Magenta | Amara Okolo – Isele Magazine

He saw her at the hospital on the day of his diagnosis. The nurse’s assistant had just announced his name over the megaphone for his check-up. Together with other patients, he trudged down the corridor towards the small nurses’ station at the end of the hall. And there she was, average-height and beautiful as he had remembered. Her hair was still full, perm-curled and slightly touching her shoulders. Now, however, she wore hexagon-framed glasses. They occasionally slid down the bridge of her nose as she smiled at the patients, taking down their names. She sniffled and raised her glasses. As he got closer, his heart was in his throat, full and stagnant. He could barely breathe. When he finally stood before her, he willed the floor to open and swallow him. It did not. Instead, she looked up from the large notebook on the table, and her eyes met his.

Later, he would swear that their breaths stopped at the same time.

“Rami.”

His name circled her mouth like butter. The hand holding the pen trembled a bit, her fingers threatening to lose grip. She swallowed, suddenly yearning for water. But none was nearby, just papers, a tin of Biros, a stethoscope. She blinked, willed herself to feel she was once again imagining his face. She had done that for ten years—imagined his face, that is. The face she had once loved, the mouth she had kissed, the ears she had tugged with tenderness. But it was no dream. Rami was standing before her, in the flesh. He seemed as surprised as she was to see him, and for no reason, this realization annoyed her.

“Ehiba,” he said. “Hello.”

“Rami,” she repeated. Her brain was on loop with his name, like reshuffled cards.

Anthonia, the nurse beside her tapped her shoulder. The gesture made her jump. “Ehiba…is everything alright?”

She nodded. “I…yes. Sorry.”

“Hurry up then, take the patient’s name,” Antonia said. “This line is long.”

She nodded, her spit bitter in her throat. “Name please?”

His eyes never left hers as he said, “Rami Atahogba.”

Of course, she would wait for me at the parking lot, Rami thought when he saw her.

She stood afar, under a cassia tree, hands folded across her chest. He realized how slimmer she had become. Her left hand held a half stick of cigarette, its curl of smoke fading away in the midmorning breeze. In her other hand a new one, waiting to be lit. When she caught sight of him, she threw the unfinished cigarette to the ground, crushed it with the sole of her Crocs, then pocketed the unlit one.

He smiled. She had always disguised she was a chain-smoker.

She was popping a breath mint into her mouth as he got closer, so he laughed. “You don’t have to do that. I already saw you smoking.”

The laughter broke the awkwardness. She spat out the breath mint.

“Clearly, I wasn’t fast enough.”

“Why do you even try?”

“Wow. Color me shocked.”

He chuckled, sunk his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

“How are you, Ehiba?”

Her eyebrows went up. Two worry lines creased her forehead.

“Well, surprised to see you again, that is for sure.”

He nodded. “I know. Same.”

“What are you doing here?”

The question was so misplaced, he almost laughed again.

“You know, Ehiba. You took my vitals.”

The worry lines moved to three. “Are you sick?”

Uneasiness floated around his stomach. Sick. How he detested the word. It made his condition an irony, almost quantifiable. Like a child having the flu, or an athlete stumbling down the tracks with a twisted ankle.

He shrugged. “Perhaps.”

Her eyes behind the glasses squinted. He knew what was coming after that. It was best to let her know. Why hide it anyway? She had access to the medical files, she would know one way or the other. Better from him instead.

“I have cancer,” he said.

She knew. She had just wanted to hear it from him.

Somehow, she had hoped that him saying the words would lessen the blow, but it did not. She still felt like she was hit by something heavy. The dread returned, that familiar gnawing that had enveloped her stomach when she took his vitals, recording his temperature, all with a stoic face. That was until he had stood up and gone into the doctor’s room and she had excused herself, gone to the nurse’s restroom, and threw up her breakfast. When her eyes stopped watering and her retching stopped, she washed her hands, then screamed noiselessly at her reflection in the mirror for five seconds. A dull pain had begun to build on the base of her skull, and she had dug into her pockets, found the aspirin, and popped three into her mouth. Swallowing the pills dry, she stared at her face until tears emerged in her eyes. Vomit rushed up and she threw up again. Was this grief, anxiety or confusion? Her body had shivered, answering the question. All of the above.

