A cry so silent

We let the words escape from our lips. Not because we wanted to throw caution into the wind, or because we didn't want the words unsaid to amass into balls that would clog our chests, but simply because we wanted to give our conscience a chance. Maybe, just maybe, there was still a small voice that approved and condemned our right and wrong actions. This had to be it. Hajia was taking the news better tIt has been three years, two months, three weeks, four days, eight hours, twelve minutes and nine seconds since I decided to remove myself from your life. That day comes to me like an igniting force everyday. We were at the hospital for your scan. The doctor called me aside and handed me a brown envelope. After that day I started associating brown envelopes with sadness; honestly, numbness would be the better word. Because after reading the contents of the envelope,  my mind went numb, it seemed like a heavy dose of anaesthesia was injected directly to my head and even the pain from the syringe was not felt. According to the results, you had four months, two weeks, three days, five hours, eleven minutes and twenty seconds left on earth. Right! This was where I got the habit of counting from the year to the second. I was more shocked at the apt prediction of your life span than the reality of the news. Suddenly my numbness gave way to a number of other things. Sadness, tension, despair and finally anger. Anger at the doctors for being so calm about the whole situation, anger at myself for not being able to come up with such apt predictions of your life span, although I was meant to be your life partner and finally, resentment towards you for making me hope and believe that you would push through this. When you were first diagnosed of blood cancer,  I could not eat for days. I would watch you all night with a hot towel, waiting for the next moment you would cough, so that I could press your chest with it and so that you could spit the blood out into a bowl. I was fine with this melancholic order of my life until one day, you reassured me that this was another phase, one that would pass in a short period of time. You made me believe that you were not going to die, that you were going to get better and we would go back to our normal lives as husband and wife, not as a patient and a nurse, like you so light-heartedly used to say. I foolishly believed you and had even resumed work and reopened my book club. I was smiling and laughing again. I styled my hair again. I renewed our spa treatment membership and gym membership for a full year. All for what? Only for the bald headed doctor who looked like he himself was suffering from prostrate cancer to tell me aptly that you were definitely going to leave me forever in four months? I so hated you and resented everything that linked us together. Not only did I resent you, I resented the vows we made to each other, the apartment we bought together, our love! They all seemed vague and untrue. It was supposed to be together forever, not together for four months for God's sake! That was when I decided to leave. I couldn't cope with any loss, at least not now. I had just recovered from the miscarriage that happened a year ago, no way was I going to look at you and the calendar alternatively till four months passed. I would rather start afresh. If our love was meant to be short-lived, then it meant we were not soulmates. Yes. I had to go find my real partner who would not die on me three years into our marriage. Someone who would live with me forever and die when I did. I would move to Kenya and start afresh. No parents, no friends and no husband.

Chapter One- Memoirs and memories.

I don't want to leave. I don't have to leave, yet I am leaving. My suitcase is being crosschecked for contraband at the counter and the security guard keeps looking at my purse, with his face contorted into what I could safely call a smile. I pretend not to notice this unsettling behaviour and proceed to the airplane. My life keeps flashing around me and I wonder if it has all been worth it. The three years, the therapies, the booty calls, the hangovers. No. It hasn't. I can still feel nothing. My chest still feels hollow and I haven't reached out to my parents or friends in three years. I would have rather been broken than numb. Gosh! My life.

Well, all these thoughts can't change the turn my life is about to take. I am going back to Nigeria and there is nothing I can do about it. As the plane descends at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, I am overwhelmed by the number of people waiting to receive their loved ones. I, on the other hand, had just my

han I expected. Her eyes were a bit misty, but I couldn't tell whether it was from the dust, as the little ones were sweeping the cemented floor, or if her tear ducts were stimulated by what we just told her. I was about to give her my handkerchief when she cleared her throat and said, " we have to head out to the farm before dusk, that is when the squirrels come out the most to eat our vegetables." I turned to look at Konga, but he did not let our eyes meet.