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Edna raised her eyebrows, mouthing but not singing Billie Holiday’s words.

“I don’t think love has a reason,” Olanna said.

“Sure it does.”

“I think love comes first and then the reasons follow. When I am with him, I feel that I don’t need anything else.” Olanna’s words surprised her, but the startling truth brought the urge to cry.

Edna was watching her. “You can’t keep lying to yourself that you’re okay.”

“I’m not lying to myself,” Olanna said. Billie Holiday’s plaintively scratchy voice had begun to irritate her. She didn’t know how transparent she was. She thought her frequent laughter was authentic and that Edna had no idea that she cried when she was alone in her flat.

“I’m not the best person to talk to about men, but you need to talk this through with somebody,” Edna said. “Maybe the priest, as payback for all those St. Vincent de Paul charity trips you’ve made?”

Edna laughed and Olanna laughed along, but already she was thinking that perhaps she did need to talk to somebody, somebody neutral who would help her reclaim herself, deal with the stranger she had become. She started to drive to St. Peter’s many times in the next few days but stopped and changed her mind. Finally, on a Monday afternoon, she went, driving quickly, ignoring speed bumps, so that she would not give herself any time to stop. She sat on a wooden bench in Father Damian’s airless office and kept her eyes focused on the filing cabinet labeled LAITY as she talked about Odenigbo.

“I don’t go to the staff club because I don’t want to see him. I’ve lost my interest in tennis. He betrayed and hurt me, and yet it seems as if he’s running my life.”

Father Damian tugged at his collar, adjusted his glasses, and rubbed his nose, and she wondered if he was thinking of something, anything, to do since he had no answers for her.

“I didn’t see you in church last Sunday,” he said finally.

Olanna was disappointed, but he was a priest after all and this had to be his solution: Seek God. She had wanted him to make her feel justified, solidify her right to self-pity, encourage her to occupy a larger portion of the moral high ground. She wanted him to condemn Odenigbo.

“You think I need to go to church more often?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Olanna nodded and brought her bag closer, ready to get up and leave. She should not have come. She should not have expected a round-faced voluntary eunuch in white robes to be in a position to understand how she felt. He was looking at her, his eyes large behind the lenses.

“I also think that you should forgive Odenigbo,” he said, and pulled at his collar as though it was choking him. For a moment Olanna felt contempt for him. What he was saying was too easy, too predictable. She did not need to have come to hear it.

“Okay.” She got up. “Thank you.”

“It’s not for him, you know. It’s for you.”

“What?” He was still sitting, so she looked down to meet his eyes.

“Don’t see it as forgiving him. See it as allowing yourself to be happy. What will you do with the misery you have chosen? Will you eat misery?”

Olanna looked at the crucifix above the window, at the face of Christ serene in agony, and said nothing.

Odenigbo arrived very early, before she had had breakfast. She knew that something was wrong even before she unlocked the door and saw his somber face.

“What is it?” she asked, and felt a sharp horror at the hope that sneaked into her mind: that his mother had died.

“Amala is pregnant,” he said. There was a selfless and steely tone to his voice, that of a person delivering bad news to other people while remaining strong on their behalf.

Olanna clutched the door handle. “What?”

“Mama just came to tell me that Amala is pregnant with my child.”

Olanna began to laugh. She laughed and laughed and laughed because the present scene, the past weeks, suddenly seemed fantastical.

“Let me come in,” Odenigbo said. “Please.”

She moved back from the door. “Come in.”

He sat down on the edge of the chair, and she felt as if she had been gumming back the pieces of broken chinaware only to have them shatter all over again; the pain was not in the second shattering but in the realization that trying to put them back together had been of no consequence from the beginning.