TWENTY-EIGHT, DISGRUNTLED.

Amara placed a drinking cup in front of her grandmother, kneeling with one knee in respect. Her grandmother gave her a barely perceptible nod and returned to her conversation with her daughter-in-law. 

“I am not saying that I have not come to terms with it.” 

Oge argued with a vigorous head shake. 

“It cannot be me that you are shaking your head vehemently at, in that manner.” 

Her mother-in-law shouted at her. Oge muttered a curse under her breath, calling on her personal gods. 

“Mama, you are telling me that it doesn’t bother you that one of your granddaughters is parading around like a boy? What if she maims herself?” 

“All I am saying is that it has been a little over two years since she started hunting with her father, and she has been fine. Hunting gives her a place to spend all that energy she usually has pent up.” 

“Mama, I know that you are all worried that she might die again, that she might leave us again, that you are spoiling her and letting her have everything she coughs about. But I want the best for my only living birth child.” 

“We are the bad people, and you are the only one who knows what's best for her?” 

“That is not what I meant, mama, and you know it.” 

Oge drew her stretched legs in, pulling her wrapper over her exposed ankle. Her left palm went back to support her right palm wrapped around the pestle; she pounded angrily into the mortar. The mashed white yams in the mortar bounced every time the pestle came down hard on them. The older woman eyed her daughter by marriage. She was aware that the younger woman was seething, her heavy breast heaved and shook with every angry movement, threatening to pull apart the already precariously tied wrapper covering her upper body and held over her chest. 

“Why are you fighting this so much? It's been two years, Oge.” 

“Two years, ten years, what does it matter? My daughter should be learning more feminine crafts; she should be learning to paint, mold, sew, anything. But she is running around in the forest, shooting arrows. What kind of mother would I be if I let it continue?” 

“A mother who wants the happiness of her child.” 

“Well, happiness is not everything. There are more important things in life.” 

Oge’s mother-in-law watched her closely as she often does. Oge was stunning even with sweat pouring out of her armpits, and yams residues covering her face and wrapper. There was no reason a woman so young should not be able to have as many children as she wanted. There was a time she would have insisted that her son take a third wife, but how could she when Oge’s heart would break at the thought of sharing Obu again? They had no third wife who could potentially give them more children, because she was concerned about Oge’s happiness. But her daughter-in-law was sitting right there and saying that happiness was not everything, and the truth was that she was right; it wasn’t. 

Oge’s mother-in-law raised the woven fan she held in her right hand and moved it over her face, letting the cool air from the action chase away the sweltering heat of the late afternoon. She reclined further on the chair Obu and Amara had crafted for her; the soft, woven fabric for back support gave her back the break and respite it needed. Maybe she liked the idea of Oma hunting, fishing, and performing all the male tasks, because she had given up hope of a male heir. When she dies, who will protect and care for the family she will leave behind?  

Oge moved the mashed yams into a clay bowl, carried it into the kitchen, and returned with a knife, another clay bowl, and okras floating in water. Behind her, Amara held the mortar reserved solely for grinding pepper.  Years of peppers beaten to submission inside the mortar left evidence of a red stain. The older woman closed her eyes for her afternoon snooze and was woken up moments later by running footsteps. She opened her eyes to see her granddaughter bounding into the compound, hopping from foot to foot. 

Her eyes followed the girl. She had outgrown her resemblance to Uche; her skin, unlike anyone they knew from their family, was fair, and her hair untamed and wild, crowned her oblong face. Not a single member of their family’s eyes was brown, like Oma’s. The brown of her eyes was easy to miss, though, because they become darker when she is excited and animated, like she is now. The difficulty would be to catch her unexcited, the older woman thought, grinning at her Oma, who was rushing towards them. She looked over at her daughter-in-law, whose head stayed bowed in concentration, as she mixed the ground pepper into the mushy okra. Oge pounded away, increasing her effort to ensure that dinner was ready for her family before anyone complained of hunger. 

“Mama.” 

Oma greeted her grandmother. 

“My daughter, did you hunt well?” 

She asked the girl, who nodded and grinned at her. She chuckled at Oma’s response, watching the tightly wrapped cloth around her young chest to discourage her breasts from getting in the way of her mobility. A dagger was sheathed in the belt she wore around her waist. On her back, she carried an exposed bag of arrows; she held a bow and a spear in her right and left hands. Even though she was just coming out of her childhood, she resembled a formidable warrior. 

