“It’s okay to cry,” Mama whispered, gently patting my shoulder before taking a tray laden with garden eggs into the parlour, where Papa and the kinsmen chuckled amidst conversation.

As I watched the men in the parlour, their faces impassive yet their laughter echoing, I couldn’t help but wonder about the hidden cruelties behind their jovial facade. They lounged with ease, feasting on the spread before them, their casual chatter masking the true extent of their control over our lives.

Aunty Ada had once called the police after Uncle hit her. As I eavesdropped that day, her voice shook with fear and desperation. She couldn’t tolerate the abuse any longer. Right there in that dining room, she was later punished for making that call, her cries echoing long after the incident. I asked Mama why it was handled this way, but she just stared blankly, and we never spoke of it again.

“Ezinne, they’re discussing your marriage to Chike,” Mama murmured as she returned to the kitchen with empty plates. The weight of her words was as dense as the spicy air around us, a stark reminder of our sidelined fates, decided in whispers behind closed doors.

“Echegbula,”  she reassured me in Igbo, her voice carrying a weight that felt deeper than her words. “you will make a good wife.”

That weekend, as I sat in front of the mirror with a heavy gele on my head, heavier than my very recent WAEC Math exam, Nwakaego revealed unsettling news over a plate of mascara. My marriage was nothing more than a debt settlement between Papa and my much older groom. I masked my concern with makeup and forced smiles, realising my future was founded not on love but financial obligations.

Though I tried to appear indifferent, her words haunted me, casting a shadow over my forced smiles at the wedding. As women sang and led me to my new husband’s car, I felt the full weight of my traded future. I asked Mama about it,  but she remained silent.

“It’s okay to cry,” Mama repeated during our phone calls as I shared how indifferent my husband was, only returning at night to claim his marital rights. She never prepared me for this—what it meant to be a wife, the agony of pregnancy, or the loneliness of it all.

He ignored me even during childbirth. Especially after learning we were expecting a girl.

But I was determined, Kambili. I wanted to show how easy it is to love a daughter, even under the hardest circumstances. I dressed you in Nwakaego’s daughter’s clothes, and you slept in her old cot—she was the only support I had.

Despite all I endured—cleaning houses for extra money, secretly teaching, learning to sew to support us—your father’s favor only grew once he eyed the money I saved, spent on his secret family in Umuahia. And on your eighteenth birthday, I discovered his betrayals and another secret family.

I confronted him, and he attacked me brutally. Nights of prayers went unanswered. When he married you off to his friend’s son, I kept quiet, knowing at least you had learned to sew and your husband promised to love you.ur husband, a wealthy man, had promised to love you more and more.

I had envisioned my happiness in the moments when you would provide me with food and money when you would buy me nice clothes that my peddling couldn’t afford. I had dreamt of a life filled with joy when you married. Although you claimed to be busy since that moment, I never complained. Although you called to say you’re pregnant and assured me that your house help was taking care of you and that I shouldn’t worry, I couldn’t shake off my worries; they clung like stubborn shadows every night.

Though you rarely visited, I clung to the dream of you coming through for me, of you bringing joy into my old age. When Nwakaego showed me your pictures with your mother-in-law and my grandchild, it was supposed to lower my blood pressure, not raise it. You promised to visit, but you didn’t arrive until after I had taken my last breath.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Uzochukwu Okeke, a Linguistics and Communication Studies graduate from Uniport, is an accomplished writer known for his captivating short stories. With three published children’s novels to his name, his talent shines through in publications like Kahalari Magazine, where his story “In the name of our Chi” garnered acclaim.