Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite - 2

‘Gone too soon,’ the pastor had said, and she thought it the understatement of the century. Gone too fucking soon.

The weather was all wrong. It was rainy season; at least it was supposed to be. She would have welcomed dark clouds, thunder, a perfect storm. Instead, the sun was relentlessly bright and the sky was crystal clear. She fanned herself with her hand; it did nothing to relieve her discomfort. Off in the distance, she could hear the beat of a gángan, the trumpets and the joyous chorus that accompanied it – the soundtrack was all wrong, too.

Someone grabbed her hand and a small moraine of soil was poured on to Ebun’s palm. She stared at it, momentarily forgetting what she was supposed to do … oh yes – sprinkle it on the pine prison that housed the body of her cousin. She released soil over the coffin and watched it scatter. Beside her, her mother wailed.

It was done. It was done. And Tolu was already walking away. She watched him step on grave and grass as if there were no difference between them. He had barely spoken to her mother and herself, and when he did, it was ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘okay’. Her mother had ascribed the behaviour to grief, but Ebun knew it was condemnation.

The drums were getting louder, the singing more frenzied. She was starting to believe the gbin gbin gbe of the gángan was taking place within the walls of her skull, but then a gathering of people paraded by, led by musicians. They were straight-backed, dressed in Ankara aso ebi, chatting, some even laughing and skipping over graves as they exited Ikoyi Cemetery; oblivious to the wretchedness a stone’s throw from them. Whoever it was the jubilating group had buried had likely reached their twilight years, probably had children and grandchildren and possibly died in their sleep. Not so Monife. She was, is … was only twenty-five.

Ebun looked around and saw Mo’s mourners were beginning to melt away. They mumbled goodbye to one another; some exchanged hugs. Mo’s father was soaking in the sympathy and accepting condolences as if they were his due. She stayed out of his way, lest she speak her mind. Tolu had had a similar idea – throughout his sister’s funeral, he’d stayed ten feet away from his father at all times.

She was tired and her feet hurt, so she left the cemetery as quickly as her distended belly would allow. When she got to the car, she realised the keys were with her mother. She was forced to wait under a sun that was dry-eyed and unfeeling, the sweat running down her forehead, into her eyes, down her neck and her chest. She wiped it with her hand, but it kept on coming. Her discomfort must have been shared by the baby, because the kicks came hard and fast. She was worried she would faint, so she carefully sat on the ground, under the shade of a palm tree.

How quickly life changed. The note, searching for Mo, receiving word that a body had been found, burying her … it had all transpired in the course of ten days; but it had felt like a millennium. She waited for the tears to come, as she had done since she got the news of Mo’s death, if only to relieve her of the lump in her throat and chest; but there truly was no peace for the wicked.

‘Ebun. Ebun.’ She looked up. Her mother was standing over her, eyes raw from crying. ‘Are you okay?’

What a question. She struggled to rise from the ground, so her mother helped her up. They got into the Beetle. She hoped they would drive in silence, but her mother wanted to talk.

‘It was a nice service, wasn’t it?’

‘Mmm.’

‘I think Monife would have felt loved.’

Love was what had gotten Monife buried six feet under. But Ebun chose to keep her true thoughts to herself.

‘Yes, she would have,’ she replied.