Taiye doesn’t wipe her tears away. She keeps her palms facing upward and looks me right in the eyes. “I understand that you blame me. I blamed myself for a long time, but I need you to forgive me … I miss you all the time. You’re all the good parts, and I don’t want to continue like this,” she gestures at the space between us, “with this emptiness. I don’t want to write letters that I never send. I just want to be sisters again.”
I hadn’t noticed there was a tight ball in my chest until it starts to loosen. The urgency in my gut is satiated. I place each of my hands in Taiye’s open palms, and I say, “I don’t blame you. I’m just wounded.”
“I know,”she sobs.
“I’m sorry that I left you,” I say, and I mean it. “All that time away, I didn’t know how much it mattered to me … and to you, too.”
At this, Taiye pulls her hands away from mine. She covers her face and cries and cries. She’s wiping her eyes and slowly breathes in and out. Through her tears, she chuckles and says, “I guess that’s all it takes.”
“Let’s eat, Taiye,” I tell her. “This smells incredible, and I’m starving.”
Kambirinachi
YEARNING TO HOLD THE ONES I LOVE—my Kin calls that a farce. They tell me that I will forget, that this realm is all illusion, a passing breeze, water swirling down a drain, going going going gone, as though it was never there at all!
I owe so much time. It’s the choice I made. The only viable payment is a return to We.
Come back and forget, they say.
But I don’t want to forget.
They laugh at this, laugh at the notion of desire for anything outside of We. Eyes opening backward, seeing frontward, beyond the beyond. On this side it looks like what some call madness, strangeness. I have been straddling two impossibilities for what seems like many lifetimes.
But my Kin, they say it’s only been a moment. Come back and forget now, they say.
I will never forget. There are many ways. I choose the elegant path of remembering.
These days I see doorways everywhere. It seems my daughters have brought them to me. Ibeji can be like that sometimes, busy busy inadvertent bringers of fate. Though they will never understand. They will never understand because their blood flows only one way, on this side.
Perhaps on the next side their eyes will peel open. Perhaps.
I love my daughters in the language I know. The impossibility.
And I must go my way. I must owe no more.
Taiye
SENEGALESE BREAD, PITA, NAAN, Agege bread, baguette, brioche, soda bread, sourdough, molasses seed bread, sprouted grains, gluten-free, and many other variations of bread. Some of Taiye’s attempts at these recipes were more successful than others. Her Agege bread, for example, failed to match the particularly dense and stretchy texture of the loaves she buys from the hawkers in Obalende. And her naan was just fine, nothing worth sharing, really. She has immersed herself in this task of perfecting her breadmaking skills in the three weeks following a tearful goodbye to Kehinde.
Their relationship did not transform drastically after that meal of roast chicken and fried yams, but it unlocked a door in both of them. They spent the remainder of Kehinde’s time in Lagos tentatively peering through this new door, stepping in slowly, with questions and arguments, and quiet times together. Even after Kehinde flew to meet Farouq in Tangier, they spoke on the phone almost daily.
Taiye is shaping a large loaf of sourdough, her most consistently successful recipe, when her phone rings with a call from Kehinde.
She hears Kehinde sobbing on the other end of the line and asks, “What’s wrong?”
“They won’t let me travel!” Kehinde cries.
“Huh?”
“We’re at the airport, and they won’t let me fly back to Montreal.” She hiccups. “They say I’m too pregnant and I can’t fly.”
“Can they do that?”
“Yes, but only if I’m more than thirty-six weeks pregnant.”
“But you’re not. Aren’t you just nearly seven months now?”
“I know! I showed them the dated letter from the doctor, but they said I’m too big, and they can’t risk it on such a long flight.”
“Fuck.”
“Yes, fuck is right!”
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know. Farouq is trying to sort it out now, but Taiye, it’s not looking good. Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Kehinde’s breathing is laboured. “I’d rather have this baby in Lagos.”
“Could you maybe fly back to Lagos?”
