A Dip of the Head, Not a Yes or a No

Ifeanyi Awachie

As young girls, the sisters had dipped their heads and smiled small smiles when asked about certain Chikes and Ikes and Ezekiels and Claudiuses. They had nodded innocently when asked if they would like to get married and have children one day. When asked if they were dating anyone, they had vigorously shaken their heads. They had exhaled privately when finally the adults — friends of their parents who came to visit or uncles and aunties at church — walked away, satisfied that the girls were single and abstinent, but not altogether uninterested. 

At every reception after mass, the sisters would sit together, apart from their parents and younger brother Sobechi, allowing the cardigans that shamed their sleeveless dresses to slip down their shoulders, whispering to each other behind balls of puff puff as they darted glances at the two or three cute boys who came to church, and, though neither of them acknowledged it, one or two girls. The cuties remained at their parents’ sides. There was nowhere in or outside of the church hall at St. Jean de Brébeuf where the sisters could have taken them to talk or hold hands or kiss. The whole exercise of looking and whispering and imagining was futile and therefore safe. Meanwhile, the real danger was at school waiting to get them pregnant. 

Adaobi, the eldest, on whose shoulders all three siblings’ success rested, flirted energetically with the cute boys at school, knowing she dared not do anything further. Eziamaka, the force of their parents’ pressure partly absorbed by the shield of Adaobi, kissed certain boys in their cars after school, in the movie theatre parking lot, and behind the gym at the game, letting them touch her breasts under her shirt and her pelvis over her jeans.

Ever since their mother had given them the talk — “Don’t have sex until you’re married” — the sisters had carefully studied the available options for birth control. Bursting with impatience, they had waited for the day when they would leave home and get it, all the while worshipping at the altars of making out and humping and masturbating, pleasures they confessed every week — at the white church that they went to most Sundays, not St. Jean’s, where the Igbo community met for mass once a month. The girls snuck home brochures from the nurse’s office at school, swiped them from the doctor’s office when their mother wasn’t looking, looked at online charts comparing different forms of birth control, and texted friends who had already entered this womanly world. They held secret meetings on the bottom bunk, Adaobi’s sheet draped over the side in case their parents walked in, discussing at length the merits of short-acting versus long-acting and thinking together about which kind would suit their future lifestyles.

Years later, after leaving for Harvard, Adaobi got the patch inserted below the scar on her right shoulder from the shot she got as a baby in Nigeria. She tapped it gingerly before her first time, and every time after that — a ritual summoning infertility. At Yale, Eziamaka leapt at the ten-year intrauterine device, wishing it would last even longer. She wasn’t convinced she would ever want kids, anyway. At this rate, she’d gotten so good at not having them — why start?

The first time Adaobi called home after settling into campus, their mother told her, “Study your books, but don’t forget to look for your husband.” Minutes later, Adaobi was on the phone with Eziamaka, relaying the bewildering instruction. Could their mother actually be giving her permission to date — and all that that implied? Then, at Thanksgiving mass during Adaobi’s first visit home, Auntie Beatrice asked her, in front of both of the girls, if she had met anyone at university. Huddling outside behind the church hall, Eziamaka sneaking a smoke, the two of them chattered, disoriented and excited, about what it all might mean. They concluded that all those years, all those years of calculated work, the neverending dance between subtly expressing desire and firmly declaring celibacy — all of that was over for Adaobi. She was allowed — expected — to date, and the same would be true for Eziamaka in two years. The sisters giggled feverishly, and Eziamaka pulled out of her purse the beers she had stolen from the men’s drink coolers to celebrate.

As women, the sisters pursued and were pursued by the right guys — the ones who made good money, didn’t drink too much, didn’t smoke (even Eziamaka had switched to edibles), didn’t do hard drugs, didn’t sell hard drugs, didn’t wear their hair too long, whose parents were still married or at least on speaking terms, who pronounced their Gs and avoided glottal stops, who went to church, who were good in bed but not womanizers or predators, who wanted kids, and didn’t have any. When one of these men started to look like a potential husband, the sisters would mention him to their mother, who would thereafter refer to him as their “friend.” They studied their mother with interest as she began her own performance — “How is your friend Emeka doing?” she would ask every so often, in a carefully crafted casual tone. “How is your friend Nnamdi?” She would ask slightly less often about Eli or Antoine. The sisters didn’t mention Nonye or Desirée. Flashing a glimmer of interest, enough to give the girls hope, but not enough to be completely sure she approved, their mother acknowledged their love lives without encouraging them. A gentle nod to their activities, much like the dip of the head of their girlhood which was not a yes or a no. 

Nevertheless, the sisters were emboldened. Outside of the Igbo community of Atlanta, everyone knew the Emekas and Antoines as their boyfriends. The women claimed them in public and on social media. In private, they had sex, hungrily and triumphantly, always relishing the freedom to fuck at home, in their own beds, completely naked, making as much noise as they wanted, baby barriers firmly in place, reputations intact.

