by Yasmin Angoe
Nena said, “It’s true.”
Cort deflated, looking so hurt Nena’s heart broke with him.
“I thought we connected,” he said. “I thought you were opening up to me that night at the beach.”
She stepped forward. She wanted to go to him so badly. She wanted to touch him. “We have. I did.”
“I thought you trusted me.”
Nena hesitated. “Trust is not why I didn’t disclose that part of my life, Cort.”
“Then what was it? Because my fourteen-year-old child knows more about you than I do. She may know the most important thing about you that I should have known.”
“She only knows by chance. Only because she was there, not because I chose to tell her.”
“Hey.” Georgia spoke up softly, insulted.
They ignored her.
“What made you confide in her and not in me, even after sharing what happened in your past with your home and family?”
“Well, she didn’t tell me that part.” Georgia pouted, trying to lessen the blow. “Paul, the creep, did that. He was so creepy, like heebie-jeebies creepy.”
Nena said, “Georgia, perhaps you can give your father and me a moment?”
Georgia hesitated, as if she didn’t want to leave them alone, afraid the adults would screw things up without her there to mediate. In her face, Nena saw a discord of emotions, the want to be defiant and demand she stay, the awareness of her place as a child and that she should do as told. Begrudgingly, Georgia stood, casting an apprehensive glance at her dad.
“I didn’t get hurt and I’m not scarred for life, so don’t say anything stupid, Dad,” she warned, heading toward the door.
As she passed Nena, Georgia suddenly threw her arms around her in a hug that lasted longer than Nena was accustomed to. Nena allowed it and found she liked it, even though Georgia hadn’t asked. Eventually, she extricated herself from Georgia’s grip and waited until Georgia left them alone.
Nena moved closer to the bed, assessing Cort’s injuries. He looked so beautiful, despite his abrasions and swollen face. Her hand reached to touch him, but she managed to stop herself before she made contact.
“Why didn’t you tell me everything?”
She balled her hand, bringing it back down to her side. “Because if you knew, then you would walk out of my life and take Georgia with you. I couldn’t bear it.”
He searched her eyes. “Do you understand that I am an agent of the justice system? I prosecute criminals, killers. You are a killer, Nena.”
He was right.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re only killing other criminals for the benefit of your mobster family. It’s still a crime.”
She inclined her head. “The Tribe is not a mob—”
“You all are criminals.”
She shook her head vigorously. “We are not. My team, when deployed, tries to right the wrongs our more problematic members inflict on others, wrongs that may fracture and weaken our organization. Any we feel impede the advancement of the African people, we handle.”
He scoffed, “By taking the law into your own hands. Some kind of international vigilantes.”
If that was what he wanted to call it. “I mete out justice for our own, by our own. It’s how we do things.” She thought for a moment. “Is it dissimilar to your Black Panthers? Malcolm X?”
He laughed dryly. “Who said how they went about things was the right way to do it every time? You can’t speak about them. You’re not even from here.”
He made a point. “But their message, their goals, their intent to make strong Black Americans, to give you rights and freedoms, to give you safety from racists and others who sought to keep you under their thumbs. Was that not right? How different is it from the Tribe?”
He shook his head. “It’s against the law, Nena. That’s why we have laws, rules from which we govern to keep everyone in check.”
“As do we. We have rules, and without them, there is chaos. I prevent chaos.” If they’d already gone this far, Nena decided that Cort might as well know everything. “There’s only been one time I’ve broken the rules.”
He looked at her suspiciously before finally asking, “When?”
“When I shot Dennis Smith instead of you.”
The monitors hooked up to Cort began a chorus of beeping as his pulse and heart rate quickened. Nena worried he was going to have a heart attack or the nurses would have to come in.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he whispered.
She told him.
Told him how she’d recognized him the night before when she’d brought Georgia home and how she’d chosen to shoot Attah instead of him two days later.
“You killed him because of what he did to you,” Cort said. “If he wasn’t there, would you have killed me?”
