Sara

Chapter Eight

Two full days passed before I was strong enough to walk properly.

Chioma insisted on doing everything. She went to the market, selling her zobo and my water sachets together, refusing to let me lift even a finger. Every evening she came back with food and medicine, and every morning she checked my bruises and always asked me a hundred questions about how I was feeling.

On the third morning, I woke to the smell of something frying.

The room was still dim, left for the early morning light that's just beginning to filter through the window. Chioma was already up, moving around the room, humming softly under her breath. When she noticed I was awake, she smiled, it's the first real smile I'd seen from her since before the fight.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," she said. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," I said, and it was true. Even though the pain was still there, a dull ache that comes back whenever I moved too fast, but the sharp, stabbing agony had faded. And could breathe without wincing now. I could even turn my head properly.

"Good. Because today, you're taking a proper bath outside. With soap and water. Because, ahh... you smell like a goat."

I laughed, and the sound surprised me. It felt like it had been years since I'd last laughed.

"I'm serious," Chioma said, but she was grinning. "I already boiled hot water and mixed it with cold one. The bucket is outside near the bathroom. And I bought akara and pap from Mama Bose's daughter. It's real, good akara o, not that fake ones with too much onion. It's the crispy ones you like."

My stomach growled loudly, and Chioma laughed.

"You must bath first." she said firmly. "Then food. Then you take your medication."

Getting up was still a struggle. My muscles had stiffened overnight, and every movement still sent a ache through my body. Chioma helped me to my feet and handed me a clean wrapper and a towel. The wrapper wasn't new, but it was clean and whole, with no tears. I must have looked surprised because Chioma shrugged and said, "It's my Sunday wrapper. Better don't get it dirty."

She walked with me out of the room and into the compound. The morning air carries the normal smell of smoke and frying plantains from the nearby buka.

Inside the compound was already alive with activity.

The bathroom was a small, cramped space with a concrete floor and a drain in the corner. Chioma placed the bucket of warm water just outside the door, along with a small plastic cup for scooping. Then she set the towel and wrapper on a nearby stool.

"Take your time," she said. "I'm waiting outside here. If you feel dizzy, call me immediately. Don't try any nonsense again."

"I won't."

"And brush your teeth." She pressed a toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste into my hand. "I borrowed the toothpaste from the woman in the next room. Don't even ask me what I had to promise her."

I raised an eyebrow, and Chioma laughed.

"Nothing bad oo.

Just two free cups of zobo. Now go."

I stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. When I scooped the warm water and poured on my body, it felt like heaven against my sore muscles.

I stood there for a long time, while I let the heat soak into my bones, washing away the dirt and the dried blood and the memory of the cold rain. My body was a mess of purple and yellow bruises, but underneath all the damage, I was still here. And I was still breathing.

When I finally emerged, clean and wrapped in Chioma's Sunday wrapper, I felt almost human again.

When Chioma and I were walking back toward the room, the bucket of the used water in my hand and the towel draped over my shoulder, a voice called out to Chioma from across the compound.

"Ah, Chioma! Good morning o!"

We both turned. It was one of the neighbors, a woman I'd seen around but never spoken to. She was sitting on a low stool outside her door, with a bowl of beans in her lap, picking through them with quick, practiced fingers.

Her name was Iya Jumoke, if I remembered correctly, and according to the runours going around she have the reputation for poking into everyone's business.

"Good morning, ma," Chioma replied, but she didn't stop walking.

"Ehn, that's your friend, abi?" Iya Jumoke called out, her eyes fixed on me with an expression I knew too well. It was the popular look of someone who had already heard the gossip and was eager for more.

"The one that was sleeping outside like a madwoman? What happened to her face? She look like someone used her to practice playing football."

I felt my stomach clench. Chioma's hand tightened on my arm.

"She's fine," Chioma said, her voice quite. "She had an accident."

"Accident?" Iya Jumoke laughed, it sounds mocking. "Na accident or na person husband she follow? Because from the story I hear, she went and slept with someone's husband, and the wife catch her. That's why they helped her redecorate her face like that."

The words hit me like a slap. I opened my mouth to deny it, but no words came out. The unfairness of it, the sheer cruelty of it, left me speechless.

I had never done anything to this woman. I had never even spoken to her. She don't even know me like that. And yet here she was, spreading lies about me.

Chioma, however, was not speechless.

She dropped my arm and took two steps toward Iya Jumoke, her body seeming to shake with fury. The bucket of water was still in her other hand, and for a terrifying moment, I thought she was going to throw it at her.

"Iya Jumoke," Chioma said, her voice deceptively calm.

"I'm going to say this once... only once. Mind your business. Because if you ever open that your mouth again to say something stupid about my friend, I will help you redecorate your own face. And unlike her, you won't be getting up afterwards."

Iya Jumoke's mouth fell open. Her bowl of beans nearly slipped from her lap.

"Ah-ah, Chioma! Is that how you talk to your elder, now? I was just asking a simple..."

"There has never been anything simple about you, Iya Jumoke." Chioma cut her off.

"You sit in this compound from morning till night gossiping about people who work harder than you ever will in your life. So do yourself a favor and shut the hell up."

She turned her back on the woman and walked back to me. Her face was hard and her jaw tight, but when she looked at me, her eyes softened.

"Come," she said. "Let's go inside. Don't mind that old witch."

"Chioma," I whispered as we walked. "You didn't have to do that. Now she'll be spreading more stories about both of us."

"Let her spread," Chioma said.

"Let her even tell the whole world. What do I care? The people who matter know the truth. The rest can go and choke on their lies."

We reached the room, and Chioma closed the door firmly behind us. She set the bucket down and turned to face me, her expression a mixture of anger and concern.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine," I said. "It's nothing I haven't heard before. People talk, you know... It's what they do."

"Well, they shouldn't. Not about you." She crossed to the stove and began setting out the breakfast she'd brought. The akara was still warm, wrapped in an old newspaper, and the pap was thick and sweet, just the way I liked it.

"Come and eat before the food gets cold."

I sat down on the mat, my body aching but my heart full. Chioma placed a plate of akara in front of me and a cup of pap, then she sat on the stool opposite me with her own food.

We ate in a comfortable silence for a while. The akara was perfect, it's crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and the pap was the right temperature, not too hot, and not too cold. After the meal, Chioma handed me my pills and watched me as I swallow them.

Then she took the empty plates and set them aside, and turned to face me with an expression that was suddenly serious.

"Sara," she said.

"Mm?"

"You know I don't have much. Yes, this room is small and the money I make is small. But what I have, I will always share with you. Okay? You're not a burden. You're not a problem, Sara. You're my sister. And if I don't help you, who will I help, Sara?"

The tears came even though I tried to stop them. But it's not the painful, desperate tears of the past few weeks, this tears felt like relief.

"Thank you," I whispered. "For everything, Chioma. For finding me, carrying me. And for the food and the medicine and for shouting at that woman. Thank you."

Chioma reached out and took my hand. Her grip was warm and steady.

"It's okay, that's what family does," she said. "And you're my family. The only one I've got."

I squeezed her hand back, words failing me.

But even as I sat there, wrapped in the warmth of Chioma's kindness, a small thought nagged at the back of my mind.

The money was gone I was living on a borrowed time in Chioma's space, and we both knew it couldn't last forever. Her own rent would come due eventually. And then what?