The days after Glory’s arrival collapsed into one long, meticulous to-do-list, overseen with military precision by Faith. So when the day of the funeral arrived, they were both relieved. All that could have been done had been done, and everything else wouldn’t matter by tomorrow.
At their mother’s house, Glory waited outside. The cold winter air was an antidote to the claustrophobic activity taking place inside the house. She waited by the hearse, averting her eyes from the walnut-paneled casket that lay behind the glass.
She had been wrestling with the image of her father’s waxen face since the final viewing of his body at the funeral home the night before. She had fought it all through the night, trying to remember what Daddy had looked like the last time she had seen him in person. But the details of the day had been displaced by the excitement. She had looked at her family as she hugged and kissed them at the airport, but she hadn’t really seen them; her vision was already focused beyond them and beyond London, on Los Angeles and everything she believed it had to offer.
Guilt. She could feel it again, pushing the contents of her stomach up into her throat. She tried to focus on one of the photographs she had selected for the program: the skinny young man on his first day at university; the stiff groom in a tuxedo looking nervously into the camera lens; the nineties version with a thick black moustache and arms full of children. But the specter of his jaw, wired shut in a grimace, swum back into frame and Glory found herself hobbling to the back of the limousine, where she vomited a sickly, yellow stream into the gutter. One of the drivers rushed to her, pushing a packet of Kleenex into her hand. She straightened up and leaned weakly against the side of the vehicle, wiping her mouth with a balled up fist of tissue in time to see her mother emerge, supported by Faith on one side and Auntie Dọ̀tun on the other.
Celeste’s face was ashen and her mouth set in a tight line, but the sequins on her blouse shimmered in the weak morning light. Gripped in one of her hands was a handkerchief, and she clutched it so hard her knuckles were pale. Celeste walked slowly toward the first limousine parked behind the hearse, but stopped in front of Glory, pressing another folded handkerchief into her hands without a word. Glory looked from the handkerchief to Faith who rolled her eyes, before Auntie Dọ̀tun whispered, “It’s been blessed by Pastor Owódùnní. It’s for protection for today.”
“What’s wrong?” Faith asked, spotting the tissue and the arm Glory wrapped around her stomach.
“Nothing—I just threw up.”
Faith’s eyes widened.
“It didn’t get it on you did it?” she asked. “I won’t have time to redo your makeup if it did.”
She clasped Glory’s chin in her fingers, turning her sister’s head this way and that.
“No, I did it down the drain.” Glory pulled herself out of Faith’s grip.
“OK.” Faith nodded grimly. “Drink some water but we need to leave.”
Glory remembered the somber sight of funeral processions when she was younger, and she remembered stopping to gawp as the long black cars snaked through traffic. But now she resented the audience the scene produced. Strangers stared with no sense of embarrassment while others averted their gaze and made the sign of the cross. Glory closed her eyes for the rest of the journey, praying for the day to come to a swift and successful end.
At the church, it was apparent that everyone who had ever known their family had turned out to pay their respects. People whose calls Glory had been avoiding waved to her as the family got out of the cars, and what felt like hundreds of eyes carried her into the church building. Glory held on to the hand her mother wrapped around her forearm, and kept her gaze trained on the floor in front of each careful step Celeste took, but she couldn’t help thinking that her return to London was not meant to be like this. She was not meant to be an object of pity for everyone she had been so eager to leave behind. This was not how the story was meant to end.
The family waited in a small side room while mourners were ushered into the hall. Celeste sat between Faith and Glory, vibrating with the low hum of another desperate prayer. Faith took out a white handkerchief—also blessed by Pastor Owódùnní—and pressed it into the crease of her nose, blotting away nervous sweat.
The hall doors shut behind the last set of well-wishers, then the undertakers brought the casket into the church foyer. Michael and the mix of relatives and business associates who were pallbearers assembled around the casket, preparing themselves to shoulder the weight of Glory’s father’s mortal remains.
The PA system squeaked as the minister asked the congregation to stand, and the musicians struck up chords. Glory, Faith and their mother slipped in front of the queue of mourners in matching fabric that had lined up behind the casket.