She shook her head. “No, because when I saw you the night before, I—” What was she supposed to say? Was this when she professed her feelings for him? “I felt something different about you.”
“You felt what?” he pushed.
She was struggling. Professing love—emotions—was not her norm. The word love floated in her head, still so like a dream to her that she couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud. She didn’t say it to her family. They just knew and accepted it as her way. She wished Cort could do the same.
“Affection. I feel . . .” She licked her lips. “I care for you.” It was the best she could do, but the way Cort’s face fell told her it was not enough. Her choice of words was all wrong, and she didn’t have the wherewithal to figure out the appropriate thing to say at this moment. Every fiber of her physical being hurt. And now, seeing the way Cort looked at her, as if she’d torn out his heart, her emotional being had nothing else to give either.
“You care for me,” he repeated. “How fucking lucky of me.”
The monitors began to slow, his pulse regulating. “And if you hadn’t seen me the night before? Would you have killed me?”
“No, I would have killed Attah.”
He shook his head at her response. It wasn’t good enough. “But if Attah wasn’t there? If it was just me and you hadn’t seen me the night before or saved Peach from those assholes, would you have killed me?”
She waited a long beat. If there was any time to lie, it was now. But Cort didn’t deserve lies. He had earned the truth.
“Yes,” she whispered, forcing herself to hold his gaze. “It would have been business as usual.”
She laid her hand lightly on his arm, the need to explain overwhelming. “But fate saw differently. Does that count for anything? You care for me, too, Cort. Can you get past my omissions of truth? Can you take me as I am? There will be no more secrets between us. You know it all.”
It was an eternity before he answered. He considered her, and in his look, she saw what she’d seen on the beach. The space behind her eyes felt hot, and her vision blurred.
“Is that what you believe? That I only cared about you? The word’s love, Nena. Love. As in I love you.”
Her heart thundered in her chest, its beats tripling. For a second it looked like he might be able to see past it all. To see what she’d become, not what she used to be.
“But all of this,” he continued. “What you nearly did to me . . . what you do . . . it’s too much.” The crestfallen expression on his face dammed her flow of happiness and hope. Cort wasn’t like the dad in Pet Sematary. He wouldn’t take Nena in whatever capacity he could have her. And the realization was crushing. Of all the things Nena had overcome, would this be what broke her?
“Please.” It was the closest thing she could say aloud to the I love you playing on repeat in her mind. If only the words would come out. Then maybe he’d see how much he meant to her.
His face mirrored her heartbreak. “Your world and mine are too different. We believe in different things, Nena. How can I reconcile that? I’m bound to uphold the law. And you are the antithesis of everything I’m supposed to believe in. But you made me believ
e in you. And you made me . . .”
His eyes were glassy, though Nena couldn’t really tell through her own. She willed herself to stand firm. She knew there could be no other outcome than this.
“You made me love you. Made me think I had another chance.”
She held her breath.
“But I don’t think I can do this,” he finished.
Georgia was waiting for Nena when she left Cort’s room, gently closing the door behind her. Georgia was a mess of tears and snot, looking a decade younger than her fourteen years. She was at Nena’s side before Nena had a chance to move from the door. She grabbed Nena into a hug, burrowing her face in Nena’s chest as she cried and tried to speak, but her words were muffled.
Nena gently stroked her hair, the hair she’d so lovingly fixed what seemed like eons ago. They’d been so happy then.
“It’s okay. This is for the best.” She extracted herself from Georgia’s arms. “Be with your father, okay?” She took a few steps backward, distancing herself, though Georgia kept coming, kept pleading.
“He’s just in pain. This is new to him, and he doesn’t understand. We can make him understand.”
“He’s right,” Nena whispered, spinning around so she didn’t have to see Georgia’s face. She began walking away.
“He’s not right!” Georgia yelled behind her, her voice cracking. “Please don’t go. Don’t go, Nena, please.”
