Agbomma did not die, as I had expected, on a white-sheeted hospital bed. Instead, she died in the house on Hopeville where she had lived\u2014first, with her blind mother, then alone, and finally, with me. The walls had cracks running up to the ceiling. When thunderstorms shook the foundation of the house, we shuddered and waited, expecting the roof to cave in. We sometimes talked about renting a nice duplex, with a large veranda and a larger field, but Nigerians are reluctant to move until there are death threats they can do little about.<\/p>\n
\u201cRelax. This house survived the civil war. It can survive anything else,\u201d she told me. \u201cAnd who knows what danger lurks in the new duplexes, anyway?\u201d I joked.<\/p>\n
My former football coach believed choking might be easy until he nearly choked on a handful of popcorn. Agbomma\u2019s mother was a psychiatric nurse who expected to die from the bites and blows of her violent patients or from infections picked up by accidentally sitting on a contaminated needle, but she died of cancer in a herbalist\u2019s shed. Agbomma\u2019s father, on the other hand, had died of heartbreak because all four of his sons hadn\u2019t returned from the war. I had once imagined a national burial after a heart failure from scoring a hat trick. But all I got out of five football seasons was a ruptured hamstring and later, a broken tooth in a camp fight.<\/p>\n
Agbomma had many mornings of nose bleeds and migraines in Hopeville. She was recovering from a brain tumour surgery when I found her lying ungainly on the bathroom floor, a hand touching the edge of the mop brush. A large towel dangled from the taut rope which stretched from one end of the wall to the window. She had been trying to brush something off the ceiling and her legs slipped on the wet tiles. When I looked up, a large hairy cockroach scurried off into the crevice on the wall. Her haphazardly dyed ash and coal-black hair, which had been matted into Fulani cornrows, was damp. Her eyes were wide open, her lips hung agape, as though she was bewildered after having seen an enemy long-forgotten. Agbomma wore a piece of akwete wrapper she had sewn.<\/p>\n
Retirement, she had learned, was responsible for the early deaths of pensioners, and so she had tried out catering, failed at it and then settled for sewing. I remember her saying, somewhat absentmindedly, that she was rediscovering herself. I hadn\u2019t expected her to be such a good person. She took me to Mass when the weather was fine, and her heath, stable. Other times, she held my hand and prayed in the mornings and in the evenings. She greeted the neighbours, calling each one by name. But she never introduced me to them. I imagined it must have been embarrassing for her to say, \u201cMeet my daughter, the lost daughter I didn\u2019t claim after the riots.\u201d But I could see in her eyes, a repentance so appealing that I didn\u2019t dare be bitter towards her. She couldn\u2019t help it. Like Moses\u2019 sister, she had watched from a distance as my foster mother took me into her ash Mercedes and driven off to her mansion in Ogbor Hill.<\/p>\n
** ** **<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll never find a makeshift football pitch this perfect to practice your free kicks,\u201d she said the last time I suggested moving. \u201cIt\u2019ll be impossible to find a nice house with open green spaces like this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The house was T-shaped, and partly shaded by the branches of a giant mango tree. From my room, at one end of the T, I could look out and see Agbomma, in the radiance of her solitude, making a dress. Once she made me a blazer with my name and number on it. In my own room, I would sit with my laptop observing the Forex market, while trading with what had been left of my savings. And when I lost the rest of my money, I drew football pitches and team formations on sheets of paper. These were strange past times, but I was in a bind and didn\u2019t know what next to do with my life.<\/p>\n
Agbomma and I were together for the first four years of my life. Those years are so blurred I dare not count them among the time we spent talking, laughing, singing, dancing. I could say\u2014as it really seemed\u2014that we had spent only thirteen months together, but that admission would foist upon me, the hopelessness that comes with being judgemental. I often felt like we had been together my whole life. It must be the tough, bright-redness of the bricks that tiled the outer walls, covering it from top to bottom, which gave a sense of a happy long season. I am thinking of the red sand that perpetually carpeted the roads in Uturu when it was rainy, when it was sunny, and worse, in the harmattan, when the sons of the land drove around. There are shades of reddish-brown rust on the roof.<\/p>\n
Agbomma\u2019s choice\u2014or preference\u2014of this house, I often attribute to her humble Franciscan upbringing. I used to say that I had been doomed to a Politician\u2019s Palace by a Senator\u2019s wife and that perhaps, I was better suited in a Pauper\u2019s Paradise. Looking round her bier, at the scrunched up faces of austere old neighbours, friends, friends of friends and relatives, I saw how foolish it would have been to have them visit her in a blue-roofed duplex and no mango tree to shield the roof. The huskiness of their Igbo-inflected English made exchanges difficult and unpleasant. It was a voice that startled me the first time I phoned Agbomma. I remember imagining it was a tactic to scare me off, but she was only being herself.<\/p>\n
** *** **<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The new electric sewing machine I bought for her retirement anniversary is still sitting sealed in the living room. I gave boxes of clothes to the managers of the Disabled\u2019s Quarters. In the obituary I published in the Guardian, I mentioned her mother, a nurse who\u2019d cared for the sick and elderly, and Agbomma\u2019s career as a Home Economics tutor and retired Vice Principal who championed the cause for greatness among youths and I, the lost daughter, the famous super falcons striker and one-time CAF footballer of the year, and the relatives and friends who survived her.<\/p>\n
Momma, my adopted mother, also survived Agbomma. One afternoon, while we were cooking jollof rice on a charcoal stove in the extended kitchen, Agbomma asked, \u201cBut how can she say she\u2019s your only true-to-life mother, that you can have no other?\u201d<\/p>\n