“Remember, this is a celebration of life!” Glory’s mother hissed at her daughters who stood either side of her, their backs stiff and straight. It was the first sentence she had said all morning. The shrill notes of a Nigerian chorus started, the doors of the hall swung open, and the family of the late, great, Adékúnlé Ọlárótìmí Akíndélé swayed into the hall.
A strong undercurrent of family politics had steered much of the funeral planning and even the day itself. Otherwise irrelevant cultural expectations escalated in importance, but the only battle that mattered to Glory had been won: she had been the one to give her father’s eulogy.
For those slighted by no official slot in the program, the minister opened the floor for tributes. Glory could see that her father was well loved, but she still watched cynically as well-wisher after well-wisher lined up to underscore their proximity to the family. Glory let their words swim past her, nodding an “amen” at the appropriate moments and clapping when required.
As she stood at the graveside with Faith and her mother, the finality of the occasion came into sharp focus. She still had so much to tell Daddy. As the casket was lowered into the open grave she wanted to jump into the hole with it. She distracted herself from this irrational urge by propping up her mother, who leaned on her heavily, shoulders shaking in deep silent sobs, while behind them Auntie Dọ̀tun repeated, “It is well, my sister, it is well!”
At the wake the atmosphere changed from somber to festive. Plates of fish and meat were served while music bubbled from speakers in the community hall. Faith was dipping her way around tables attending to older guests, ensuring they had enough plantain or the softest portion of stewed beef. The twins ran in circles and Celeste sat at the center of the room, holding court with friends who fussed over her while she piously refused plates of food.
“Sister Celeste,” one of her friends pleaded. “You can break your fast to honor your husband now!”
But Celeste pressed her lips firmly together, accepting only water, though the weight with which she had leaned on Glory at the graveside suggested she could have done with some sustenance.
One of her mother’s friends eventually came over to the corner where Glory had planted herself, glowering at those who had so readily replaced sorrow with mouthfuls of food.
“Your mother wants you to come,” the woman said, and Glory followed her back to the thicket of aunties.
“Glory, you remember Ọmọlará’s mum?” Celeste said, holding an arm out to a woman around her age whose face was folded up in pity.
Glory mumbled something noncommittal as she was wrapped in a desperate hug.
“Glory, don’t be rude. Greet your elders properly, at the very least!”
“It’s OK, Mama Faith,” the woman said. “My dear, I’m so, so sorry.”
She released Glory for a second before drawing her to her bosom once again.
“And Lará wanted to be here, but she couldn’t get the time off work. I’ll get your number from your mum and she’ll call you. She really wants to speak to you.”
Glory nodded but said nothing, waiting for her chance to leave before she did something else to irritate her mother.
“It’s been years, but you are like family, ehn?” the woman continued, now holding Glory’s hand between her damp palms. Family.
When the woman turned back to Celeste, Glory made her exit. The earnestness in her tone was too much.
Finding her previous corner occupied, Glory floated around the hall, trying to avoid making eye contact while looking for another nook to hide away in.
To their credit, she saw that Victor’s friends had made a late appearance. They were dressed appropriately enough, each of them sporting matching guinea brocade, cut into slim-fitting tunic tops, worn with dark jeans and the obscene patent glare of their designer trainers. She watched Faith attend to them, dispensing hugs and chilled bottles of Supermalt, and even managing to laugh as the young men blushed under her big sisterly charm. Resentment filled Glory’s stomach. Everything was too bright and too loud.
Glory left the hall and escaped to the ladies’ bathroom, barricading herself in a stall. She perched on the closed lid of the toilet, and gathered up her lace skirt so she could rest her feet against the back of the door. Voices followed her in shortly after, and it was her brother’s name that pricked her ears.
“You know what happened with Victor, right? And now this sudden death . . .”
The other voice tutted in agreement and entered the stall next to Glory.
“To be honest,” the first voice continued, “the tragedy started a long time ago. You know they had another daughter, right?”