Then, the unthinkable happened. Their mother summoned them home from their respective corners of the world. Images of their father, suddenly dead, their childhood home, suddenly ablaze, someone in the community, suddenly shamed, raced through the sisters’ heads. As they booked flights from London (Adaobi) and New York (Eziamaka), the sisters pleaded with their mother to tell them what was going on. Finally, the text message reply: “Your brother is going to have a baby.” 

Adaobi, sitting on the balcony of her flat in Shoreditch, spilled her Aperol Spritz on her cushioned garden chair. Covered in paint in her studio in New Haven, Eziamaka burst out laughing. They were the Igbo Catholic community members who were about to be shamed. 

Adaobi started crafting a PR plan. Eziamaka told her to relax and enjoy the moment, to celebrate the fact that their unmarried brother was the failure, not them. Then, another message from their mother: “So you two are coming home to help me plan the baby shower.”

“I’m sorry,” Adaobi said, looking, dazed, at the cocktail stain beside her. A certain darkness started to tug at the edges of her mood. “The baby shower?”

“Have we even established whether she’s keeping it?” Eziamaka asked, rummaging through the pile on her desk for the brownie she had been saving.

“Well, if Mom’s planning the baby shower, the due date must be close,” Adaobi said.

“So this boy has been keeping a baby a secret? For months?” 

“I wonder who the mother is,” said Adaobi.

“Must be someone at Princeton,” Eziamaka mused. “I wonder if she’s Igbo.”

“No, she’s not Igbo, if she was Igbo, she wouldn’t be pregnant,” snapped Adaobi.

“I didn’t realize if I accidentally got pregnant in college, Mom would not only not disown me, but actually throw me a baby shower,” Eziamaka said, chewing.

“I’m telling you, there’s no way the girl is Igbo,” Adaobi said. 

“I’m talking about Sobechi.”

“Oh. Well, that’s different.”

“How?” Eziamaka asked. 

“He’s a boy,” Adaobi whispered. 

In all their years of covering for each other when one of them was out late due to lust, of promising to go together should either of them ever need an abortion, of morning-after scares, of out-of-the-way clinics, of side effects, of mood swings, of weight gain, of weight loss, of relief at every period, of disappeared periods, of fortified periods, of fearing permanent infertility, the sisters hadn’t stopped to consider what the rules were for their brother. They had assumed they were the same. 

They flew to Atlanta, the visit coinciding with the start of Sobechi’s junior year summer. Adaobi acknowledged that this was a mercy — no one at Sobechi’s school would have to know. They found their brother in his old spot in front of the TV, still the wide-eyed, wide-grinned, soccer player-shaped boy he had always been, but with a new breathlessness, like he had just had the wind knocked out him. The sisters respected their parents by sitting through a family meal where everything but Sobechi’s baby was discussed, then whisked him away to a bar where they could talk. 

“So what’s going on?” Adaobi asked pointedly when they had ordered.

“I didn’t plan this,” Sobechi began.

“Clearly,” Adaobi said.

Sobechi stiffened. “But Kamara and I have talked about it, and we want to have this baby.”

“Kamara,” Eziamaka said, looking at Adaobi. “So you were right.”

“Right about what?” Sobechi asked. 

“If the girl was Igbo,” Adaobi said. 

“You were placing bets on whether she was Igbo?” Sobechi asked. 

“Nobody was placing bets, I just said she probably wasn’t.”

“She is Igbo,” Sobechi said. “Her Igbo name is Kammarachukwu. She goes to St. Jean’s. She got pregnant after Thanksgiving break.”

Adaobi looked taken aback. “She goes to St. Jean’s?”

“You say ‘she got pregnant’ like you weren’t even there,” Eziamaka said. 

“I was — I own that,” Sobechi said. “I just thought she was on the pill.”

“You didn’t use condoms?” Adaobi asked. 

“I did. At first.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“A while.”

“Who is she at St. Jean’s?” Adaobi asked. “Like, can you describe her to us?”

“So she lives here, y’all have been hooking up for ‘a while,’ and you’re ready to have a kid with her?” Eziamaka asked. 

“What choice do I have, really? She wants to keep it — ”

“What?” Adaobi asked, leaning forward. “No, come on, I really need to know — which one of these little girls is she?”

“Is she in college? Is she working? Do you two have a plan?” Eziamaka asked.

“Yeah, she’s at Emory. She’s going to get a job next year. I’m going to move back and work here, too. That’s the plan so far,” Sobechi said, looking at his sisters. “Y’all got any ideas?”

“Bear with us, Sobechi,” Adaobi said. “We didn’t know any of this was even… an option. Plus Mom has us planning your baby shower.”

“Like I said, I didn’t plan any of this,” Sobechi said, by way of apology.

