Stay With Me

by AYÒ. BÁMI ADÉBÁYÒ.

  ‘Is she going mad?’ he asked.

  ‘She has started seeing a psychiatrist. She is OK right now, but she could wake up tomorrow morning and say she has morning sickness.’

  ‘I can’t!’ He stood up, went back to the window.

  ‘Dotun, I’m talking about you having sex with Yejide, my beautiful wife.’ I swallowed. It felt like forcing an iron fist down my throat.

  My brother shifted from one foot to the other. I could see in the way his hips thrust towards the window reflexively that he was already in Ilesa, in our bedroom, fucking my wife.

  ‘It’s an abomination.’

  ‘So advise me, what do I do?’

  ‘Brother mi, does Yejide know you are here right now?’

  ‘She knows I’m in Lagos. Dotun, why are you prolonging this discussion? Why would it be different from all the girls you go around with? It will just be sex five times at the most and you are done.’

  ‘It would just be sex.’ He spoke slowly, as though testing the truth of the words by speaking them.

  27

  Akin was irritated by Sesan’s presence in our bed, diagnosis or no diagnosis.

  ‘I just want to be able to touch you any time, anyhow I want. And this child is old enough, he will remember what we are doing,’ he said.

  I wanted to laugh in his face. What were we doing?

  ‘Sesan’s health is our priority now, not touching,’ I said.

  He sulked, but I did not care. I did not want his hands on my body again ever. His deception was cutting me open, but I did not have the time to deal with it or confront him. Sesan needed me, needed everything in me that could will him to live. Fighting Akin over Dotun’s revelations would have been an unnecessary waste of energy.

  After Sesan was diagnosed, I pulsed with adrenaline. I spent my days reading photocopied medical journals I borrowed from Sesan’s doctor. My head was filled with images of haemoglobin and sickle-shaped cells. I learned how to use a thermometer to check Sesan’s temperature and briefly considered training to be a nurse. The only thing that stopped me was that there would be little time out of the training schedule to actually care for my son. Many times I woke up in the dead of the night sweating, unable to remember what nightmares had propelled me upright in bed. After a few months I began to breathe again. Sesan was as healthy as ever, still dangling himself upside down from the banister and running around the house for no particular reason. He was also doing well at school and even placed second in his class.

  The first crisis took my breath away. Sesan told me he had a headache when he returned from school. I administered paracetamol syrup and put him to sleep on the sitting-room couch. He did not respond when I tried to wake him up for dinner.

  I pleaded with God in my heart as Akin drove us to the hospital. Please, please, please, I begged. I could not wrap my mind around anything more coherent. The car sped on and on. In the corner of my mind, some demon assured me that we were speeding away from the hospital and not towards it.

  ‘Faster, faster. Drive! Do you know where we are going?’ I yelled at Akin.

  I threatened Sesan. ‘You, this child, I will kill you if you die.’

  I stumbled out of the car before Akin stopped it and ran towards the nearest building.

  A nurse tried to take Sesan from me. I held on to him, still screaming.

  ‘Let him go,’ Akin said.

  I let the nurse take him. A ward attendant blocked our way when we tried to follow her. I screamed threats after the woman, the pain I would inflict on her if anything happened to my baby. I paced the corridor. I was alone. Akin was somewhere filling in forms to admit him. I pleaded with God again. Then I threatened: If you . . . if my . . . I will . . . I promise you I will. In that moment I hated God. I wished I could see God and rip His heart out. What had I done to Him anyway? Didn’t I deserve some happiness? My mother, Olamide, and now Sesan.

  The days passed slowly, each minute pregnant with hope, each second tremulous with tragedy. Moomi came to the hospital and sat by me all night. Before she left the next morning, she reminded me that I had to be strong because I was a mother. I sat by his bed looking, waiting, searching for the faintest sign that he had decided to return to me. There was no sign. I was afraid to touch him, afraid that my touch might stress him and careen him into the unknown, away from me, forever. By the third day I was on my knees praying to him in muttered words only I could hear. Saanu mi, malo, Omo mi, joo nitori Olorun. Saanu mi. Duro timi. Have mercy on me, don’t go, please. Stay with me. I ran to the bathroom and back. I did not eat or bathe.