Glory’s throat tightened and she curled her fingers into tight fists, feeling her nails dig into her palms.
“Oh, really?” the second voice piped up. “What happened?”
“So sad, really, so sad. I can’t even remember how it happened, but it was when the girls were very small.”
The cubicle door was a foot or two in front of Glory’s face, but it was swimming in the distance. She pressed her head into her lap, fire building in her throat.
“What was her name?” voice number two asked, flushing the toilet and leaving the cubicle.
“I can’t even remember now—I didn’t know the family at that time, actually, it was my sister’s husband who told me.”
Rage coursed through Glory and she wanted to scream at the anonymous voices. The audacity of these witches gossiping about her family at her father’s funeral and they didn’t even know the name of her dead sister! Glory grasped her thighs through the material of her skirt, digging her fingers in as deep as they would go and letting the pain flood her senses in place of pure indignation.
She waited until the whirr of the hand drier quieted down and the door slapped shut before she got up, slowly, feeling dizzy and unsteady. She took a deep breath and hurried from the stall, past a group of women gathered in the outer corridor.
“Glory?”
She spun around to see Michael with the group she had pushed past. He towered over them and the way they looked at him in sickening admiration made Glory feel even angrier. They probably all wanted their daughters to marry a man like him, Glory thought darkly. If only they knew.
“What?” Glory shot back at her brother-in-law.
“Faith was looking for you—”
“I just need a minute!”
One of the women standing near Michael audibly gasped.
“You should not be talking to your older bro—”
Glory turned her back on the group and walked away.
“It’s OK, ma.” She could hear Michael placating his groupies. “She’s grieving, it’s a hard day for all of us.”
A cold gust of air hit her as she left the building and rounded a corner. Out of sight from the entrance she pressed her hot body to the cool outer wall. Running her hands over the brick, she zeroed in on the rough texture beneath her fingers, counting to ten and swallowing air. When she felt she could finally breathe freely, she bent over and let out a guttural sob.
The sound crashed around inside her head, so loud she didn’t hear the person approach. She felt a careful hand on her shoulder before she heard her name being whispered, and she looked up to see a shadow in front of her. The light filtering from the windows high up in the building’s walls revealed a worried face.
“Stand up,” the voice gently said. Glory studied the stranger’s face, which felt familiar, as he fumbled through his pockets.
“Let’s sit over here, and I’ll get you some tissue, yeah?”
He led her by the arm to the low wall that surrounded the community hall before disappearing into the night. When he returned, Glory had calmed down. Embarrassment eclipsed the grief and panic that had wracked her body a few minutes before. She accepted the wad of toilet paper he held out to her, wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
“I’m sorry . . . Julian.”
His name came back to her. He was Faith’s age, the son of a family friend, and she vaguely remembered childhood birthday parties from photo albums, pictures of kids squashed together behind a caterpillar cake.
“Sorry for what? It would be weird if you weren’t upset.”
“I know, it’s just . . .” She waved a weak hand in front of her, letting her sentence fade into the evening air.
“If you wanna be alone, just say. I saw you rush out and just wanted to make sure you were OK.”
“It’s fine,” Glory said quietly, “I just need a minute.”
“OK, I’ll give you some space.” Julian backed away and then stopped.
“Listen, I know we ain’t spoken in time, but if you ever need anyone to talk to—and I’m sorry about what happened to your brother too . . .” Glory flinched. “. . . but I know what it’s like—I mean, I’ve got a couple people inside, so, y’know, if you ever want to talk, come and find me.”
“Find you where?” Glory asked. Julian looked through his pockets again and held out a card.
“I’m usually at my shop but my phone number’s there too.”
Glory turned the business card around in her hand and looked up at him with a quizzical expression.
“I’m not trying to move to you,” Julian said with a self-conscious laugh. “I’m serious, yeah?”
He dug his hands into the back pockets of his trousers and looked at the floor.
“We basically grew up together,” he said, by way of explanation. “So if you need anything just holler.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“Cool.”
Julian turned around and went back inside.