Page 32 of Death of the Author

32 Passing

Zelu rushed through the hospital doors, ignoring all the stares that turned her way. She probably should have come with Msizi.

She needed his emotional support right now. However, she’d insisted he stay behind; she didn’t want his emotional support. She’d wept the entire ride in the autonomous vehicle. Before she even reached the front desk, people

were moving toward her, calling her name. One of them had the audacity to ask for an autograph (which she gave just to get

rid of him, drawing an angry face beside her name, which seemed to delight the guy even more).

Zelu approached the front desk. “Hello,” she began.

The receptionist smiled sheepishly. “Are you...”

Zelu felt tears pricking the corners of her eyes. A lump was building in the back of her throat. “I am,” she managed to get

out. “Did you like the movie?”

“Oh my God , I loved it,” the receptionist said, her face lighting up.

“I’m glad,” Zelu said, wiping away a tear that had escaped and begun rolling down her cheek. “I’m... I’m here to see my

dad.”

“Oh!” the woman said, realizing. “Shit... I’m sorry. Please... hold on.” She looked at her computer and then at Zelu. “Room 219. That way, right down the hall.”

“Is he...” Then Zelu shook her head, cutting off her own question, and said, “Okay, thanks.”

She moved through the hospital wing as quickly as she could. After the shock of the freezing air outside, her exos were warming

back up, and she was glad. They didn’t like the super cold of Chicago in late January, and neither did she. Not for the first

time, she thought about moving with Msizi to Durban, which lay beside the Indian Ocean and was nicknamed the City with No

Winter.

Her gait was jerky, which was always jarring to her spine. But as she walked and the exos warmed up, it smoothed out. By the

time she heard the voices of her mother and siblings coming from inside the room, she was back to moving in her usual way.

She took a deep breath. “If it gets bad, just leave,” Msizi had said to her before she’d gotten in the cab. “Don’t question

yourself. Go back when they are not there.”

She stepped into the room. Her father’s bed was obscured by the bodies of her family. “You decided to come,” her sister Chinyere

said, turning around.

“I came as soon as I heard.”

Chinyere huffed. “Always so hard to get a hold of, even when you have no real responsibilities!”

“The fuck is your problem?” Zelu snapped. She was about to say more when her mother rushed over and hugged her, as did her

brother. The others just looked at her and said nothing. There were nine people in the hospital room, not including her father.

It was cramped. Her mother took her hand and led her to her father’s bed. His eyes were closed and his usually rich brown

skin looked washed out, like something inside of him had left. Zelu shivered at the thought. “Can I wake him up?” she asked

her mother.

She shook her head. “He... he won’t wake up. Hasn’t yet.”

“What happened?”

“He had a heart attack, Zelu,” Amarachi said. She was squeezed onto the small yellow couch beside their father’s bed with Jackie. “Thankfully, Mom and I were there when it happened.”

Always that undercurrent of accusation whenever any of her siblings spoke to her.

“Is he going to be all right?” Zelu whispered.

“No,” Amarachi snapped. “He’s obviously not.”

“Stop it,” their mother said. “Chinyere, go and see when the doctor is coming to update us.”

Chinyere hesitated, rocking back on her heels. “He said he’d—”

“Just go and see,” their mother said, in a firm tone that made it clear she was not to be questioned again. “Uzo, Amarachi,

Bola, Jackie, Tolu—go to the lobby. Shawn and Zelu, you stay here.”

“Why Shawn? ” Bola asked. Her boyfriend looked more than pleased, though he was trying to hide it. Ever since they’d started dating, Shawn

had always had a way with Omoshalewa.

“Just go,” their mother snapped.

As soon as the room cleared out, Zelu let out a breath, her shoulders relaxing. When she met her mother’s eyes, she realized

they were glistening with tears. “Mom?”

“Have faith,” her mother said, taking Zelu’s palm into her left hand and her father’s limp hand in her right.

Shawn sat back on the yellow couch and looked at the floor soberly.

Zelu stood with her mother and watched her mouth move with whispered prayers. She held her father’s hand to complete the circle,

squeezing it and watching him sleep. She squeezed harder. Nothing. His hand was cool and damp. His face was slack, his mouth

hanging open the slightest bit.

She looked at Shawn, and he looked back at her sympathetically. She mouthed to him, “How bad?”

“Bad,” he mouthed back. Then he shook his head. A jolt of anguish shot through her and fresh tears gathered behind her eyes.

