Moribund

My mother is dying.

One day last June, a friend told me that a person’s eyes turn white when they are on the verge of death.

I remember because she used the term moribund.

My mother is dying, but her eyes are getting darker.

The room is hot. This room, contaminated by the smell of cancer, should not be hot. It is Harmattan season. It is 10 pm on a chilly Thursday in January. This room should not be hot.

Maybe it’s my breath. Maybe it’s the closeness of something so present yet invisible. The flickering bulb above my mother’s bed feels like a sign, even though it has always flickered. She refuses to replace it. My sisters, the twins, sit beside her, taking turns massaging her head with a damp cloth to ease the perspiration. Oke, my youngest sister, would have been here too if death had not taken her two years ago. She was fourteen.

That was when my mother’s sickness started.

“You did not want to come,” my mother says. Her voice is weak. Her breathing labored. Heavy drops of sweat fall from her face and trickle onto the bed.

I do not like the smell of this room.

“I am here now,” I say. I want to avoid this conversation. She won’t understand. It’s better to stay away than watch her rot. After all, I’ve worked very hard to ensure the medical bills were paid.

“They say a woman’s crown is her husband.” She coughs. One of the twins rubs her chest. “But the true crown of a woman is her children.”

“You should not be talking,” I say. Talking causes her pain. Her voice, scratchy like sandpaper against iron, burns my ears.

My mother didn’t always sound like this, like someone whose soul is haunted. She was never loud, but she used to be bubbly. She had a great smile. Her skin radiated like smooth ceramic in sunlight. She smelled like the lavender flowers she planted in our yard. Now, her skin is black beyond recognition. Her smile vanished long ago, along with the patches of white hair dotting her scalp. She resembles parched earth where vultures feast. Her teeth are brown. She stinks. The cancer has eaten so deep into her that it has become her. This is not my mother. This is cancer with a mouth and a beating heart.

“Do you hate me now?” she asks. She won’t stop talking.

“No, Mummy,” I reply.

No, Mummy. I do not hate you. But I am angry.

I let the rest of the words sit in my chest, tie themselves into a knot. If I stay here too long, I might stop breathing.

When she called and said she wanted to see all her children, I knew I couldn’t run. My mother doesn’t ask for much.

“There are things you should know, my daughters.” Her swollen eyes settle on me, as if I am the focus of what’s coming. The twins cast me a knowing look. We hope she doesn’t mention my father.

She does.

“How is your father?” she blinks at me.

The irritation rising in me mirrors the twins’ faces.

Really, Mummy? You’re dying and still care about a man who cheated on you nine years ago and called you a witch?

Again, I leave the words in my chest. The knot thickens.

“Mummy, please,” Fejiro pleads, shifting uncomfortably.

We don’t want to talk about our father.

“The world is not a kind place.” She coughs and asks for water. Fejiro hands her a glass.

For the first time since returning, I study the room. Everything has changed. This room—her first refuge after the separation. I still remember my father throwing her things out. It was raining. She wept, rolling in the mud, screaming. I ran out to help her, only to be ordered back in. He flogged me later—punishment, he called it. I was fourteen. Two days later, she returned while he was away and took us here. This room. She called it a face-me-i-face-you apartment. No kitchen. No toilet. No bathroom. Now it seems larger, emptier. The curtains are dirty. The window nets have holes. But the worst thing missing is her liveliness. Her presence.

I am sweating.

“What are you thinking about?” Her dark eyes trap mine.

“Nothing,” I mumble.

“Your father used to be a good man.” She smiles faintly. “I believe he still is. Each of us is capable of so much good and so much bad.”

Over the months, as I watched cancer ravage her, I prepared for this. When she stopped responding to treatment, I hardened my heart. When she insisted on leaving the hospital, I promised I wouldn’t cry. But I didn’t prepare for this.

“You promised to do omugwo for us when we have children,” Ejiro says softly.

My mother groans but says nothing.

As a child, I imagined she’d pass on in old age, surrounded by her daughters and grandchildren.

“Love is a strange thing.” Her eyes dim. “I befriended your father because he was the first man I told my full name.” She smiles, exposing her brown teeth.

Why she thinks this matters now, I don’t understand.

“He deflowered me. He was my first everything. We planned our old age. We only wanted two children. But God had other plans. He gave us the twins and then…” She trails off, refusing to mention Oke.

My mother is a bundle of unhealed things. Her eyes. Her coughs. Her broken smile. And truth be told, so are we—me, Fejiro, Ejiro.

“Your father wanted a boy and a girl. I wanted the same. But God’s ways are not the ways of man.”

This God, who watched her suffer without lifting a finger?

“Daddy never wanted a girl,” Fejiro says. “That’s what he told us the last time we asked for money.”

This shocks me. I don’t recall planning to talk to him with the twins. They must have kept it from me. We’ve grown apart. I’ve alienated myself. Run.

“When I was your age, marriage was the highest achievement,” she continues. “Why go to university when I would marry a graduate? Your father was handsome and smart. I was lucky.”

