around herself, scanning the beach as she did so. She hadn’t realised they were the last people there. She gathered her things and walked behind the boys as they headed to the cars.
—
Ebun was already frowning when Eniiyi walked into the living room. The woman’s face was perpetually shaped in an expression of frustration and annoyance, but Eniiyi let her mother’s mood roll off her.
“Where were you? I called your phone several times.”
Eniiyi glanced at her phone and realised that it was dead. “My bad. My phone died.”
“Your bad? Is that all you can say?” Her mother didn’t want to hear what she had to say, which would begin with the fact that it wasn’t even that late and end with the fact that she was a grown woman. “Well?”
“I’ll make sure to charge it next time.” She was exhausted; all she could think of was slipping under the covers and letting sleep carry her away.
The adrenaline she had used to save the stranger had long since abandoned her.
The memory was already blurring. Had he really been so far out?
When he looked at her, had she really felt a jolt in her body?
Beside her, Sango was vigorously wagging his tail; she absent-mindedly stroked him. Her mother wasn’t satisfied, though; she opened her mouth—just as the grandmas walked into the living room.
“Who was that boy?” Grandma East said, pointing a ruby-red nail at her granddaughter.
Eniiyi tried not to smile. “Boy? What boy, Grandma?”
“You know what boy! The one that dropped you at the gate. Is that your boyfriend? What is his name? Is he Yoruba?”
“He is not my boyfriend, Grandma.”
“You know, you are not getting any younger! I was married with a child at your age.”
“And a single mother a handful of years later,” Ebun muttered.
Grandma East ignored her daughter. “Is your friend Yoruba?”
“What does it matter, Grandma?”
“It matters!” Grandma West joined. Her grand-aunt’s voice was sharp, loud.
Eniiyi was taken aback. Sure, their cultures were different, but that was nothing new.
They all had friends and colleagues from diverse tribes—Igbo, Edo, Fulani…
it went on and on. It had never occurred to her that when it came to marriage, her family might be tribalistic.
She looked at her mother, but Ebun’s reaction was hard to read, essentially because she was studying the floor.