“I’m not sure yet,” she says. “This is unbelievable!”
“Okay, try to just breathe a bit, yeah?”
“This is so frustrating.” Kehinde is trying to calm her breathing. “You should have seen the way they were speaking to me, as if I’m an idiot. I’m pregnant, not stupid! Farouq is speaking with the check-in agent, and the woman is just shaking her head and saying it’s their airline policy. I think they’re just discriminating.”
“How big have you gotten?” Taiye asks.
“I don’t know, like, a bit bigger than I expected to be at seven months.”
“Okay,” Taiye inhales, “don’t be angry, but is it even a little bit possible the doctor miscalculated?”
“Well, maybe, but why is that my problem?!”
Taiye cannot help but smile, only because she is happy that her sister called her in a crisis. She is grateful to share a moment of vulnerability with her again.
“Maybe,” Taiye says slowly, “and don’t be angry, but maybe you could try considering what having the baby there would look like? I mean, Mami and I would one hundred percent fly to meet you …”
“Jesus.” Kehinde sighs. “Fuck, I might have to … oh God, Taiye, I can’t believe how unprepared I am for this kid.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself, love. You didn’t actually know you were pregnant for a bit.”
“Actually, you knew I was pregnant before I did!”
“Stoned wisdom.”
“Yeah, yeah.” A muffled noise follows. “Taiye, hold on a sec.”
Taiye waits for a long time with the phone cradled between her shoulder and her ear, hearing only the muffled din of Kehinde’s conversation with Farouq and the check-in agent.
“I’m not happy about this,” Kehinde finally says into the phone.
“No luck?”
“I need some kind of special medical certificate or something, oh God.”
“Is this something you can get?”
“I don’t know … will you come here, please? Like if I can’t get this thing and we have to stay?”
“For sure.”
AFTER MUCH TRIAL AND ERROR, Taiye thinks she’s discovered a trick to give her Agege bread that desired chewy texture: scalded flour. A simple combination of bread flour and boiling water creates a gelatinous dough that gives the bread that signature stretch without the need for potassium bromate, or any other dodgy preservatives. She sifts 350 grams of bread flour, seven grams of instant dry yeast, and a teaspoon of salt. After making a well in the centre of the flour mixture, she adds a gentle helping of honey, the cooled jelly-like scalded flour, and 140 millilitres of lukewarm water. Then, on a floured surface, she kneads the sticky dough for twenty minutes, stretching, slapping, and folding it. She massages in fifty grams of room temperature butter until the mixture transforms from sticky to soft and elastic. Next she lets the dough rise in a covered bowl for an hour.
While she waits, she swipes open her phone’s blinking screen to find an email, not unlike one she’s written and erased several times since she left Halifax, and not one she ever expected to receive:
Subject: Hello (i don’t mean to intrude)
Salomé Colette
October 9, 2017, 1:07 AM
To
Taiye,
I hope that you are well.
I don’t mean to intrude. Forgive me if this is the case, and feel free to disregard
this email.
I imagine you understand that I’ve written and deleted this email too many times in one sitting to not be considered, at least, a little bit desperate.
Today Hachim asked about you, and I lost my words in reply. I realize I don’t really know where you are or what you’re up to.
I’ve been thinking about (and missing) you. And thinking about (and missing) the casual magic of our time together. I imagine you’ve moved on entirely. I just thought I’d say hello.
Warmly,
Salomé
As she reads, Taiye laughs with something akin to relief. She returns to her bread dough, which has doubled in size. She pounds it down, divides and shapes it into four small loaves, and then leaves them for a second rise.
With her eyes closed and Our Lady’s hands in her own, Taiye says a prayer for her sister in Tangier. She prays for the baby on its way through her. She prays for her mother asleep upstairs in her room, for her father on the other side, for Timi in Amsterdam, for Aiden wherever she is, for Bobby in New York, and finally, for Salomé in Halifax. She prays for their safe passage, whenever the time arises. And for each of them to know, however they must learn it, just how beloved they are.
