After Your Funeral
By Akumbu Uche
After your funeral, Jemimah will move into your house. She’s your blood, so everyone assumes she’s there to look after the children, but really, it’s to continue the five-year affair she and Alozie have been conducting. You’ve always thought they seemed uncomfortable around each other; well, you thought wrong. It was the guilt your presence provoked that unnerved them. Chronic overstepper that she is, Jemimah will give Alozie an ultimatum. Sure, she argues, it might raise a few eyebrows, but people would eventually come around; it wouldn’t be the first or last time a widower married his sister-in-law. Grief may erode boundaries, but what your husband and your sister share isn’t love; it’s not even lust; it’s their shared, clandestine hatred for you, and with you gone, so is their bond. Her plan backfires, so she swallows too many sleeping pills.
Distraught and blaming himself for what he had no control over, Alozie repents of all his vices. A changed man, he gives up alcohol, takes up running on weekdays, and leads Bible study in church twice a week. It’s a bit extreme; even you, whose middle name is Assistant Jesus, would think that, but at least this means he stays healthy and present for the girls. Too bad about the dog, though. He will sell Bobo off to a man whose hometown delicacy is roasted canine while his newly restored conscience remains clear; after all, there’s nowhere in the Bible that explicitly says his action is a sin. And you know he never supported the idea of having a dog—his own childhood trauma—and the girls are allergic anyway.
The girls! Nkeoma and Ezinne, your pride and joy, as you often called them. Your death will hit them the hardest. For a year, NK will have nightmares, and Zinzin will resume bedwetting. Gradually, they will learn to live without you and only grow closer in their shared pain. How sad you won’t be there to see it; you always wanted them to stop fighting each other. Even when they are grown up and living on separate continents—Nkeoma in Australia (she moves for work) and Ezinne in Europe (she moves for love)—they will make a tradition of celebrating your birthday, August 12, together. They share their memories of you, imitate your walk and your laugh, and cook your special jollof recipe, or what they think is your special jollof recipe. (They believe thyme is your secret ingredient, not rosemary.) But all of that is a long time ahead. You would have wanted them to have something more substantial to remember you by like your jewelry equally divided between them. Unfortunately, Alozie doesn’t take note of such things, so he will be none the wiser when Patricia, your other sister, coopts your clothes and shoes into her wardrobe and melts your hard-earned gold to pay for her son’s overpriced private tuition. Goodness, your family is all trash—except for the girls, of course. Whatever did you ever do to them to make them so bitter? You deserve better, and you really should have made a will.
Your other family, Bethesda Bible Church, will miss you terribly, and even though it’s against church doctrine, they will pray for your soul. However, with never-ending baptisms, summer camps, and annual harvests to organize, their collective memory of you will fade, and a new member will fill your spot on the hospitality committee with only an ounce of your passion. It is she who will take over the pulpit decorations, desecrating the Lord’s altar with gaudy plastic monstrosities instead of the fresh flowers you farmed yourself. And your rose bushes, gardenias, hibiscus, and various palms? Rita, your house help has always thought you were out of your mind for not realizing how much waterleaf, ugu, and cocoyam you could have grown in your garden. She will waste no time redressing your misjudgment. Let’s not even talk about the battalion of ass-kissers and backstabbers at your office. You yourself know they are not worth thinking about, which is why you have just sucked your teeth in lieu of a response to the email your head of department just sent to you. For goodness’ sake, it’s the weekend. Work-life balance, hello? You’re not even going to read it until 7 am on Monday. Out of principle, not pettiness. But you won’t see Sunday, talk less of Monday. However, you don’t know that; you’re not God, so how could you?
Right now, your mind is permuting. You need to get some manure for your garden, but it’s getting so expensive; maybe you should start making your own compost. At the same time, you don’t want to attract all sorts of nasty pests. You’ll look it up later, you think. Thankfully, everything is on YouTube these days. You also have to help Nkeoma with her math homework again; she is an intelligent child, so why does she find Roman numerals so difficult to understand? This reminds you that Ezinne asked you to buy some KFC on your way home but yawn, yawn, yawn, you feel so sleepy.
Your driver notices your tiredness in the rearview mirror. A smile spreads across his face, and he shifts in his seat excitedly. Had he been born elsewhere, he could have made a good Formula One racer, but he wasn’t, so you regularly scold him like a naughty Primary One pupil any time he passes the legal speed limit. Once you nod off, he will take off like a rocket headed for the moon. Not content with breaking only one rule, he makes a forbidden phone call for gist, which is much more suitable for the beer parlour. The devil finds work, and so, with a little help from the bad road, your car will collide with a tanker. Immanuel will escape with a dislocated arm, a few cuts, and some bruises. You, however, will not be so fortunate. On the bright side, the tanker will be carrying water, not fuel, so your family will have a body to bury.
As we already established, you have no way of knowing any of this, so you take off your gele, adjust your neck pillow, fold your hands on your lap, and close your eyes.
Writer’s Biography
Akumbu Uche is a Nigerian writer. Her book reviews have been published by Geek Afrique, The Lagos Review, and Open Letters Review, and her poetry and short fiction have appeared in Brittle Paper, Engaging Borders Africa, Ibua Journal, and Nowhere Magazine, among others. She curates Adiba Creatives, a bimonthly newsletter featuring opportunities for African creatives and culture workers.
