Page 34 of Death of the Author

34 Not Yet

When she got home, she threw her coat on the couch. She didn’t care if she got snow all over it. Let it melt and leave the

couch wet. Msizi grabbed it and shook it out in the hallway as she went to stand at the window. It was past midnight, but

it was so bright outside with falling snowflakes that it looked like twilight over the frozen Lake Michigan.

“Oblivion,” she said as she stared at it. Her father’s face flashed in her mind, and she gulped, the tears welling again.

She couldn’t believe she had any more left. “You’re just expected to keep going. Watching people you love drop off, one by

one. Then you keep going until it’s your turn to drop off and be gone and then people weep over you. Sometimes I feel like

I’d rather be a fucking robot. No pain. No death. No finality. And no need to fear life. Yeah.”

Msizi came up behind her. “Except your robots experience all that, too.”

“Heh. True.”

“You done rolling around in the dark?”

She shrugged.

“You write what you write for a reason,” he said. “But yeah, that’s what it is to be mortal, Zelu. You remember my cousin iNdonsa?”

“The tall one who wears all the sparkly clothes?” Zelu said. She smiled. “I like her.”

“I know. She likes you, too. iNdonsa always says the best thing about being human is that we die. She’s one of the only people

I know who is not afraid of death. You should talk to her.”

Zelu turned back to the blizzard outside. “Maybe.”

Her father would be buried in Mbaise, Nigeria. When they’d told their uncles and auntie who’d flown all the way from Mbaise

when they’d heard of their brother’s death, they had acted appeased but not grateful, like their demands had finally been

met. Like they’d expected it, because they were right. They hadn’t even stayed in the United States to attend the wake.

“We will see you at home” was all their uncle Dike had said about it. As far as they were concerned, the real honoring of

her father could only happen in his village in Nigeria. Zelu’s mother had cried and cried about him being buried an ocean

away, but she understood that it was the only thing to do. She knew a battle that she could not win. “It is his home... even if they don’t understand that Secret has multiple homes now. Even my home in the Ikare-Akoko palace is

his home.” Then she’d added, “You all can decide where to put me when I die.”

Zelu went to her bed and dragged her laptop onto her lap. She opened it and typed her password, WakaFlockaFlame (an old-school rapper whose music she vibed with for no reason other than that she liked his voice). She went to her inbox.

She clicked on the two-week-old email from Jack Preston asking her to join his space mission. She’d thought she would finally

get to leave the world and see beyond. Instead, her world had crumbled. At some point in the blur of the last two weeks, she’d

sent a reply: Thank you for the opportunity, but I have to decline. I need to spend this time with my family. She barely even remembered sending the message. Now she saw he’d emailed a response: My contacts have told me what happened. I’m so sorry, Zelu. Sending love and light. Sincerely, Jack Preston. Zelu suspected his “contacts” were her agents, whom Msizi had quickly notified of the family emergency without telling her.

Her phone buzzed. There were only seven numbers that could get past Yebo’s filter right now. It was a video call and she answered

it on her laptop. Several video boxes opened. The first showed Amarachi’s neck and chin; her phone was on her lap as she drove.

Uzo looked piercingly into the screen from what looked like a beach at sunset. Tolu was clearly home because his cat, Man

Man, was pushing his furry head into Tolu’s face. Bola held her phone to her face as she walked down a white hallway. And

Chinyere scowled at them all; she’d been the one to start the group video call.

“How are we?” Chinyere asked.

“Bad.”

Grunt.

No response.

“Can’t believe this.”

“Do we have to do this?” Zelu asked.

“Ugh, don’t start,” Amarachi snapped.

“We do have to do this,” Chinyere said. “So anyway, Amarachi and Jackie will stay with Mom tonight.”

“I will be stopping by every day,” Tolu added.

“Zelu,” Chinyere said.

Zelu braced herself. “Yes?” she said more loudly than she intended.

“After tomorrow, can you stay at the house with Mom for the next two weeks?”

Zelu opened her mouth, then closed it. This was unexpected.