Ignoring the slimy mess sitting in the sink, she had left the bathroom.

Her Crocs screeched against the marble stairs as she ran three floors down to the lobby where her colleague, Adora, was seated at the counter. Patients clamored around, their voices like misplaced sounds in the room. Adora saw her, held a hand up towards the woman in front of her, and walked over.

“My God, Ehiba, you look awful. Are you alright?” Adora had said.

She waved a hand. “A.D, I need a file. You saw this patient this morning. A man. Check your computer. His name is Rami Atahogba.”

Adora’s stenciled eyebrows came together. “What happened? Is he dying?”

The word dying had gripped her heart.

“Adora, please.”

“Ah…okay, okay. Calm down, haba. Let me get it.”

When the yellow file made its way towards her, she snatched it up, threw it open. And there it was, written in the familiar scribble of doctor’s lettering. Metastatic brain cancer, acute drain, Stage IV.

Tears were too simple, too basic, so she had laughed instead.

He did not want to give her his phone number or address, but she insisted with such sternness that he gave up. Her feelings of pity both irritated and crumbled him. This was not the man he had been with her. He wanted that man back. He wanted the boisterous loser he once was, young and stupid, but wise enough to have loved her. As she pocketed the paper with his information, he gazed at her in awe. What had happened to them? Why had he left her? Time was a catheter that drained him of his emotions, and now he wondered of his loss. Had it really been worth it? Where had his foolishness led him to? Here…to die alone?

“You are staring,” she said.

He turned his eyes to the ground. “Sorry.”

“You should go home…rest. I’ll come see you this evening.”

“Why?” He asked suddenly, before he could stop himself.

She looked attacked, visibly drawing back like he had formed a fist and swung it in her direction.

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, Ehiba.”

She snorted. “And who said I am?”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh. I do not feel sorry for you, Rami. You are still the man who ghosted me and got married to someone else. I may have forgiven you, but why should I feel sorry for you? Because you are sick?”

He looked down at the dust beneath his shoes, his chest heavy with regret and a small hint of admiration.

“Yes, you’re right.” His voice was hoarse, so he cleared his throat. “You are right.”

She looked at her wristwatch, then back at him.

“Good. I’ll see you in the evening.”

She arrived at his house at 5:00PM, after closing from work. He lived in a different neighborhood now, a suburban estate with clusters of bungalows, dainty with small out-front gates and hedges of hibiscus and yellow trumpets. She drove through the quiet streets, searching for No. 45, and when she found it, he was standing by his gate, a Labrador beside him. He looked more rested now, fine in his element, the sun casting a yellow glow on his skin and shaven head. As she parked and stepped out, he smiled wanly at her, then eased the dog. The Labrador began to smile as she walked towards them, and when she stretched out her palm to greet the dog, it licked her fingers with a long, wet tongue.

“This is Astro,” he introduced. “I’ve had him since he was a puppy.”

She giggled, stooped to ruffle the dog’s golden fur. “I never knew you liked dogs, nevertheless, to own one.”

“I…well, he was technically my ex-wife’s. She left him with me after the divorce.”

She shut her eyes momentarily. Of course, it was.

“Sure,” she said, straightening up.

The air suddenly became too hot.

He noticed her discomfort, hastened to quell it.

“Come in. It’s cooler inside.”

He had done everything to make her feel welcome. His cleaner came thrice a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Today was a Thursday, so he was on his own. He always messed up the house before the cleaner arrived, more out of exhaustion than habit. The pain was still bearable with morphine, though his chemo days, on Fridays, left him paralyzed with weakness. But he did not want Ehiba to see how the illness hit him like a mallet, so he had washed dishes, swept the floors, puffed the cushions off dust. Astro had been helpful as dogs could get, stuffing away shoes under the bed, licking up food stains that he had not noticed.