  He woke up on the sixth day. I screamed for the doctor even though she was at the next bed on ward round when Sesan woke up.

  ‘Mummy smelling bad.’ Those were the first words my son spoke as he recovered. I remember them to this day.

  My mother-in-law came visiting about a week after Sesan was discharged. She waved away Akin’s greetings and shook her head when I offered her a drink.

  ‘This is Abiku,’ Moomi said as soon as she settled into a chair. ‘I have been thinking about this child’s sickness since I came to check on him in the hospital.’

  ‘It’s just a sickness, Moomi, they have a name for it and treatment. It is not Abiku,’ Akin said.

  Moomi snorted. ‘Do they have a cure? Can they cure him of this?’

  ‘They can treat it,’ Akin said.

  ‘Do they have a cure? No! See? You shake your head. That means this is Abiku. I have seen a lot of them in my day. This, this is just how it is. Look, these children, they have made a promise in the spirit world to die young. Let me tell you, their ties to the spirit world are stronger than steel. You think your hospitals can help you with that? We must do something.’

  Akin held his forehead as though a migraine was setting in. ‘It’s just a disease, Moomi. And there is treatment, there’s nothing spiritual about it.’

  ‘So you went to the white man’s school and I didn’t. But we have seen enough of you school types to know schooling is not wisdom, for many of you it is foolishness, like settling for treatment when there is a cure.’

  ‘Moomi, are you saying I’m a fool?’ I could tell that Akin’s irritation was turning to anger.

  Moomi gave him a stare that said her response was a resounding yes and turned to me.

  ‘Talk to me jare, my daughter. What do you think? We should just fold our hands against our bodies and watch the doctors treat what they cannot cure when we have another route we can take? Another route, my daughter! The whole world knows there are many routes into any marketplace. But the white man has deceived some of you, told you his way is the only way.’ She paused and glared at Akin, who was staring at the ceiling. ‘Some have been foolish enough to believe him without investigating for themselves. God save them all.’

  ‘Say what you like, Moomi,’ Akin said, ‘we are not taking my son to any of your crooks.’

  ‘Look at this Akin that doesn’t know what pregnancy feels like, see the way he is talking. My daughter, don’t mind him-o. You are the one that will decide because you know what it is like to kneel in labour. Do you think our people simply say that there is no god like a mother? Of course you do. No one bothers to complete the saying these days. Iya Sesan, pull your ears and listen to the full proverb, there is no god like a mother because nobody can support her child like she would when that child is in anguish. It is you who will decide for your son, not this Akin that wants to cure Abiku with a syringe.’

  Dotun came in then, reeking of alcohol. ‘Moomi! Here you are!’

  Sesan had wriggled free from his grandmother’s knees. He pulled at the hem of my dress. ‘What is Abiku?’

  ‘It is a game,’ I said.

  ‘Can we play Abiku?’

  ‘No, it is a bad game,’ I said.

  Dotun was weaving around Moomi, singing nursery rhymes. ‘Baa baa black sheep, Baa baa black sheep.’

  ‘Why is my son bleating like a goat?’ Moomi asked.

  ‘He is singing
a song. An English song,’ Akin replied.

  Moomi sighed and shook her head.

  ‘I can jump like a frog. I can jump like a frog!’ This time Dotun sang in Yoruba and Moomi needed no interpreter.

  ‘Akin, don’t watch me like this. Do something about your brother.’

  Although my husband had nothing new to say, he snapped to and steered the conversation away from Sesan’s health to Dotun’s joblessness and what he was doing and planning to do about it.

  Dotun leapt around our sitting room like a child, singing various nursery rhymes. Sesan followed him, singing along.