“It’s just easiest for you,” she added.

Tolu and Chinyere had super-busy schedules, plus Chinyere had her children. Uzo had med school classes. Bola and Amarachi

had intense jobs they couldn’t just take time off from.

“I’ll have to talk to Msizi about it, but yes, I... I can do that.” It was nice to be considered for such an important job, but at the same time, she wanted to be alone in her high-rise sanctuary to sulk, cry, scream. Msizi was traveling to Durban in a week, and she had been looking forward to the solitude. But of course she would be there for her mother however she could. She’d done the right thing by turning down Jack Preston’s offer.

She did wish she were going to Nigeria for the funeral, though.

The family had firmly agreed that Amarachi and Zelu would stay back. Zelu reminded herself not to be bitter. Years ago, her

father himself had instructed that the family shouldn’t all travel together when it had come up idly in conversation. “The

reality is that anything can happen back home,” he’d said. “People are struggling and angry. If anything does happen, let

there be some of us who stayed back so they cannot do away with all of us that easily.” Zelu and her siblings had laughed

because they’d recently come back from a trip to Nigeria. They’d assumed he was tired or just fed up; those family trips could

leave one like that, especially her parents, who had to navigate so many dynamics. However, there must have been more to that

comment than she’d realized, because when it came time to arrange the flights to attend their father’s funeral, her mother

insisted they honor it.

“Just know that he said that for a very specific reason,” their mother had said when Chinyere asked for details. “And know

that we were all very lucky.”

The reason their mother wanted Amarachi to stay behind was obvious. The burial in Nigeria would require their mother to endure

a gauntlet of traditions that would be hard for American-born Nigerians to tolerate. Amarachi was too hotheaded. When they’d

informed their uncles and auntie of their decision about the burial, she’d ended up shouting obscenities at the uncles, cursing

all things Igbo, and telling the men they could shove their “kola nuts, yams, and patriarchal terrorism up their fucking asses.”

Zelu had burst out laughing. The uncles stood up, indignant, and Amarachi had dared them to come for her, screaming wildly,

“This isn’t the fucking village! I will happily fight you with my bare hands!”

Chinyere had dragged her out of the room and, in the process, managed to pinch the laughing Zelu’s arm so hard that she left a bruise. Zelu had followed them both out, still giggling uncontrollably. She just couldn’t stop. In the world she now lived in—where her father was dead and relatives came from the motherland to demand he be returned to the “soil,” as if his children and wife didn’t count for shit—her sister’s rant was funny as fuck. She couldn’t have been prouder of Amarachi. Tolu had apologized to the elders and calmed everything down.

As for Zelu, their mother thought she was too famous. It was for safety. A prominent man’s funeral in the village was an event

that would attract a lot of vultures to begin with. But people would also be watching specifically for Zelu, the daughter

who was a world-famous “filthy rich” writer. Her presence could ruin the entire event, at least according to her mother. Zelu

hadn’t been back to Nigeria since before Rusted Robots was published. She missed it. But she also knew that her days of going there as just some disabled American Nigerian girl

were over. Not only was she now famous, but her exos would attract so much attention, she probably wouldn’t be able to go

anywhere without an audience. She’d still wanted to go, regardless, but her mother had become so agitated by the very idea

that Zelu quickly stopped pushing. There would be another time. A quieter time.

Two days later, Zelu packed a small suitcase and then called an autonomous vehicle. When she entered her parents’ house, she

paused. Her father’s coat was no longer on the rack. Its absence weighed on her. She hadn’t been to the house since before

the wake-keeping. Her eyes stung and she pressed a hand to the wall to keep her balance. She took a deep breath and let it

out slowly. “Clarity,” she whispered. She stabilized. “Mom,” she called. Her voice sounded hollow in that way it does when

a place is unoccupied. “Mom,” she called again. “I’m... I’m here.”

Her mother’s voice came from the bedroom. “I’ll be right there.” Faint and rough. She’d been crying. Zelu started for her

parents’ bedroom, then decided against it and headed toward her own room. She stopped. She went back to her parents’ room

and paused outside the door. She heard her mother sniffling.