The dog was the best memory he had shared with Mara, if not, the best thing to had come out from their bitter divorce. He had been glad when Mara told the Judge she did not need the dog. This was way before his diagnosis, before he knew of the cancer. How would he have survived if he had to come back to this empty house, alone and infirmed, with no form of life around? Dying would have been better than living that way.

“Rami?”

He looked up, realized he had retreated into his thoughts. Ehiba was seated across him on the lemon settee, the one he called the Lemon Curd. As a child who had suffered from dyslexia, he had names for everything in his house. All his life, it had been a coping mechanism with speech disability, the naming of things insignificant, just to make them matter. A cube of television. A curl of vase with hydrangeas. The moon of a clock. A mirror like an entrance to Narnia.

“Rami!”

He started, his eyes shooting up. Now she stood in front of him.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

The lines of worry appeared again. Even in her agitation, she looked gathered, set for perfection, like a puzzle. Nothing seemed to displace her.

“Is that part of the symptoms?”

“What?”

“The distraction. How often does that happen?”

“I don’t know. The doctors never told me.”

She sighed, looked to her left, to the window on the wall. The setting sun splashed its glow on her face, and for the first time he smelled her: a faint musk of apricots mixed with coconut oil, the oil emanated from her skin. Without thinking, he closed his eyes and inhaled. She never changed, I did. Always the same. Always the same. Why did I do this to myself, to her?

The sob broke from his throat before he opened his eyes. It startled her, but there was no other way to expunge this weight of pain lodged in his heart. No other way but through tears. For the other way was to die, and he was already on that path, walking steady, like a traveler on a purposeful journey.

She held him.

He sobbed harder.

She tightened her grip, and he crumbled to the floor. She fell with him.

And together, in the dusk of evening, they stayed that way. Him crying; her arms around him tender but tight, like she feared if she let go, he would crack open and break into the pieces his heart already was.

For once again, their love was being tested, and not by distrust this time.

(Now, go back to when they remember.)

10.

Ehiba was built for me. If there was a God, like she believed, He set her my path from the moment I came into the world. She was older, by a year. I met her during undergrad, when I was innocent, easily trusting. She sat across from me in the lecture hall, History class. Sinewy, skin like the insides of a cocoa pod split open. Her braids were tied with a bandanna, her feet in straw mules. She winked at me when she caught me staring at her, and my heart lurched. There was only one thing stopping us, and it was the class. Once it was over, I rushed to her. She giggled as she saw me push through the crowd. I laughed, loudly, and our voices ran in the air, merged, clung to each other and sealed the question of what we thought this would become.

She taught me how to smoke, and I realized there could be bliss in fire. Every afternoon before we headed for class, we stood outside the abandoned library overlooking the streets and raised our Marlboros to the skies. It was the way we stood outside the doors, smoking cigarettes, that made people stare. The doors peeled of its paint, the air boiled with heat, and people looked at us, thinking, how free they were. They did not know half of it, but I imagined they did. They thought of how we drank wine on Monday mornings, how we ate pineapples before sex. But we ignored them. We ignored the world and inhaled our tobacco, licked each other’s mouths. Damn the world. Let us spell our freedom without words, just lust, love and thick, thick smoke.

11.

I love the way Rami chews. It sounded like something organized, like God Himself had arranged his teeth to break food with an exceptional kind of softness. I listened to his throat when he swallowed. If we really wanted to get into everything, I listened to his body. The echo of his belch when drinking Coke. How he sucks his teeth in disagreement. The momentum and sharp prickling of his pubic hair against my pelvis when we made love. The tinkle of his urine as it hits the toilet bowl. The rawness of his scream, like something ripe and sliced. It exploded through my ears that evening when we received the news that his sister had ended her life. He hugged me, fiercely. He smelled of sweat, tears and sulfur. In a swift motion, my tongue tipped out and licked his shoulder.