Shawn got up and put an arm around her shoulders as her mother continued to squeeze her hand and pray. Zelu leaned her head

into Shawn’s shoulder.

A few minutes later, her mother asked if she could be alone with her husband. Zelu and Shawn left the room to join her siblings in the lobby. Zelu plopped down in a corner seat and powered off her exos so she could bend her chest into her lap.

“I’m afraid to go home,” Tolu was saying.

“Me too,” Uzo agreed.

“Just wait for Chinyere to finish talking to the doctor,” Jackie said.

“You weren’t there,” Amarachi suddenly shouted at Jackie. “You didn’t see his face !”

Jackie pulled her toward him, and she pressed her face into the crook of his neck, her body shaking. “I’m not going anywhere,”

he whispered.

Zelu rubbed her face. Her skin felt tight and itchy. She switched her exos back on. The sound of them powering up must have

been like a familial dog whistle to her siblings.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Amarachi said, suddenly turning to Zelu, who had been about to stand up. “Stay your ass right there .”

Zelu froze. All of them were looking at her now. She could hear Msizi’s voice in her mind. If it gets bad, just leave. But her family was blocking her way. One shove and she’d fall. She hadn’t planned on leaving, just going to the bathroom.

They always did this, and it was their problem, not hers. She sat up straighter. Ready to have this fight.

Chinyere suddenly rushed in from the hallway. “Something happened! Come on! ”

They all flew through the hospital wing back toward their father’s room. Even before she saw the doorway, she heard the steady

beeeeeeeeeeep . Then her mother’s voice. First it was a cold whisper, then it heated to a hum, then boiled into a shriek. “Secret? Secret? SEEEEECRET!!!!!!!! SEEEEEEEEEEECRET, ooooooo!”

Zelu had never heard her mother make noises like this before. The anguish vibrated through her, rattled her bones. She was right outside the entrance to her father’s room. He was in there. No, he wasn’t. He was gone. “Oooh,” she softly moaned, wrapping her arms around her midsection, her eyes blurring. “Dad.”

She felt more present in this moment than she’d ever been. Rooted in it. Even as time moved, she was stuck in that split second

when her father changed from being alive to being dead. The nurses began rushing in. The doctor Chinyere had been talking

to was already in there. A flurry. A tornado. A hurricane. And Zelu had missed her chance to ever talk to her father again.

She didn’t go back into the room to look at him. She didn’t speak to her mother. No one said a word to her, except Jackie,

who asked if she was all right, and Shawn, who gave her a tight hug and said, “I’m sorry.”

Her mother was inconsolable after Chinyere and Tolu pulled her off their father’s body. They sat her down in a chair, and

she went limp and silent. Soon, Zelu was the only one left standing in the hallway. She had no role left to perform for the

others, and no one was here for her. So she called a cab and left without saying good-bye. She went home to Msizi, who wrapped

his arms tightly around her. She dragged herself into bed, pulled the covers over her head, shut off her phone, and stuffed

her AirPods in her ears. She floated in space for a while. And finally, she curled up and wept.

Hours later, Msizi gently shook her awake. “It’s your brother. He’s rung a few times now.”

“Whyyyy,” she groaned, her mouth gummy. What time was it? She rubbed her face and looked at her phone as the screen lit up

with yet another call. She hit Accept and brought it to her ear. “’Lo?”

“Jesus! Finally! I was about to come over there!”

She squeezed her eyes shut and scrunched her nose, trying to bring some feeling back into her face. “Was sleeping.”

“Get up. We’re all at the house. Including Uncle Ugorji, Uncle Dike, and Auntie Ozioma. They just arrived from Nigeria. Yeah, that fast, man. You need to be here.”

“Wha?”

“Just come.”

He hung up. She looked at her phone. It was 5 a.m. Yet “everyone” was at the house? Her mother had called her uncles and aunt

as soon as her father became unwell. How panicked she must have sounded for them to hop on a plane right away and arrive this

quickly. And still, they’d been too late.

“Dad’s gone,” she whispered. “Oh God.” And she fell all over again. She moaned with the pain of it, pushed her face into her

pillow. “Dad.” She called for him, knowing he would not answer. “Daaaad.”

Msizi rubbed her shoulder. “He was a really cool guy,” he softly said, even though he hadn’t known her father well at all.

“When we were dancing at Jackie and Amarachi’s wedding, he interrupted all us Zulus to dance his masquerade dance. He caused

such a stir, the masquerade came out and joined. Your mother was frowning so hard.”