  ‘Who is in the garden? A little fine girl. Can I come and see her? No. No. No!’

  Dotun stopped in front of me and in his drunken haze pulled me up from my chair towards himself with one hand and grabbed my breast with the other. I tried to pull away but he held on.

  Akin pushed him and Dotun collapsed into a seat, laughing.

  ‘Ah, abomination!’ Moomi cried, placing a hand over her left breast as if to keep her heart from bursting through her skin.

  ‘It is the alcohol,’ Akin said.

  ‘My wife, please don’t be angry,’ Moomi said.

  ‘She is not angry. It is the alcohol, isn’t it?’ Akin asked me. A muscle kept flexing in his jaw as though he was chewing his teeth. His hands were balled into fists and the veins stood out. His gaze stayed on me, even though his mother was saying something to him. He was waiting for me to answer, to assure him that it had really been just the alcohol. I lowered myself into a chair, thinking he had no right to be angry, not if the things Dotun had told me were true. But I did not have enough energy in me to care too much about how Akin felt. Sesan was all that mattered. My son was all I had left.

  28

  I picked him up from the Franciscan school’s sickbay. One of the nurses on duty was also a nun. She went to the hospital with me, holding my son and whispering prayers that I did not know. The only lines I recognised were from the Lord’s Prayer:

  Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name . . .

  Her words were soon drowned by his groaning. He writhed as though he was seeking a way to escape his own body. The groans were filled with too much pain for one so tiny. He was hoarse by the time we drove across the road into Wesley Guild. The nun held him and followed me as I raced ahead of her into the ward. The nurse on duty recognised me and led us to a bed immediately. The nun stayed with us, saying her prayers at the foot of the bed:

  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread . . .

  I stood as close to the bed as I could. I wanted to take in the sound of his voice, absorb the unspeakable pain it bore. I had heard it too many times. It had seared my mind and played in my dreams. His eyes were shut and he was curled into a tight ball that the doctor and nurses tried to prise open. He whimpered my name: ‘Mom-ma. Mom-ma. Mom-ma.’ Each broken sound was a nail in my heart. I wanted desperately to stop his pain, in any way possible. But I couldn’t.

  And forgive us our trespasses . . .

  ‘Mrs Ajayi . . . Mrs Ajayi, please hold his hand.’

  I inched closer to the bed. His hand gripped mine with pain-induced strength that crushed my knuckles together. I welcomed the pain in my hand, aware that it was only a tip of what he was feeling. I hoped that by holding me, he could transfuse his agony into my body and be free from it.

  I remember this time because the nun went with us to the hospital. Sesan was being admitted to hospital so often now that one visit was hard to distinguish from the other. The nun in her beige habit makes this memory stand out. Soon, the doctors asked me and the nun to wait outside and we joined the group of sitting and pacing relatives, companions in the valley of the shadow of death, waiting for someone in white to come and tell us our fate.

  The nun held my hand, led me to a wooden bench and sat beside me. So we waited; the nun prayed and I thought about how much I was to blame. There was little room to escape the guilt I felt about Sesan’s sickness and I did not even try. The way I saw it, 50 per cent of his pain was my fault. I had made him sick. I had passed on my sickle-cell gene to him; my body had created the fault in his. I did not shirk from the despair, did not hide myself from his pain – it was only fair that I should share in what I had caused.

  I refused to entertain the possibility that he would die. I did not give up on Sesan, I held on to him in my heart. I convinced myself that he would survive it all – the pain that made him scream until he was hoarse, the injections and painkillers being pumped into his body. I did not once wish that death would release him from his suffering. My only prayers were that he would survive it all and live. The doctors had told us that there were people who lived long and full lives in spite of SCD, and as far as I was concerned, there was no reason why my son would not be one of them.

  I convinced myself that he would live because he deserved to, he wanted to, he was so brave, so hungry for life in spite of everything. But it was also because I knew already that I could not bear to lose another child – I could not even think about it. I knew I would not survive the loss.