That night, he fucked me with a frenzy akin to desperation. I accepted his agony, and together, we soaked in it.

12.

My sister’s death woke me up.

Ehiba and I were in final year. Four years of loving, primal sex and special Saturday afternoons of saffron tea, music and marijuana. But then my sister Sara swallowed a chemical and left the world and my eyes peeled open.

For the first time in my life, I saw responsibilities.

It was my father who told me about the cancer. Sara had been diagnosed with terminal leukemia just the week before, given six months to live.

“She came back from the hospital and began writing the letters. Then she came home for the weekend, spent it with us, returned back to Lagos, and that was it.”

“What letters?” I asked.

Father handed me the baby-blue envelopes. When I opened them, I came undone and never returned again.

13.

I noticed the changes when he returned from his sister’s funeral. Grief is a terrible thing. How he looked the same but different, gone but near, destroyed but whole. It felt like a wet, heavy cloak had hit his head backwards, and no matter how much I tried to shift it back, it snapped backward, to abnormality.

Our final exams, he called me over and I sparkled. Maybe the pain was easing. But all he had when I arrived were intense, strange hugs, almost suffocating. It seemed like he had lost his lifeline, his heat, and sought for it in me. I held him, because when you love someone, you must let them be this vulnerable with you. What more would prove your love, anyway?

But when the hugs did not end, I pulled away. “What is wrong?”

He was fast to reply. “Ehiba, I love you.” His voice was so high-pitched, it sounded artificial.

“Rami. I love you too. Always have.”

“No, you don’t understand…I really love you. I do.”

“Please. Talk to me.”

He began to cry, again. My irritation bubbled. Surely, she was gone, but I was still here. Why couldn’t he see I was still here?

“Rami…”

He screamed, his voice croaky with phlegm. “I want to die! What is this emptiness? I want to die.”

I shrank back, but not because I was startled by his reaction. It took me somewhere familiar, alienated, a place buried after I experienced a loss as great as his. My mother, dying at the blink of an eye, never seeing her again. This place, I avoided. It enclosed on me like tar, shut my eyes with a grief so darkened, I only saw one color: magenta. It took me planting trees, physically interacting with dirt to break free, to close my eyes and see this color, but not get consumed by it. But still, I never wanted to return to that child who saw her mother die. It was a pain I was lost from. Nothing, not even love, would make me return.

My resolve broke. The man I loved was changing, unraveling. There was nothing I could do about it.

What could I do?

I stood up and left the room.

14.

The morning I left, on the eve of graduation, I swore never to see her. Before daylight unveiled the skies, I packed up, put my things in my car, leaned my foot on the gas pedal, and drove without looking anywhere but straightforward, until I was at the outskirts of the city.

15.

When I was a little girl, a year before she died in a car accident, my mother loved taking me to trade fairs. They were always in the middle of town, right in the city center, so we had to leave early to beat traffic. She would dress me up in jean overalls and Kito sandals, gathered my Afro into a puff at the top of my head. Her sunglasses were neon, her hair straightened stiff with gel. When we drove through the boulevard of our neighborhood in her red Passat, she allowed me lean out from the window, gazing as the blur of green sped by. The smell of the world would surround my nostrils. I identified them as colors; blue for the fresh air, brown for the earth, purple for the sounds of the people, yellow for the sun and the sweat, black for the skin and the birds. But magenta was the color of my mother’s smile. There was no specific definition, for it hovered on the spectrum of other colors, mixed with the personalities she was. Wild, amiable, too loving.

When we arrived at the trade fair, she allowed me pick whatever I wanted. Oily braided pretzels fried in peanut oil. Watermelon lollipops melting in the sun. Warm nutmeg biscuits. Walnuts dipped in salt. Frosty bottles of Fanta and Sprite. In that noisy market square, where disco music blared from jukeboxes and spinning vinyl turntables, voices of sellers and buyers exchanging laughter and disgust over prices, my love for her warmed my heart. I held her hand and whenever I looked up at her, my mother’s color glowed a fierce magenta.

