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“Nkem, please, let’s deal with this together.” His voice rang through the air, but even he could tell how desperate it sounded. How useless. Olanna stared at him, long and hard, a kaleidoscope of anger, heartbreak, and disbelief swirling in those oceanic depths. Slowly, imperceptibly at first, something shifted.
Resolve. The splintering of trust and the release of something once held dear. “It’s your child.” She said, voice soft and unnerving in its calmness. Odenigbo knew what it meant. He refused to believe, to trust his instincts and knowledge built up over the years he had known her.
Instead, he catered to his delusion, chasing his mother and her tool away, rejecting his child, choosing to dive into the hope that she might come back. That she might forgive and forget. Days, weeks, months passed without a glimpse of her shadow.
Then the war rolled around.
He didn’t know anything. How Olanna was doing, whether she was even alive. How his mother was doing, how the child that he had nearly forgotten the existence of was doing.
In the beginning, he was afraid. Afraid that Olanna was really going to cut him off for one little mistake. That fear turned into fury. Rage at her audacity. It wasn’t a big deal. He was drunk, it was his mother. He didn’t know why she was blaming him, when he wasn’t even the one making the conscious decision!
Years later, as his indignation dulled, so returned the throbbing. The skip in his pulse, an ache that never truly went away. The war changed him, the bloodshed, violence and death that never seemed to end. It made him wonder, what happened to his love? Maybe it wasn’t that she didn’t want to return, but that she couldn't.
That was easier than the alternative.
Of course, gazing at the familiar features of the stranger before him, he now knew that wasn’t true. The girl, woman, who stood there, was someone he had never met, but somehow knew. Someone, who had his eyes.
His daughter.
And standing to her side, was Olanna. Decades older, hardened, but no less beautiful. However, her countenance held none of the love, the yearning it did years before, in their youth. Replaced by indifference, and dare he say it, disgust.
“I-” He cut himself off. He didn’t know what to say. Was she with his daughter this entire time?
Looking at her, for the first time, he properly took her in. He ignored her outer appearance, the memories of her as a kind, gentle soul, and looked at her. He saw her, for her. Not his, not stunning, not a challenge, he saw her for her.
Her intelligence. Her desires. Her autonomy.
And the hurt she buried when she had been by his side all those years ago. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Words failing when he needed them most. She, either taking pity or unable to bear the waste of time any longer, spoke. “I thought it was time to meet your daughter. She’s an adult now.”
“...You took care of her?” He asked, breathing out a stifled breath.
She scoffed. “If I don’t, who will? Your mother? Amala? Fleeing refugees?!”
Him. Except he didn’t. He gave his child away, in the misguided hope that it would prove to her his devotion. It did the exact opposite. “I-”
“Don’t.” She said, sharply.
Directing her attention over to his daughter, she mellowed immediately. Affection flowing out of her, present in the creases of her eyes to the movements of her arms. She brought her fingers up to caress his daughter’s hair, nudging her towards him. “I’m Chiamaka.” His daughter muttered faintly in response to the prompting, her first words to him. “Most people call me Baby.”
It dawned on him then that Olanna had moved on. That she had forgotten him. This was nothing but a courtesy. Politeness and etiquette, something carved into her being. A ‘we’re not dead’ declaration. “She’s still your blood after all, even if you can’t tell just by looking.”
You could tell just by looking. But that wasn’t what she meant and he knew it. Having gotten what she came for, Olanna turned away, bringing Baby with her.
He watched her go, unable to bridge the last gap and wrap his fingers around her wrist, even if he dearly wanted to. He had lost his chance. He lost it that night, maybe before that, when he disregarded her identity and thought of her as someone who would always be there.
A constant.
It was then he realised, it was never his mother’s fault. Wasn’t Olanna’s, Amala’s, and definitely wasn’t his unborn child’s fault. His mother might have been the catalyst, but she was weak. Uneducated. He could have easily out-manoeuvred her. But he didn’t. Because he didn’t think it was important. Something worth fighting.
And that cost him everything.