I shrugged. I rubbed my burning eyes as I ran to the window. I could hear Agbomma sniffing. I turned. She stared at me with teary eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe things parents say when they\u2019re disappointed,\u201d I said, looking out the window. A robin perched on one of the stones that marked the makeshift goalpost. I faced Agbomma and continued, \u201cThey pick up their phones and yell to their hearts content. You know… a quest to be understood. A quest to understand. I don\u2019t know why she\u2019ll suddenly want to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c After all she\u2019s put me through.\u201d She was talking about Momma\u2019s false alarm to the police, declaring me missing. It didn\u2019t make any sense. But the police had arrested Agbomma, and I had to attest that I had gone to live with her of my own freewill.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut she was heartbroken. They spent so much to get me into the football academy, to get me into the national team. Only for me to get myself kicked out for fighting my coach. Not to talk of the gambling scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father used to be a traditional wrestler,\u201d she said, filling a glass with sachet water.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father.\u201d I paused, not knowing where to start. \u201cWas he short-tempered too?\u201d My heart drummed in my chest.<\/p>\n
Agbomma glared at me and poured the glass of water on the glowing red charcoals. The deafening hiss seemed to berate me for pushing my luck too far.<\/p>\n
\u201cFood is ready. Bring the pot down and dish out the rice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
I did.<\/p>\n
We ate on the dining table where we occasionally played scrabble. The table was old, with four uneven legs tilting wherever the weight was more. Wood chipped everywhere. But I was drooling. The rice had a rich, earthy aroma that made me forget my problems for a while. It was nothing like the overly seasoned, burner-cooked rice served at Momma\u2019s. I knew I was being uncharitable, but I couldn\u2019t help it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know she\u2019s heartbroken,\u201d Agbomma said, \u201cThen why are you here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid I say I knew? To be honest, I think she is. She should be. She\u2019s my mother. But I need to be here.\u201d I twirled forefingers, drew an inordinate shape in the air. \u201cHow do I put it… to tie the loose ends of my life? I\u2019ve always had them take care of things for me. I have to do this by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Agbomma stared at me, eyes glistening in the poorly-lit room. The spoon of rice hung midair as if she didn\u2019t know what next to do with it\u2014to drop it on the plate or to put it into her mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to work in his school. Just fresh out of teaching college and my aunt found me the job in her husband\u2019s school. But you know how you fall for the wrong person and tell yourself it was a mistake, and then it happens again and again?\u201d She sighed.<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have resigned and left, but I\u2019d have had to explain to my aunt. When someone shows you love, it hurts to pay them with evil. So when I got pregnant, I did what I should have done beforehand. I ran.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRan?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLeft town, unannounced. Moved to Aba where no one knew me and the cost of living was relatively low. You were three months old when I heard they\u2019d died in a car crash.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of them?\u201d<\/p>\n
She nodded. \u201cAll. Aunty Chizzy, three kids and him…on their way to a wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n
She pushed her plate away, and swiped her eyes with the back of her hand. I saw the vulnerable side I didn\u2019t know existed. A frightening silence enveloped us. And we sat waiting, waiting. Looking back, I think we were trying to digest and redigest this reality. For the first time, I felt some of the weight lifted off my chest. It wasn\u2019t that I understood why she would have thought Momma could give me a better life than she ever would. It was that I began to see her differently. Agbomma was not a firm believer in freewill. She was too pessimistic. If the fates had allowed me to get lost in the riots and to be found and adopted by a childless politician, then she wouldn\u2019t stand in the way.<\/p>\n
A loud thud jolted me out of my reverie. The dull boom of a shed mango fruit. I imagined the walls disintegrating through the cracks, so that I could picture Agbomma standing across the busy road from me. The distance grew as time passed until she was just a small dot in my mind.<\/p>\n
When the sky completely closed its curtains, I prepared a bowl of fruit salad with watermelon, pineapple, pawpaw and mango fruit, exactly as she had taught me. I placed the bowl on the table and turned on the radio. Her program was on. \u201cThe Presidents!\u201d I yelled, scurrying into the room. Lamp in hand, I went round, until I found her sitting on the low staircase, propping her chin in her hand. I shook the flashlights but she didn\u2019t budge. I took her hands in mine and led her to the living room. We listened to the rest of the episode together. Afterwards, she went back to sewing more clothes for the children in the Disabled\u2019s Quarters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hopeville Agbomma did not die, as I had expected, on a white-sheeted hospital bed. Instead, she died in the house on Hopeville where she had lived\u2014first, with her blind mother, then alone, and finally, with me. The walls had cracks running up to the ceiling. When thunderstorms shook the foundation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2286,"parent":148,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1461","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2220,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1461\/revisions\/2220"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}