“There is no blood stain on you, but you are claiming that you had a good hunt.” 

Amara eyed her sister, looking her over. 

“Amara, leave your sister alone.” 

Oge and her mother-in-law said at the same time. Amara narrowed her eyes at her sister, who shot out her tongue at her. 

“Mother, good afternoon.” 

“Greet and fight with everyone before you get to me.” 

Oge scolded Oma, who fell to the ground and threw her hands and her body around Oge’s left leg; a substitute action for throwing herself on her mother. The old woman watched the signs of worry carefully fold themselves away from Oge’s forehead. Yet Oge did not smile; she inclined her head and sniffed her daughter. 

“You smell of sweat, go and shower.” 

Oma shook her head, either in refusal or denial; the old woman was unsure. 

“Go.” 

Oge insisted. 

“But father smells of sweat all the time, and you do not always make him wash.” 

“So, you want to smell like father?” 

Amara asked her sister, carrying the mix of pepper and okra into the kitchen. 

“That is a good question, Amara. Oma, is that what you want then?” 

Amara scrunched up her nose at her sister and sniffed loudly, and Oma stuck out her tongue at her again. 

“Fine.” 

Oma reluctantly conceded and dragged herself off her mother. 

“Don’t be so glum about washing. I made you tapioca, and we have coconut. Tomorrow, we are going to harvest groundnuts, you love that. You can have the tapioca with coconut today and groundnuts tomorrow. Won’t you like that?” 

Oge asked Oma, who nodded happily. She ran over to her sister and poked her on her forehead, and then ran away from her sister before she had the time to react. Amara looked over at the adults in the compound for help, but they were carefully averting their eyes from her. 

“If I poked her like that, she would scream down this compound, and we would not hear the last of it then.” 

Amara muttered under her breath and rubbed her forehead. She appeared ready to kill her sister. 

“She is your younger sister; you have to let her get away with some things. That is the role of an elder.” 

Amara did not seem to like this advice from her grandmother. She watched her sisters retreating back with annoyance. 

“Oma, you forgot your bow and spare!” 

Oge called to her daughter, who had disappeared into the hut she shared with her sister. A familiar throat clearing pulled her attention away from her daughter to the entrance of her compound. Obu walked into the compound in his sauntering manner, waving goodbye to a company unseen by the occupants of his compound. 

“Ah, mama’m.” 

He called out in his deep voice, and his mother lit up, sitting up in her chair; she gestured excitedly to Amara. 

“Mama?” 

Amara answered. 

“Bring your father a chair. Eh, my son. You look exhausted.” 

“Mhm, and also he did not see anyone here apart from his mother.” 

Oge retorted playfully eye-balling her husband. He laughed and threw his hands around her neck, bending his sweat-covered body to hug her. 

“Ah, ah. Papa, watch mother’s head, you are holding a cutlass.” 

Amara warned her father. She placed the chair she had been asked to bring between her grandmother and mother. 

“Don’t pay him any mind. He wants to take out my head so that it would just be him and his beloved mother. You better marry her, oh, after you have gotten rid of my head.” 

“You are overreacting, my love. I saw you this morning before I left, but I did not see my mother, and she had already slept when I returned late last night from the meeting with the men of the village. I just missed my mother.” 

"People who have mothers to miss. What would the rest of us do?” 

Oge replied, pouting. She left her chair and walked into the open kitchen, joining Amara, who was stirring palm oil in a steaming pot. 

“She kills her poor mother every time, with that mouth of hers.” 

Obuzor’s mother said conspiratorially under her breath, and Oge snickered, having overheard her. 

“How did it go in the bush today?” 

Obuzor’s mother asked him. His wife turned on her heels, watching the back of his head as he answered his mother. 

“It went well.” 

“But there is no meat with you or Oma, so Oma must have happened?” 

Amara said into the steaming pot, the smoke and steam from it caused her eyes to water. 

“Tah.” 

Oge scolded, smacking the back of her head. 

“You should not listen when elders are talking privately. Who is your mother?” 

“Sorry, mother.” 