“I can hear your heavy robot feet. Just come in,” her mother called.

“Sorry, Mom,” Zelu said, entering the room.

“For what? You are what you are. Come and sit.” Zelu was hyperaware of her mother staring at her as she walked across the room and slowly sat on the bed. “Those things are still strange to me.”

Zelu chuckled. “That’s never going to change.” On the bed, her mother had spread some old photos of her and Secret. They were

yellowed and the corners were curled, if there were corners left at all. She probably had the digital files somewhere, but

she had always been fond of printing out photos. Zelu picked one up. Her parents looked barely twenty as they stood beside

a patch of flowers. “Are you all right, Mom?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be all right again,” she said. “But I’m better than I was.” She’d been more even-keeled since dancing

with the masquerade. “You don’t need to trap yourself here with me.”

“Mom, I lived here recently enough. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“What about that short, handsome boy of yours? Won’t he mind?”

“He’s not that short.” Zelu laughed. Msizi certainly wasn’t tall, though. “And he’s fine with it. If he weren’t traveling

soon, he’d have come to stay with us.”

Her mother hummed. “Ah, Zelu, you always do things your own way. Damn the rules, damn what is expected. I wish I could.”

It wasn’t the first time her mother had spoken of Zelu’s rigid individualism, but usually it was with judgment. Today, Zelu

heard almost a hint of admiration. “Come on, Mom. You can, too.”

But her mother only shook her head.

Her mother’s group of Ondo society women came by the next day, and Zelu began to understand why Chinyere felt one of the siblings

had to be there at all times. Her mother spent the entire morning cooking and then tidying the house. Then, an hour before

the women arrived, she began to prepare herself.

“Mom, what’s all this?” Zelu finally asked as her mother stood before the bathroom mirror putting on the kind of makeup she

usually reserved for formal events like weddings. “Aren’t these just your society women?” She looked closely at her mother’s

tight cornrows. They needed to be redone.

“Yes,” she said, penciling a beauty mark on her right cheek. She paused and looked at the wig she planned to wear. She plucked the hair a bit.

“Then why all this?”

Her mother began to apply mascara. “Why all what?”

“They’re supposed to be coming to make you feel better.”

Her mother nodded. “They will come. They will take word home. Women judge. You’re not a baby.”

Zelu cut her eyes to the side and muttered, “Doesn’t seem very healthy.”

She heard the front door open. “Are they here yet?” Chinyere called from the foyer.

“We’re in Mom’s room,” Zelu called.

Both Chinyere and Amarachi walked in. They hugged their mother and gave Zelu a quick nod.

“What are you guys doing here?” Zelu asked. “I thought you were busy.”

“Just stopping by,” Chinyere said.

“Where were you—” Zelu began, but quickly stopped talking as Chinyere gave her a sharp look.

“You look nice, Mom,” Amarachi said.

Chinyere leaned close to Zelu’s ear and murmured, “Funeral home, making the last payment. All done.”

Zelu nodded.

“This wig is looking raggedy,” their mother said.

Amarachi touched her cornrows. “I can buy you a new one that you like.”

Their mother shrugged, indifferent.

“What hairstyle do you want, then, Mom?” Chinyere asked.

Omoshalewa gazed hard at herself in the mirror, her daughters watching her closely. Zelu studied her mother’s face in the

strong bathroom light. Despite the pain of losing her beloved husband, she was still fresh-faced and lovely. Her little society

friends would probably be disappointed.

“I like that woman’s hair, the journalist who interviewed you,” she said, looking at herself dreamily. “The Pulitzer Prize

winner.”

Zelu blinked, remembering the journalist who’d ambushed her on national TV and gotten her canceled. “Oh, you mean Amanda Parker?” She frowned, pushing away the unpleasant memory and the fact that her mother remembered it so well. “So you want twists?”

“I don’t want them,” their mother said. “I just like them. They look fun and pretty.”

