Out of Reach

Chapter 3: The performance

Sunday mornings in the Akpovire household were quiet in a different way from the rest of the week.

On weekdays the silence had a rushed quality to it Efe moving through the house like a man with somewhere urgent to be, doors opening and closing, phones ringing, the sound of the gate sliding open as the Mercedes pulled out before Tega had finished her first cup of tea.

But on Sundays the silence was slower.

Heavier.

There was nowhere to rush to and so the emptiness of their marriage had more room to breathe.

Tega woke up at seven thirty to find Efe’s side of the bed already cold. She lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the house settling around her. Somewhere downstairs Mama Bisi was moving around the kitchen. Outside a bird was making noise in the mango tree near the fence. From somewhere far away came the distant sound of a church choir carrying on the morning air.

She closed her eyes and let herself imagine, just for a moment, what it would feel like to wake up and not feel this way.

Then she got up, washed her face and went downstairs.

Efe was in the living room.

This was unusual enough that it stopped her in the doorway for just a second. He was sitting on the sofa with his laptop open as always but he was still in his sleepwear a white t-shirt and shorts which meant he had not yet begun his transformation into the version of himself that the world saw.

He looked up when she came in.

“Morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” she replied, moving toward the kitchen.

“Tega.”

She stopped and turned.

He was looking at her with an expression she could not immediately read. Not warm exactly but not cold either. Something in between the face of a man who had something to say and was calculating whether to say it.

“My parents are coming,” he said. “Next weekend. They want to spend a few days.”

Tega felt something tighten in her chest.

Chief Akpovire and his wife Ada were not difficult people on the surface. They were polite and well mannered and always brought gifts when they visited. But their eyes especially Ada’s carried a particular kind of scrutiny that Tega found exhausting. The careful watching. The loaded questions about when she and Efe would have children. The comments wrapped in smiles that were really not smiles at all.

“How many days?” she asked carefully.

“Four. Maybe five.”

“Alright,” she said. “I will prepare the guest suite.”

“Good.” He looked back at his laptop. Conversation over.

Tega went into the kitchen and stood at the counter for a long moment with her hands flat on the cold marble surface, breathing slowly.

Four days. Maybe five.

She would smile. She would cook. She would answer Ada’s questions about children with the same patient deflection she had been perfecting for two years. She would perform the role of happy wife so convincingly that even she would almost believe it.

Almost.

Two years.

That was how long they had been married.

And in two years Efe had touched her twice.

Not twice a week. Not twice a month.

Twice.

Total.

Both times had felt like something being endured rather than shared brief, mechanical, loveless. Like a man fulfilling an obligation he resented. Like someone going through motions they had no real interest in. Afterwards he had turned away immediately, pulling sleep around himself like a shield, leaving her staring at the ceiling feeling more alone than she had felt before it happened.

She had never told anyone this.

How could she?

What words would she even use?

She noticed it most on the evenings she tried.

Not often. She had learned quickly that trying too often only made the rejection sharper. But occasionally, in moments of particular loneliness, she would move closer to him in bed. Rest her hand lightly on his arm. Let her presence be known in the quiet dark way of a woman hoping to be wanted.

Every time the response was the same.

A slight stiffening. A subtle withdrawal. And then his voice, flat and final

“I am tired Tega.”

Always tired.

She had started to wonder if something was wrong with her.

She would stand in front of the bathroom mirror some evenings and look at herself honestly really look trying to find whatever it was that made her so easy to ignore. She was not ugly. She knew that much. People told her she was beautiful often enough that she believed it in the abstract way you believe things that other people keep insisting are true.

But Efe did not find her beautiful.

Or if he did he had never once shown it.

And there was a particular kind of damage that came from being unwanted by the person who was supposed to want you most. It was quiet damage. The kind that did not show on the outside but hollowed you out slowly from within.

She did not expect love from him anymore.

She had made her peace with that or something close to peace, the version of it that looked like acceptance from a distance even if it still ached up close.

But was pretending too much to ask?

Just pretending.

She was not asking for the real thing. She understood by now that the real thing was never coming from Efe. But could he not at least go through the motions? Could he not hold her hand sometimes without being prompted? Could he not look at her the way a man looks at a woman he chose?

When their families visited he transformed completely.

Suddenly he was attentive touching her shoulder as he passed, calling her “my wife” with a warmth that made their fathers nod with satisfaction and their mothers exchange pleased smiles.

Chief Oghenero would watch his son in law place a hand at the small of his daughter’s back and feel his old heart swell with the belief that he had chosen well for her.

He did not know that the moment the gate closed behind the last family member that hand disappeared.

That the warmth evaporated like morning mist.

That his daughter went back to being furniture in her own home.

Efe enjoyed every benefit of the alliance between their families. The business connections. The contracts. The open doors that Chief Oghenero’s name unlocked in certain rooms. He collected all of it with both hands while giving nothing real in return.

Not to Tega anyway.

She was the price he had paid for all of it and he treated her exactly that way like a transaction that had already been completed. Like something he had already gotten what he needed from.

She needed air.

After breakfast she changed into a simple dress and told Mama Bisi she was going for a walk around the estate. It was something she did sometimes on Sunday mornings when the walls of the house felt like they were pressing inward a slow walk through the quiet streets of their Lekki estate where the roads were clean and the trees were tall and she could pretend for thirty minutes that she was just a woman on a walk with no particular weight on her shoulders.

She was almost at the gate when she saw Akin.

He was outside the garage in a plain t-shirt and trousers, washing the car with the focused unhurried attention he gave to everything. He had not seen her yet. She watched him for a moment the easy movement of his arms, the way he hummed something low and tuneless under his breath, completely at peace with his Sunday morning task.

Something about the sight of him made the tightness in her chest loosen just slightly.

He looked up and saw her.

“Good morning ma,” he said, straightening up.

“Good morning Akin,” she said. “You are working on a Sunday?”

He smiled a real one, small and genuine. “Car does not know what day it is ma.”

She laughed before she could stop herself.

It was a small laugh, surprised out of her, and it felt strange in her mouth like a muscle she had not used in a long time. She pressed her fingers briefly to her lips as if to catch it.

Akin was looking at her with an expression she could not quite name. Something quiet and warm and careful all at once.

“That is a good sound,” he said softly.

She looked at him. “What is?”

“Your laugh.”

The words were simple. They were not flirtatious. They were just honest offered the way Akin offered everything, plainly and without performance.

But they hit her somewhere unguarded.

She looked away, smoothing her dress unnecessarily. “I am going for a walk,” she said.

“Enjoy ma,” he said, turning back to the car.

She walked through the gate and out into the quiet Sunday street.

But she was smiling.

She did not realize it until she was halfway down the road a real smile, small and private, the kind that comes not from performing happiness but from accidentally stumbling into a moment of it.

She touched her face as if to confirm it was real.

It was.