Nena forced herself to continue walking, going against every molecule in her body. Georgia’s pleas haunted her, would haunt her forever.
“Please, Nena! I need you!”
Nena’s steps faltered. Her breath hitched. She rounded a corner, now out of Georgia’s sight.
“We need you!”
And it was those words that broke her. The wudini. The woman of stone. Her hand reached out to anchor her against a wall as she stumbled beneath the weight of what she’d just lost.
82
NOW
She returned to the home of her before. It was a merging of worlds so profound it weighed heavily on Nena’s shoulders. She arrived in Accra, then drove the couple of hours to Chigali, now a bustling town at the base of Aburi Mountain that she didn’t recognize. If memory served her correctly, N’nkakuwe was a bit farther up, a little less than an hour away.
She approached a small home where an older woman sold market items, rifled through the metal barrel of melting ice, and pulled out a sweating glass bottle of Pepsi. A rush of nostalgia took over, and she relished it. Her first thought went to Georgia—how she’d get a kick out of taking a swig from one of these old-school bottles. Then she was hit by the dull sadness that sneaked up on her more times a day than she cared to count.
When she asked about N’nkakuwe, the woman’s eyes glazed over with a sadness Nena easily related to.
“There is no more N’nkakuwe, child,” she said. “Has not been that way in a long, long time.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Auntie,” Nena replied, sighing. “I was hoping that maybe it was still here.” That no one had rebuilt the village was heart wrenching to hear.
Auntie shook her head slowly. “The land up there is haunted. Angry spirits of the murdered chief and his people roam the mountain. There is nothing but sadness and horror. All because their souls are in unrest.” She moved her right hand in the sign of the cross.
She told Nena that she was better off heading back to Accra, Kumasi, or whichever way she’d come. “Best leave the unhappiness where it lies.”
Nena appreciated the warning, knew well the superstitions of her people. She held those same beliefs, and it was one of the reasons why she’d returned. “I need to go,” she said. “I’m not afraid of ghosts or sadness. I’ve lived with them half my life.”
“Have you?” She gave Nena a closer assessment.
“N’nkakuwe used to be my home.”
The woman’s eyes grew large.
“Wo din de sɛn?” She asked Nena’s name, squinting against the sunlight to get a better look at the strange, sad-looking woman dressed as if ready for safari, asking about a dead village in her British accent. “I think you may favor a man I once knew. Good man killed too young. Who are you, child?”
Nena pulled out money to pay for her drink. But the woman waved the cedis away, instead giving her a look that vacillated between suspicion and intrigue.
“Medaase,” Nena said, thanking her.
As Nena began walking away, the woman called out, “Mema wo nante yie.” I wish you luck. “N’nkakuwe ba baa.” Daughter of N’nkakuwe.
Nena’s eyes began to sting with hot tears at hearing the most beautiful words spoken to her in longer than she could remember.
On her way back to her Range Rover, Nena passed two other women. One of them was churning a long wooden spoon in a large cast-iron pot; the other sat in a chair, shelling a large bowl of black-eyed peas. Nena recognized the pungent smell of fermenting yeast and immediately knew they were cooking kenkey. Her stomach growled. Their slow stirring, shelling, having heard the auntie’s words, all mixing Nena’s worlds of then and now.
They saw her and said, “Akwaaba,” as she passed. She waved. They watched her get back into her truck and drive off, rushing to guzzle her Pepsi before it became too warm and lost its fizz.
By the time she reached the indentation, the spot that marked the beginning of the path toward N’nkakuwe, it was late afternoon. Tall willowy grass, vines thick as a baby’s arm, and leaves the size of bath towels had long overrun the roads she’d walked as a child, so she had to park her vehicle and hike the rest of the way. It wasn’t long before she began to see the ruins. The burned and hollowed-out skeletal remains of buildings once inhabited by people she’d lived among. To an outsider, the village would resemble a lost civilization from thousands of years ago, instead of less than two decades. To Nena, it was the place of her birth and the burial grounds of a lifetime.