“But how could you not have?” Adaobi asked. “If you only knew how we’ve had to plan not to be in this situation…”

“How could I?” Sobechi asked. “Y’all kind of kept me out of that world.”

The sisters exchanged glances as their drinks arrived. 

“You’re right,” Eziamaka said, lifting her glass of brown liquor. “But Mom seems calm enough about it, and that’s always been our biggest fear — that she would die of shame.” 

Adaobi downed her negroni in one gulp. “Are you really not going to tell us who she is?”

“Not while you sound like you finna hunt her down! Damn!” Sobechi said. 

Eziamaka laughed.

The next morning, Adaobi started working on the shower. 

“Oh, you don’t have to come,” she told Eziamaka as she left to buy decorations. “I know this isn’t your thing. Spend time with Sobechi. He needs to feel like we’re here for him.”

“Oh-kay,” Eziamaka said skeptically. She returned to her suitcase for the pack of gummies she had brought and left for a walk.

Later, Adaobi pitched her plan to their mother. “I’ve gotten permission to have the shower after mass on the twenty-first.”

Their mother looked up from her cup of tea. “Mass on the twenty-first — but that’s Igbo mass.”

“I know.”

Their mother put her cup down. “No.”

“Mom,” Adaobi said, placing her hand on her mother’s. “This is the best way. No matter where we do it, people are going to talk. This way, we put it out there in the open, control the narrative, and get the support of the community.”

“They’re not going to support us. The idea was for us to celebrate your brother’s child, not expose ourselves to the whole world.”

“What’s the alternative, Mom? We have it here at the house, only invite a few people — word is going to get out. On top of that, you know certain people will ask why they weren’t invited, why we tried to hide it.”

“Adaobi’s thought about this, Mom,” Eziamaka said. 

Their mother sighed. “Premarital sex is a sin. We can’t celebrate it in church.”

“We’re celebrating a baby,” Eziamaka said. “Isn’t that what you just said?”

Their mother frowned into her tea. Adaobi watched her closely, feeling her mood darken again. She cleared her throat.

“‘Our first grandchild,’” she said, smiling. “That’s what you and Dad are going to say. Let’s hope it’s a boy!”

Adaobi and Eziamaka stood beside their mother, Kamara, and Kamara’s mother and sisters at a table at the front of the church hall, next to a growing stack of blue presents. As the female members of the congregation trailed in from mass and greeted the guests of honor, Adaobi kept a firm hand on her mother’s shoulder in case she should keel over in her chair. She and Eziamaka appraised Kamara as the girl performed the familiar dip of the head in response to her gifts, not blithely accepting them, but not rejecting them either. She seemed put-together enough. Pretty. At least she wasn’t flaunting the pregnancy like it was something to be proud of.

Adaobi felt her phone vibrate. Three missed calls from Ifunanya. She excused herself and went outside, to her and Eziamaka’s old spot behind the hall.

“Hey, is everything okay?” she asked Ifunanya.

Ifunanya’s rich voice poured in from London. “I should be asking you, I haven’t been able to reach you since you got there.”

Adaobi sighed. “So sorry, I’ve just been so busy trying to pull all of this together.”

“Of course. How is it?”

“Surreal, but smooth.”

“Of course.” Ifunanya paused. “How are you?”

Adaobi gazed into the distance. In the parking lot, a young mother was loading her baby into her van. “I’m just trying to pull it all together.”

Eziamaka appeared. “I’m sorry, hon,” Adaobi said. “I have to go — I’ll call you tonight.”

Eziamaka handed Adaobi a Smirnoff Ice. Adaobi hesitated. “We’re supposed to be with Mom.”

“She’s alright,” Eziamaka said, sipping. “She’s in host mode. And honestly, Kamara is getting on my nerves. She’s enjoying this way too much.”

“Really?” Adaobi asked. “I thought she was doing up immaculate conception over there.”

“No, she’s loving it,” Eziamaka said, looking thoughtful. “I can’t remember ever noticing her before. You’d think Sobechi would have chosen someone a bit more memorable as the mother of his kid.”

Adaobi shook her head, watching the van pull away. “Bitch,” she whispered.

Eziamaka turned swiftly, taken aback by Adaobi’s tone. Adaobi burst into tears.

“Adaobi, what — ” Eziamaka threw her arms around her sister. “What’s wrong?”

Adaobi struggled through sobs. “I had an abortion,” she said finally.

Eziamaka looked at the girl crying in her arms, stunned. “When?”

“Freshman year.”

“You were supposed to tell me!”

“You were still in high school. I was supposed to be the adult.”

“Are you okay?”

“No,” Adaobi moaned. “I got rid of a child. She gets a party.”

Eziamaka held Adaobi close. “I know. It’s fucked up,” she whispered. “It’s fucked up.”

Adaobi dropped her Smirnoff Ice, the glass shattering on the ground. As Eziamaka held her, she waited for the encroaching darkness to fade.