By the time she glazes the twice-risen loaves with melted butter and sets them in the oven to bake, it is almost three a.m. She will have to sleep eventually, yes, but she will fall deep and heavy into rest, content in the knowledge that the woman who has dominated her thoughts is thinking about her, too. And perhaps there is forgiveness there as well.
LATE THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Taiye wakes up to find her mother standing by her beehive with a serene smile spread across her face and her eyes closed. She hums along to the buzzing of the hive.
“Morning, Mami,” Taiye interrupts her humming. “How did you sleep?”
Kambirinachi’s eyes flutter open, and her smile widens at the sight of her daughter. “Your bees are pleased.”
“They are?”
“They are.” She squeezes Taiye in a long hug. “How did you sleep, Baby Two?”
“You haven’t called me that since I was small.” Taiye kisses her mother’s forehead. “I slept late.”
“I thought I heard you puttering around in the kitchen last night.”
“Yeah, I made bread.” She takes her mother’s hand and leads her inside to the kitchen. “Let’s have some for breakfast.”
Taiye boils three eggs until their yolks are the consistency of custard. She cuts thick slices of the bread and smears them with butter and shito.
As she serves her mother, she says, “I think I’ve come as close to making Agege bread as I can get.”
“You’ve been trying for a while now.” Kambirinachi takes a big bite. “I think you’re right,” she says, with her mouth full.
Satisfied, Taiye digs into her breakfast. “I booked our flights to join Kehinde. We’ll get there around a week before her due date.”
“Good, I’ll have time for a quick trip to Abeokuta before then.”
“What’s in Abeokuta?” Taiye doesn’t recall her mother ever expressing any desire to visit her childhood town.
“Just some old memories.” Kambirinachi smiles. “And what about you, Baby Two?”
“What about me, Mami?” Taiye asks.
“Are you happy?”
Taiye considers the question as seriously as she can on a Saturday morning. “I think I’m closer to happy than I’ve been in some time, yeah.”
“And are you going to take this cooking thing seriously?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I heard you and Timi talking,” Kambirinachi says. “You want to open a restaurant?”
Taiye laughs, suddenly self-conscious. “Maybe,” she says. “Or, like, a food truck, or catering.” She shakes her head. “Something like that.”
“I think you should do it.”
“We’ll see …”
“No, we’ll do,” Kambirinachi says.
Mildly taken aback by her mother’s sudden interest in her career, Taiye says, “Yes, Ma. We’ll do.”
THE SUN IS BLAZING HIGH ABOVE, and the sand almost burns Taiye’s feet. She strips down to her underwear and stands on the shore, letting the cool seawater lick her feet. Our Lady nudges her farther into the ocean, and she steps in until she is waist deep and the water lifts and carries her forward. She floats face up, squinting against the sun and the sting of salt water.
It could actually be okay after all your wahala, Our Lady says, floating beside Taiye.
They are at White Sands, a private beach where Taiye pitched her idea of a food truck on the boardwalk to the manager, a university friend of Isabella’s.
“I suppose it could,” Taiye says. Then she laughs and laughs and laughs.
Subject: Re: Hello (i don’t mean to intrude)
Taiye Adejide
October 19, 2017, 11:49 PM
To
Salomé,
There are a lot of things I want to say, but I will start with the following:
I’m sorry I crossed that line.
I think of you and miss you all the time.
I’m in Lagos, at home, drawing up plans for a food truck and hanging out with my mother.
If you’re open to it, I’d love to talk on the phone sometime.
No pressure.
My love to Hachim.
Always,
Taiye.