  The nun visited Sesan every day during the two weeks that he spent in the hospital. On the day he was finally discharged, Akin tried to carry him when we left the ward, but he scampered down and skipped ahead of us towards the car. He laughed and stretched his little arms forward as he tried to catch a red butterfly that was flying in front of him.

  29

  ‘Mr Ajayi. It’s Mr Ajayi, right? OK, good,’ the doctor said. ‘He is responding to treatment now, you should be able to see him in an hour or so. I’ll let you know when you can. Please excuse me.’

  I went back to the corridor where I’d been sitting on a bench with Yejide. She was pacing the floor with her hands clasped around her large belly.

  ‘Oya, come and sit down. There is no problem.’ I put an arm around her shoulder, led her to a bench. ‘I met one of Sesan’s doctors on my way back from the toilet. He says Sesan is responding to treatment. We should be able to see him soon. So just relax, OK?’

  ‘Thank God,’ she sighed and slumped against me. ‘The baby kicked again when you left.’

  I put my hands on her belly.

  She chuckled. ‘Sorry, she has stopped already.’

  ‘Not fair.’ I moved closer to her so an old man could sit next to me on the bench. ‘Will you go home to have some breakfast? I’ll wait here.’

  ‘Lai lai. Never, I’m not going anywhere without my son.’

  ‘He’ll be fine, don’t worry about it. You need to eat, Yejide.’ I got up. ‘Let me get you something from those food vendors outside the gate. What do you want?’

  ‘Maybe bread.’

  ‘Be back in a minute.’

  Yejide and I had woken up during the night to find Sesan writhing in pain. We’d ended up in the hospital before 3 a.m. The sun was just coming up as I went outside the hospital’s pedestrian gate. Most of the wooden stalls that clustered close to the entrance were empty and I had to walk towards Ijofi Street before I found a woman who sold two fresh loaves of bread to me. Yejide was still eating when the doctor I’d seen earlier approached us; we stood up as he came closer.

  ‘Please come with me. I’d like to talk to you,’ he said.

  Yejide dropped her bread on the bench and we began walking up the corridor with the doctor.

  The doctor stopped, glancing at Yejide’s belly. ‘No, no. I meant just your husband, Ma. Please go and sit down, I need to talk just to him. Alone.’

  ‘Just him, ke? You don’t need me?’ Yejide said.

  ‘No, madam. I just need to ask your husband a few questions. He’ll be back with you soon.’

  Yejide shuffled back towards the bench as the doctor and I walked up the corridor. I could still hear the sound of her feet when the doctor and I stopped at the end of the corridor.

  ‘Mr Ajayi, how do I say this?’ He stared at the floor for what must have been a full minute. When he looked u
p, his eyes were red. ‘This is my first call in paediatrics. I just became a doctor last year. I don’t specialise in paediatrics. My Senior Registrar, the SR on call, was there too when we were fighting for Sesan’s life. But she has gone to the toilet again. Dr Bulus, that’s her name, I think she may have diarrhoea. Maybe we should wait for her, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and sighed. ‘We lost him. I’m so sorry, we lost him.’

  To this day I think about the way he said they’d lost him, as though there was still a chance of getting him back, of finding him hidden in a filing cabinet.

  I went back to Yejide. ‘He is getting better,’ I said.

  ‘When can we see him?’

  ‘Not yet. They are . . . they want to observe him for two more hours before we see him.’

  She frowned. ‘Two hours? Why did he want to talk to you alone?’

  ‘Do you have ewedu at home?’

  ‘Ewedu?’ She scratched her head. ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘He wants us to bring ewedu stew for him so that . . . because when . . . it’s nutritious and he thinks it will help him. Oya, let’s go home.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Yejide, the ewedu now. We are not going to see him for two more hours anyway. Let’s go quickly so that the stew will be ready when they let us in.’

  She pursed her lips. As we walked to the parking lot, she kept glancing back at the ward Sesan had been admitted to.