The morning Rami left, I woke up and saw magenta again. This time, pain was its source.

16.

(Now, return back to them)

17.

“Why did you leave?” she asked him.

Night had fallen. The lights in the house were automatic, and slowly they glimmered until the room was awash, fluorescent. They were sitting on the marble floor, their backs resting on the leather of the wide sofa behind them. Their hands were clasped over each other’s, their feet outstretched. Astro lay at the end of their feet, his muzzle warm. She remembered a pack of Saltines in her bag, opened it and fed some to Astro. As the dog licked the remnants in her palm, she turned to Rami again.

“Tell me why you left.”

He was staring at the floor. Against the light, dark circles formed crescent-shapes underneath his eyes.

“It happened a long time ago, Ehiba.”

His evasion of the question irritated her. “More reason why I should know, don’t you think?”

Now he looked at her.

“It was all my fault. I am the one to blame.”

“That was not my question.”

“Ehiba…”

“Just say it!”

The shout was unintended but vibrant. Astro looked up, whined. She scratched the dog’s ears. The Labrador returned to his position, his head resting on her feet again.

Rami sighed, looked beyond the air in front of him, at the memories they once shared. “My parents.”

“Parents?”

“They wanted me back. After my sister’s suicide, they needed me. I could not abandon my family.”

She scoffed. “Oh really? So, you abandoned me instead then?”

He spun to her. “I came back for you Ehiba. I did.”

“Did you now?”

“Yes! Two days after graduation. But you had left. Paulette, your friend…she told me you left the day after graduation. I came back. I came back for you.”

Her lower lip trembled. “So, you expected me to wait for you or what?”

“No.”

“So why are you fucking surprised?”

“I’m not…I’m broken Ehiba.”

“And you think I am not?” She screamed at him.

Silence.

“All my life I waited for you to appear…out of anger, of spite, for closure…something! I hated you, I loved you, I hated you again. Ten years of nothing, of thinking of you. Of knowing you were alive when you got married and I saw your name on the newspapers. The irony of finding out you had remained in the same State with me all this while, and yet, ghosted me. Fan-fucking-tastic!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for yourself.”

She was sobbing now, her face buried in her palms. All the pain collected deep and heavy in her chest and as she cried, she felt them dissolve. Tears, a perfect way of cleansing. It was almost plasmatic, like bloodletting. Perhaps, it was also the only truth that should exist in this terrible, terrible world.

18.

He let her cry. The purging needed to be done. She needed to flush her hatred of him out of her. When he heard her sobs quieten, her sniffling ebbing, he drew her to him. Surprisingly, she let him. When her head rested on his shoulder, he felt his body unsnap. Pressing his lips on her forehead, he shut his eyes and saw magenta, a pleasant purplish-red. For the first time in ten years, he felt his body slacken with ease, a freedom he had been denied by guilt.

Perhaps finally, this could set him free.

19.

For the rest of the night, they talked about the future until time takes it away.

“Do you have any children from your marriage?”

“I had a vasectomy when I got my diagnosis three years ago. That was what ended my marriage to Mara. Well, that and the cancer. She was livid, but I did not care. My sister is gone, and I am on my way to her. I was not going to let any child go through this suffering.”

“And here I was thinking I could have your baby before you died.”

He looked at her, shocked.

She laughed. “I’m joking. You have always known I am not interested in having children.”

“I thought so, though you know I’ve always said you’d make a good mother.”

‘You’ve started. Let’s not go into that.”

“Okay, I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.” She sighed. “I just never believed I would be a good candidate for it. After my mother’s…you know how that was like. I told you what it did to me.”

He gently squeezed her hand which was in his. “I know. I know.”

The silence was welcoming, the air musical with the shrill of cicadas and crickets. From a neighbor’s house, a television hummed. Astro, now asleep, sighed again, a wet breath of contentment. They looked at him, then back at each other.

“Yes,” Ehiba said, seeing the question in his eyes.