Zelu laughed despite herself, face still pressed to the pillow. The Zulus were having their moment, and her father had stolen

it to make it an Igbo moment, annoying her Yoruba princess of a mother. It was so like him.

“He was a real cultural man, and he raised progressive children who would evolve the culture,” Msizi said. “That’s beautiful , Zelu. He has earned the right to rest and wander. It’s a terrible loss for those he left, but we will all celebrate his

life, too.”

Zelu was sobbing again, but it felt better this time. It felt like release.

Then Msizi had to ruin it by adding, “And you won’t let your family press you down.”

She lifted her face and rubbed her runny nose. “I’m not—”

“Stop,” he warned gently. “I know you, and I know your family. I know how it went. They love you, but don’t let them press you down.”

Then she remembered her brother’s urgent plea. “I have to go there right now.”

Msizi raised an eyebrow. “Why? It’s early.”

She was already turning to grab her exos. “I don’t know. Family meeting. Some relatives just arrived to stay with my mom or

something.”

“You have to go now?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded. “I’ll go with you.”

She paused, turning sharply toward him. “No.” She tried to make it clear in that one word that this was not up for discussion.

This was something she had to do on her own. Msizi would just try to shield her.

He nodded. He got it. “I can’t convince you to get more sleep first, can I?”

“I just...” The exos powered up, and she stood, moving toward her dresser to grab a clean shirt. “Something’s going down.

I need to be there... for once.”

Msizi lowered his chin. “Ah, there’s the guilt.”

“Stop.”

He sighed and stood up. “Keep your phone close, Zelu. Answer if I call.”

“Fine, fine,” she agreed as she fished a wrinkled T-shirt from the drawer.

“I don’t like you doing this alone.”

She froze for a moment, looking at the shirt in her hands. “I don’t, either.”

His eyelids lowered. “I will seriously stand outside waiting, Zelu.”

She smiled and kissed him. Then she finished getting dressed and called a cab.

It was nearly 6 o’clock when she walked up to her parents’ house. The sun was out, but it felt so far away that it didn’t make a difference temperature-wise. However, it had snowed overnight and the glare was spectacular. She wore a dark blue–and-black Ankara suit with no jewelry. Her micro braids were pulled back. The feet of her exos were caked with snow and dirt, but she felt stylish, respectful, and unassuming. Even in the wake of her father’s death—or maybe because of it—she knew her relatives would be eager to judge her. She wasn’t going to make it easy. She would make her father proud.

She reached for the door handle, then stopped. Her father couldn’t be proud; he was gone.

She opened the front door. Everything seemed the same, from the ever-present smell of curry, onions, and palm oil from her

mother’s cooking to the earthy notes from her father’s many houseplants. His heavy winter coat hung on the rack beside the

door. As if he’d just returned from a trip to the store or seeing a friend and was right around the corner, sitting in his

favorite armchair.

She shut her eyes and massaged her temples. “Come on. Get it together, Zelu,” she whispered. But her mind wouldn’t stop: Who

would water the English ivy in her room? Not only had her father nursed it back to life, but it was now joyfully taking over

her entire windowsill, thanks to his green thumb. Who would eat the rest of her egusi soup and fufu when she was too stuffed

to finish? Who would tell her those core stories that she loved to hear again and again about his youth in Nigeria? Who would

be the one other adventurer in the family? Who would she look to first for support when her family inevitably told her something

was out of her reach?

She was on her own. She urged her exos forward and was glad for their unemotional, robotic response. Into the house she went.

Everyone was in the living room. Her mother sat on the couch, looking somehow both like she was about to collapse and incredibly

alert. On one side of her sat Uncle Dike, as tall and imposing as ever, and on the other side sat Uncle Ugorji , as robust and entitled as ever. But Omoshalewa was not a small woman, and she didn’t look small now. Sitting on the coffee table were a bowl of kola nuts and a plate of peanut sauce and alligator pepper. It was just like her mother to be capable of hosting in a moment like this. All around the room were Zelu’s siblings. No one looked her way when she entered; they all seemed frustrated, the room hot with an ongoing argument. Zelu moved to stand behind the couch.

“No disrespect, Uncle Dike, but that’s really foul!” Tolu snapped.

“This is how you people speak to your elders in this country?” Uncle Dike asked. He kissed his teeth. “ Tufiakwa! ”

“Irrelevant,” Uncle Ugorji said , waving a hand at Tolu. “He will be buried in Mbaise.”