She was home again. And—she looked down at the glossy mahogany box she held in both hands—Ofori was home as well. Inside was all that was left of her brother. She looked around, trying to recall where things used to be—or where they should have been. So many memories invaded her mind. The weight of them was staggering, and her grief began to build momentum.
The years of despair and guilt were stacks upon her shoulders. She wanted to lie down in the dirt and cry, but she had to make her feet move. She was home, really home. Home home. Despite her memories of her last night in N’nkakuwe, Nena had had fourteen wonderfully blessed years with an incredible family to sweeten her memories. She had to remember that. Had to remember to think of the fourteen years before her after had begun.
Before she realized it, she was at the village center, where they used to gather. And there was the tree. The one Papa would stand beneath as he led his people. The tree was black and twisted, dead like the rest of the village and the people who’d lived in it. Nature had overrun the husk of the village, but it couldn’t entirely hide the destruction or the ghosts that still roamed here.
She stopped at the base of the blackened tree. There she opened the box holding Ofori’s ashes. She’d been robbed of the chance to bury Papa and the twins, Wisdom and Josiah. She’d never seen her auntie again after she’d left her in their kitchen. But Nena had brought the last male Asym home, where Ofori belonged.
She removed the bag and opened it. A light breeze began to rise. It was warm and dry, like a hug against her skin. The leaves of nearby trees started to rustle, sounding like rice cascading into an empty pan. The long, fingerlike grass swayed. She heard a soft beat. Then a distant thrumming. She thought maybe drummers in another village. She knelt, hesitating only a second before upending the bag and watching as Ofori’s ashes tumbled out.
“Akwaaba, Ofori. Akwaaba, efie.” She welcomed him back home.
The wind increased, catching the ashes and making them swirl. Her brother danced on the wind away from her. The thrumming she’d heard earlier increased, sounded closer now. The sun beat on her shou
lders, through the thin cotton of her T-shirt, as the wind strengthened. She looked at the horizon spread before her. The sun’s rays wavered like rising heat. All to the beat of thrumming.
She blinked, unsure if what she was seeing in the distance was truly there or if she was in the throes of heatstroke. Because as the wind increased and the heat shimmered and the sweat beaded on her forehead, Nena saw people standing before her. Rows and rows of them. Her people, as she last remembered them.
She sat back on her haunches, scared she’d lost her mind. But her fear eased into wonder when she saw they were smiling at her, waving. They were happy, not angry, not haunted or sad. And in front of them stood Papa. Wisdom. Josiah. And Mama. Nena swallowed a cry. She wiped at her face, and her hand came away wet.
It had to be a mirage. But she’d swear the wind carried the scents of Olay and Hugo Boss, and finally a sob did escape her. She watched as a man appeared from the edge of the clearing, walking toward her family and the villagers behind them. He paused, glancing over his shoulder and nodding to her, and she saw he was Ofori as she’d known him the night he’d taken his last breath. He resumed approaching their family, and they looked at him with nothing but love in their eyes. They welcomed him, their arms open and accepting their son, their brother, back into the fold as if he had never left.
“Me ba barima. Me ba baa.” My son. My daughter, Papa said, a whisper in the wind.
Ofori continued walking, and as he did, his height began to shorten. His chiseled muscles retracted and thinned. Nena watched the years shed from him, and his pace quickened until he was running toward them.
“Due. Due.” He apologized over and over, nearing them with arms outstretched, becoming younger and younger until he was the child they last remembered. He ran into their arms, and they encircled him, obscuring him from Nena’s vision. But she could hear him still begging for forgiveness.
His apologies were unnecessary. Ofori had been forgiven the moment Paul had forced him to choose between himself and his family. He had never been blamed, and Nena had eventually come to learn she’d never been blamed either. She’d realized her guilt was self-imposed and needless.