Rami nodded. “Are you sure? Just in case…you will love him like I did?”

“Nothing will happen to you, Rami. You will live.”

He breathed. “But, just in case. Will you?”

She stared unblinkingly at him, and his eyes held hers. For seconds, none moved. Then slowly, she leaned forward, planted a kiss on the scar made from the biopsy on his shaved head. Rami closed his eyes, leaned over her shoulder.

“More than you did for me,” she whispered. “And more than I did for you. I promise you.”

That was only when he felt confident enough to kiss her. She let him as he leaned in, and when their lips touched again, warm and soft, the past ten years felt like ten seconds, forgotten, closed.

Forgiven.

When they finally pulled away, he was smiling, while she had tears in her eyes. He stopped, concern overshadowing the joy that had earlier warmed him. If there was a reminder their love unraveled for him, it was this moment, and he felt his heart release from the chains around them, all these years. Raising his palms to her face, he wiped at her cheeks with his thumbs, kissed the tip of her nose. “Was this that much of an effect I still had?” he asked with a grin.

She ignored the dry joke. “Do you really want to know why I chose not to become a mother?” she asked instead.

The grin slowly drained from his face. He paused, his eyes searching her face. “What?”

“I can tell you if you want to know.”

“I…” He began, then stopped. Suddenly his head ached, and he closed his eyes momentarily. When he reopened them, she was still looking at him, her eyes glistening.

“Can I say no?” he asked.

She laughed dryly, leaned over and kissed his cheek. Then slowly, she took his hand and held it with both of hers.

“Do you remember how I told you my mother died?”

He paused, watched her face to find a hint to clarify any new details to the recollection. When he saw none, he nodded. “Yes. She had visited you and your sister in boarding school for Visiting Day, and on her way back…” he trailed off, looked away. They both knew the end of the sentence.

“Well, she may not have slept off or lost control and driven off the road into the bushes as my father and everyone else had always said these past years.”

“Ehiba…”

“I have DVT,” she said flatly, though her voice quivered at the edges. “I found out just last month. Apparently, I have a peculiar one, which is hereditary, and must have come from my mother.”

She let out a breath, let the silence in the room stretch before she continued. “I’m on blood thinners so I’m okay. Don’t worry about me. I just must finally quit smoking, which is still difficult, especially when I’m stressed, which I was when I saw you earlier today.” She chuckled softly. “But isn’t this life funny? All my life, I always thought my mother driving off the road and wrapping her car around a tree was a cruel coincidence that made no sense to me. Now, I have a medical reason why, but even at that, it gives me nothing but more grief.”

He was staring at her, unblinking. The night suddenly became darker. When he opened his mouth, a shaky breath escaped.

“No.”

“Yes.”

His tears startled him, and he angrily wiped them off. “Please Ehiba, tell me this is a lie.”

She softly placed her hands on his face. “Have I ever lied to you?”

“No…”

“Then why would I start now?”

He was unraveling with panic, his hands trembling as he gathered hers, clasping them to his chest. “Wait…okay, so but…you’re on thinners. That’s aspirin, right? They must help dissolve the clots, yes? I mean, they help, don’t they?”

She released her hand, gently placed it on the left side of his face. “Yes, Rami.” She said with a voice almost as inaudible as a whisper. “They help.”

He broke into a loud sob, and she immediately gathered him in a hug. “God, please…no.”

Ehiba’s arms were warm and tender as they circled around him. “It’s okay,” she said, her voice quivering between the onset of a chuckle and the stifling a sob. “I’ll be alright. We will be alright. You’ll see. We’ll both beat this. Don’t worry.”

20.

The air was stiff with harmattan as the car approached the house, the crunch of the dry leaves loud as the tires stilled to stop at the driveway. The woman got out first, then the man. The man’s head was slightly shaven, but the curl of a scar on the left side of his head was visible. The woman had on a feathered wig, static and dry by the cold snap in the air. They walked purposefully towards the yellow one-storied bungalow, their shoulders hutched against the breeze. The woman opened the door, and both walked in.