Oge shook her head at her daughter’s insincerity; she was not sorry. But that was not her fault. Oge had subjected Amara to listening to complaints about her sister, and she was now echoing them. Her daughter, Amara, paid a little too much attention to her elders, too eager to please and accommodate them. She looked over at her husband’s stiff back. The sun had fallen behind them, and he was casting shadows longer than the one cast by the roof of the open kitchen. 

“She is just sympathetic.” 

Obuzor responded, not waiting for her to question him as well. They had done varying versions of this fight before. 

“Which translates to, she freed the trapped animals you had managed to capture.” 

Oge told him, and the compound went quiet. Even the animals returning home from their day of terrorising neighbours and neighbouring animals appeared to be threading carefully so as not to disturb the silence that had fallen over the compound. 

“We are not having this fight again.” 

Obuzor replied eventually. 

“Who is fighting with you? Your words are written in stone, and whatever you say is law.” 

Oge had managed to speak in a lowered voice, but the chill in her voice left her mother-in-law and daughter wishing they were anywhere else. 

“As opposed to you always being the law and always having your way. This one time that you can’t have your way, our world must burn.” 

Oge’s cool gaze on her husband could have killed her husband if looks could kill. 

“I will not forgive you if anything happens to my daughter.” 

Oge suddenly yelled at him. She pulled the wooden steering spoon out of Amara’s hand. 

“Go and help your father store his clean cutlass.” 

She told Amara, who looked visibly relieved for the excuse to leave the adults. She ran off to her father, kneeling to pick up his knife. He patted her back affectionately to acknowledge her. Amara did not miss her father’s shaky hand. ‘He must have caught mother’s remark about the cutlass being clean, ’ she thought as she retrieved the cutlass and bolted. She wondered as she escaped the adults whether her father would address the insult, and did not have to wonder long. 

“Oge, low blow. But that is not beneath you, is it? If a dog is down, kick it in the stomach.” 

“My daughter is running around in the forest, and that does not bother any of you. People are calling me a bad mother because when a child misbehaves, it's the fault of the mother, and neither of you is concerned. You want me to sit and clap for you, for encouraging her eccentricity?” 

She shouted but did not wait for their response. 

“Tufia, no. Over my dead body.” 

She spat, moving her hand around her neck in a circular warding-off-evil motion and clicking her fingers. 

“Maybe Oma does not go with you to hunt from now on.” 

Obuzor’s mother spoke after a prolonged silence. But her son shook his head, refusing to back down. He would let Oge get away with everything else, just not on this matter. 

“Mama, you have never seen her in that forest. She is magnificent. Her skills are not mere skills; they are a talent. She watches you demonstrate a move once and executes it perfectly. And in a matter of days, she is doing it better than you. When she sneaks up on an animal, it is like the forest holds its breath; she moves soundlessly, as if her feet had forgotten how to produce sound.” 

Obuzor’s voice was wistful as he spoke; his eyes held a faraway look, but they were also heavy with pride. 

“My son, Omasirim, is not your son.” 

His mother’s words seemed to bring him back to the present; he looked as if he was no longer seeing his stealthy daughter. 

“Mama, I have never thought of her as a son. Who wants a son with a daughter like her? Mama, that girl is special, my daughter is special. What kind of a father would I be if I did not help her to the best of my abilities?” 

Obuzor spun around on his chair, his eyes pleading with his wife, who was cooking. 

“My love, all I ask is that you trust me this time. I will do whatever you want, whatever you ask of me, always. What is life, without you in my ears? But on this, please give me your trust.” 

Oge ignored him and walked off into the closed kitchen. Mother and son exchanged a look. Obuzor’s mother shook her head in disappointment. Her son had been sincere and made a moving, convincing argument. She was on his side again. Oge returned moments later with a handful of dry fish. 

“We should prepare to stick to a diet of fish and chicken from now on, no bush meat in the foreseeable future.” 

The laughter that followed her was one full of relief. 

“Oh, poor us.” 

Her mother-in-law laughed heartily, her voice carrying into the darkening evening. Obuzor walked over to Oge and wrapped her in his arms. 

“Thank you.” 

He whispered his lips buried on her shoulder. Oge pulled away from him, and she let her eyes hold his. 

“My husband, may the sun not rise for me, on the day you cease to have my trust.” 

She whispered to him and meant it. Obuzor’s mother sighed heavily, as if sighing away months of animosity and strained relationship.