Her mother suddenly stood up. “And when I die, where will I be buried? In some Igbo village? Me, a princess of Ondo. Me. A

Yoruba woman ?!” She slapped her chest proudly.

“You are his wife,” Uncle Dike said. “You will be buried beside your husband.”

“I am a princess !” she shouted at him. Her whole body was shaking now, and Zelu couldn’t tell if it was from rage or exhaustion. “I will not

allow any of you to be blind to who I am! No! Secret was my husband! Not yours. When is the last time you spoke with him, Dike? I remember!” Her eyes were wide and red. “Oh, I remember what you

wanted and how you made him feel!”

Auntie Ozioma leaned forward in her chair, holding an arm out to urge Zelu’s mother to sit back down. “ Biko , this is not the time—”

“When, then?” her mother screamed. “You three flew here so fast, I don’t even know how! People usually can’t even get visa,

but you three did, overnight... just to tell me I have to ship my husband away! Did you know he would die? Eh?! Did you know? Are you Grim Reaper?!” The more she raged, the thicker her accent grew. “Let me keep my husband!”

“He is my brother,” Uncle Dike said, voice deep and commanding. “I have known him far longer than you.” He paused and then added, “No

one can be closer than the ones who come from the ‘head office.’”

“Patriarchy is so nasty,” she heard Amarachi mutter. “Always acting like their dicks are gods. ‘Head office,’ ugh.” Zelu met her eyes, then she met Tolu’s and Uzo’s. They all hated this traditional bullshit, and they all hated that they couldn’t just scream that they hated it because they were part of it, too. Respect your elders, respect your elders, respect your elders, one of the strongest rules of the culture.

“Your father,” their uncle Ugorji said, addressing them all now, “will be buried as a chief. He deserves that. We see what he did here. He should be honored

in his own land.”

“Uncle,” Chinyere said, stepping forward. “We respect you. We love you all. But this is our father.” She motioned to their

mother. “And this is our mother. We understand your sentiment. We don’t know if we agree with it or not.” She looked to the

others and they all nodded. “But we won’t have you coming here and making demands. We are fine with suggestions or requests,

Uncle.”

Their uncles both looked as if they were about to object, but Chinyere held up a hand. “We need time to think on it. Can you

give us that?”

All her siblings understood that it was time to remove themselves. They stood up and started filing into the kitchen. Chinyere

held her mother’s shoulders and ushered her along, too. Zelu followed the procession. Their auntie and uncles remained in

the living room, muttering among themselves.

Once in the kitchen, they all sat around the table except Zelu, who elected to lean against the counter. No one said anything

for a long moment.

“Is this... what usually happens?” Uzo finally broke the silence.

“Yep,” Tolu said, looking like he’d eaten something sour.

“The nerve,” Chinyere said, shaking her head. “Like, they can’t just ask? They come making demands as if we’re nothing.”

“You know what comes next,” Amarachi said, curling her lip in disgust.

“Yep,” Chinyere asked. “They go after his bank accounts in Nigeria.”

Amarachi nodded. “They’re his brothers.”

“He always wanted some of his wealth to be at home, though,” Tolu whispered.

“Fuck the patriarchy,” Amarachi hissed. She quickly looked at their mother, but Omoshalewa was just staring blankly out the

kitchen window. Her eyes were not so wild anymore; now they looked lost. “Why keep wealth in a place that’s broken? Even when

it is home.”

“The US isn’t much better,” Tolu pointed out.

“Easy for you to say, ‘only son,’” Amarachi shot back. “At least I don’t have to worry about this kind of crap. At least here, my genitals aren’t a hindrance when—”

“Can we focus?” Zelu interjected. They all looked at her as if just noticing she’d arrived. “There’s a lot happening. But

one thing at a time, right? Where...” She inhaled, her eyes welling up again. The pain of their father’s passing and the

culture clash mixed together into a hot, burning ache. “Where... where are we going to bury Dad?” She shuddered, stumbling.

“Dad...”

Chinyere rushed and caught her before she could fall. Amarachi held her shoulders. The holding became a tight hug from them

both. She held them, too. Their mother started keening and they grabbed and held her, too. Zelu shut her eyes, but for once,

she did not go to space. She heard the breathing, sobs, and soft words. She smelled the spice that always clung to her mother’s

skin, Tolu’s sandalwood-scented oil, Amarachi’s jasmine perfume, Bola’s bath soap, Uzo’s baby powder. She felt Chinyere’s

long nails pressing her arm gently, keeping her here. She couldn’t fall if she tried.