Silence greeted them. The house was empty, each furniture and surface with a filmy coat of dust. The woman went to the windows, slid them open. Air floated in through the lace curtains, and the room seemed to exhale. The man looked around but made no move to touch anything yet. But his eyes moved, settling on everything—tables, chairs, pictures, the large bookcase by the wall filled with books. The woman watched him, waiting. When he finally looked up at her, she turned away from the windows and made for the open alcove that led to a hallway.

“It’s at the back,” she said.

The man followed her. Together, they went through the open door of the wide kitchen to the backyard door, which the woman, with some effort, fought to pry open. The man offered to help, but she rejected. When she finally nudged it apart, the creak loud and sharp, the door gave way to a large backyard, overgrown with lemongrass, an alcove of pear, mango, lychee and guava trees in close distance. The cold air startled them as they walked through, wading through the grass. Some parts of the ground were still visible, and the man saw the terrazzo floor beneath the green.

He looked at the woman. “Where is it?”

The woman turned to her left, where the trees were, and pointed. The grass may had covered most of the area, but he saw it still. The concrete cherub lined with streaks of rainwater marks was the first give away.

He swallowed, lowered his gaze. Pain tinged his eyes, but he knew they were the onslaught of tears.

The woman placed a soft palm on his shoulder.

“She planted those trees herself, right after our mother died. I didn’t have much of an attachment to this house, and when I got married, I was relieved to be away from it. But not Ehiba. She moved in after our father passed. Spent most of her time under those trees. That was the best place I could think of.”

He nodded, raised his head. “Do you have tools? A matchet perhaps?”

The woman knew why he was asking for them. “I’ll get them for you.”

After Rami had cut the lemongrass and cleared off the backyard, he finally saw her.

The picture emblazoned on her tombstone was one he took of her when they were in university, just months before his sister’s death and their world upturned. He remembered the day like yesterday; Ehiba had finished her Psychology lecture, and he came to pick her up from the hall. That was the week he had purchased the camera, a Kodak digital lens, and he had been out, exuding prowess of his knowledge of candid stills, so it seemed primary as she walked towards him that he would take a candid photograph of her. And he did. He remembered she did not like it, complaining that he took her unawares, and letting out a long string of expletives about her hair being a mess and her face having no makeup on. But ironically, when he received the pictures back from the studio and showed them to her, she had gasped, her eyes widened with surprise and admiration.

“I look beautiful!” she’d exclaimed.

Now, as he wiped the glass protecting the picture, his eyes welled up. The face was still the same; chocolate brown complexion; eyes the color of mahogany, hair dark as the bark of an oak, curly with perms, shiny with grease. A wide mouth showing perfect dentition as they had held a genuine smile, like the look from seeing someone they loved. The purple-pink suede blouse, like color of the skies of twilight evenings. Her favorite color.

The color of magenta.

Wiping his eyes, Rami kissed the glass, then rose to his feet. Placing a rose in the hands of the concrete cherub, he turned and slowly walked back towards the house.

About the Author:

Amara Okolo is a Nigerian writer and author of three books Black Sparkle Romance, Son of Man, and Daughters of Salt. She is an alumna of Chimamanda Adichie’s Farafina Creative Writing Workshop and the Invisible Borders Trans African Project. She is a Fellow from the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, City of Asylum Residency, Oxbow and The Anderson Center. Her works have been supported by Pen America and United States Artists and nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Prize and the Best American Short Stories Anthology. Her works have been published on TTP, Joyland, Chestnut Review, Forge Lit Magazine, A Long House, Hunger Mountain, Catapult, Panorama Journal of Intelligent Travel, Commonwealth Writers, WeTransfer, and mentioned on CNN, The Guardian, Aljazeera, Radio France International. She has an MFA and is finishing up a PhD in Creative Writing and Multicultural & Gender Studies. Her dissertation theory focuses generally on feminist and women studies, immigration, and transnationalism. She currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where she is working on her novels.