“There were women who went to school, Mummy,” Ejiro says, rolling her eyes.

My mother laughs—it sounds like a cry. Then a groan. “This is Nigeria, not oyibo land. Few women my age saw the inside of a university. Those who did were either rich or very stubborn.”

One thing I always admired: her spoken English. It is flawless for someone who never attended university.

“Why weren’t you stubborn?” Ejiro presses.

“That’s why I say love is strange. Your father said after I had our first child and he got a better job, he’d send me to school. I believed him. He was perfect.”

“Mummy, you said you wanted to see us,” I cut in, hoping she’ll stop talking about him.

“When I had the first pregnancy, your father said he wasn’t ready. So I aborted it.”

We freeze. Fejiro’s mouth drops.

My righteous mother?

“The second pregnancy came. He wasn’t ready again and…” She pauses.

“You aborted it,” Ejiro finishes.

“When the third pregnancy came, I didn’t give him the chance. I said, we’re keeping it. That was how we had you.” She nods at me, pride gleaming in her eyes.

My mind buzzes. I imagine another life—older siblings, fewer burdens. Maybe I wouldn’t have to prowl Lagos streets, feeding on men’s lust and money.

My father wasn’t ready, yet she kept spreading her legs. He kept depositing sperm.

The knot in my chest tightens. It hurts.

“My goodness!” Fejiro is pacing. “You didn’t know about birth control? Condoms? Withdrawal?”

“He said birth control would make me infertile. That condoms were invented by whites to reduce our population. I knew nothing.”

But you knew abortion, Mummy.

“Love is strange, my daughter. Don’t look at me like that. I am only a woman. Only human.”

“Sit,” I say to Fejiro. Her pacing annoys me.

“Why?” she spits.

“You’re distracting me.”

“From what?” Her voice sharpens. “You sit there like you’re righteous. Where were you when Ejiro and I cleaned Mummy’s shit every day?”

Here we go. Pidgin. War mode.

“This room stinks. You smell that? Shit, piss, blood, sores…”

She breaks. Sobs.

Ejiro holds her.

“Why are you even here?” she asks. “You ran. For months, your own mother needed you. You stayed away. Asking for pictures, as if waiting for her to die.”

“I sent money,” I say. I feel no love for them. Ungrateful bastards. “Money for the hospital. For the herbalist. For school. Always money. You don’t know what I do for it.”

“Some things are more important than money,” Fejiro snaps.

“What if she had died?” Ejiro adds.

My mother begins to cough.

It lasts minutes. Her body lifts and falls. The twins move quickly, tending to her. I sit there, grateful her gaze is off me.

Maybe I am selfish.

“My daughters…” she starts.

“Mummy, please don’t mention Daddy,” Fejiro warns.

“There are things you need to know. I need to finish.”

“Let her talk,” I say.

“After your birth, he told me to stay home. He’d send me to school later. He never did.”

I nod. The knot remains.

“After the twins, I gave up.”

Silence.

“I knew it was ending.”

Moribund. The word dances in my head.

“What?” I ask.

“The marriage. What else?” Her voice is low. “I saw him the day he touched your breasts in your room. I was passing.”

I freeze.

“I saw him the day he kissed you on the mouth.”

She knew?

“I wanted to save you.”

Then why didn’t you?

“I confronted him. He slapped me. Said I had no evidence.”

I was the evidence.

“You left us with him,” Fejiro murmurs.

“It was the best I could do. He threatened to kill me. I needed you to be educated. He had the money. I didn’t.”

“Why!!!” Ejiro screams.

“With education, you can sue him. With education, no man will do to you what he did to me.”

Does she know how I pay the bills?

Education is not the solution, Mummy.

My chest burns.

“I have so many regrets,” she says. “God is punishing me. I cannot even hug my children.”

Your children?

You just defended him.

“I am so sorry, Esiri.” The first time she says my name tonight.

The knot strangles me. I cannot breathe.

My sisters hold me.

“Breathe… I love you,” Ejiro whispers.

I cannot breathe.

Darkness.

*

A cloth on my body. Cold sachet water on my temple.

Head pounding. Chest aching.

The power’s out. Crickets outside. My mother’s ragged breath nearby.

I close my eyes.

Fejiro announces it.

9 am. I wake to a headache. She stands over me. The power is back.

“She is dead.” Her eyes are red.

I look at the bed. My mother’s eyes are closed. Ejiro broods beside her.

I turn away. Her death ends something else.

I know what I must do.

*

He’s in the garden.

“Henry.”

He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look up. Last time I was here, I called him Daddy.

He sprays herbicides on long grass. In days, the weeds will wither.

Moribund.

“Esiri, what do you want?”

“Mummy is dead,” I say.

His hand trembles, but he continues spraying.

A toddler runs out yelling “Dada.” A girl. Looks just like him.

“I said Mummy is dead.” I pull my hands from my pocket.

He finally looks. His eyes are white and alive.

“Esiri,” he says.

I wait. Then show him the gun.

Realization and panic arrive together.

“Ah!” he gasps.

I aim.

I pull the trigger.