Kehinde
TANGIER IS AN ANCIENT AND FASCINATING CITY, as beautiful as it is old. Those first few weeks, while Farouq spent his days interviewing scholars and activists, I happily explored the Kasbah, the Grande Mosquée, St. Andrew’s Church. I saw as many films as I could at Cinéma Rif, I visited the American Legation, I walked along the stunning beach. I cried at the sparkling blue ocean and let the gentle waves lick my swollen feet. I ate everything I could imagine eating without promptly vomiting. I took pictures and smiled. I even started a glass bead collage of Farouq floating in a pool of orange juice—Morocco might very well have the best oranges in the world.
Then I was ready to go back to Montreal, to rest until this big baby pops out of my sore body, but no, apparently, I’m too big to fly.
And now I hate it here. My hatred is irrational and unreliable, of course; it only reared its silly head when I became trapped here.
It’s been almost three weeks since that day at the airport, and Farouq is taking this forced stay as an opportunity to continue his research, and I swear, I might strangle his positive-thinking-make-the-best-of-an-inconvenient-situation neck! The good news is that we’ve found a private hospital that won’t force us into bankruptcy, and Mami and Taiye will be joining us here a week before my due date.
Taiye and I have been talking almost every day. When she answers the phone today, her voice is sunny.
“Ugh,” I say. “I don’t want to ruin your day with my whining.”
“Ruin away,” she says.
And I intend to. I mean to tell her how frustrating it feels to feel so frustrated all the time, but just as I start to speak, I feel wetness pour out from between my legs onto the ugly bright orange carpet of the living room. At the same moment, Farouq comes through the front door, sweaty and sunburned.
“Fuck,” I say to both of them.
“What’s wrong?” they ask simultaneously.
“I think my water just broke.”
Kambirinachi
IF YOU ASK KAMBIRINACHI, THIS IS HOW SHE’LL TELL It:
Oke oshimmiri anokataghi rie onye obula nke o na-ahughi ukwu ya anya.
The ocean never swallows a person whose leg it does not touch.
She willingly waded into the ocean of this human life and has thus been swallowed and devoured and devoured. But oh, she would do it again and again, if only to give her twins a taste of this life. And they are tasting it—feasting on it, in fact.
And she is ready to go home.
At this, her Kin rush forth in joy.
ON HER TRIP T
O ABEOKUTA, She takes a cabu cabu to her childhood home. There she finds nothing but wild greenness covering the foundation where the house once stood. She walks through the green, paces through where she remembers each room used to be. Here the tiny living room, here the even tinier kitchen, here her parents’ bedroom, her room, the bush of a backyard with the borehole. She thinks of her mother. She is sad to have driven the woman away with her very nature.
She doesn’t regret this life, but it hurts, nonetheless.
Kambirinachi hails another cabu cabu and pays the old man driving a thick wad of cash to take her the hour and a half to the Ogun River. On the drive, she takes out a sandwich. Taiye made it for her to take on her trip, asking to join her mother as she piled lettuce, tomato, shredded chicken, and a dollop of shito on two thick buttered slices of her Agege bread. Kambirinachi told Taiye that she needed to go alone.
At the river, she polishes off the remainder of the snacks that Taiye packed her—
I am full to bursting, but I eat the diced mangoes and the thick slice of buttery honey caramel cake. I step into the mouth of the brown river. I walk in until the ancient waters cover me, and then I leave my body empty and float into the vast sky. I float along a seam of light that leads me to my daughters so that I see Kehinde, crouched on the floor in the sparsely furnished flat in Tangier, a small pool of liquid between her bare and swollen feet. Farouq squats beside her, rubbing her back, trying to help her up. She is on the phone with her sister, crying, crying out. I see Taiye, standing in the kitchen of our home in Lagos, hands caked in thick globs of bread dough. She is on the phone with her sister, crying, listening.
“I can’t do this!” Kehinde cries into the phone pressed hot against her ear. “I can’t …” Her voice strains from the pain of her contraction.
“You one hundred perce—” Taiye starts to say.
Kehinde shrieks, “You left me!”
“I’m right here.” Taiye speaks gently, trying to bury the bubble of tears in her voice. “I never left you.”
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