Chinyere and Amarachi laughed. “Mom, that’s not you,” Chinyere said.

Their mother looked pressed. “Ah, bring my wig,” she snapped. Amarachi handed it to her.

Zelu frowned, frustrated. If there was one person who knew what it was to be put in a box, it was her.

The day of the funeral in Nigeria, Zelu spent the morning in Chicago at her condo with Amarachi, Jackie, and Msizi. Tolu had

connected a camera and bought a ton of data so that he could stream the entire ceremony. Zelu was glad he had, yet wished

he hadn’t. The sight of her father’s body again, despite the blurriness of the image, made her sick. He’d been paraded around

in front of people, first in the United States and now in Nigeria. People danced and sang around him, and her mother looked

miserable. She sat the entire time in what looked to Zelu’s eyes like a cage.

When her family returned, Amarachi, Zelu, Jackie, and Msizi met them at the airport. There was hugging and crying. Her mother

had brought Zelu and Amarachi a giant bag with some stock fish, jars of ogbono and egusi, new clothes, and a huge, colorfully

beaded mask.

And then everyone went their separate ways. Meetups at the house became more sporadic, and Zelu avoided most of them. Amarachi,

Bola, Chinyere, and Tolu spent the most time with their mother. Tolu’s wife, Folashade, spent a lot of time with her, too.

She gave birth to her and Tolu’s first child, a daughter, nine months after the funeral.

On her mother’s birthday, Zelu surprised her, bursting into the house and declaring, “Mom, we’re going to Amazon’s World!”

Amazon’s World was Chicago’s most famous (and expensive) black hair salon. It specialized in natural hairstyles, and Zelu had scheduled the appointment during those two weeks she’d stayed with her mother.

“What? When?” her mother asked. “Isn’t everyone coming over this evening?”

“Yep, that’s why we’re going right now!” Zelu said.

When the autonomous vehicle that would ferry them downtown arrived, Zelu’s mother took a step back from the curb. “I don’t

know about this.”

“Mom, I take it everywhere.”

She couldn’t argue with this fact. “I’m afraid,” she admitted.

Zelu laughed, taking her hand. “Everyone is at first.” She pulled her mother, but she wouldn’t move.

“I am not of your generation,” she said.

“That’s okay.”

“No. I’m afraid.”

Zelu let go of her hand. “Mom, you and Dad taught us all about how to face our fears, remember? You both came to this country

with nothing but your sharp minds. You left your families, your cultures, all that you knew, to come to this complex place

with its nasty history, maze of trials, and spectacular opportunities. So you could stretch . How are you going to be afraid of a piece of technology your child has been using reliably with no problems for years ? Come on, Mom. Let’s go downtown and get your hair done. You deserve it!”

Her mother paused, frowning, her eyes moist with tears. “That’s why you are the writer.”

Her mother’s words made her feel ticklish. They felt like an approval Zelu had desired for so long. “Yep.” She wanted to hug

her mother, but she didn’t want to delay her from getting into the vehicle. So she just stood there grinning, hoping and waiting

for her mother to decide.

Finally, her mother relented. “You’re right. O... okay.”

Zelu got in first and then waited for her mother to join her. It was the best way to do it. If she had waited for her mother

to climb in first, then her mother would likely have felt more trapped.

She watched it all play out on her mother’s face: The fear. The conflict with her ways and beliefs. The struggle. The processing. Then the courage. The courage made Zelu smile. Her mother was still terrified and probably hearing a thousand pushy voices in her head, from those of relatives overseas to those of her own children. Then maybe she heard her husband’s voice, Zelu’s father’s. Secret had never ridden in the autonomous vehicles, but he’d talked about them often, saying they were so fascinating and strange. He’d liked that Zelu had discovered the service, and he’d told his friends about it.

Zelu’s mother pursed her lips tightly together and got into the vehicle. She plopped down beside Zelu and said, “Let’s go.”

The moment the vehicle started driving, she screamed, but mostly with exhilaration.

The small birthday party was Amarachi’s idea. Her sister had ordered a cake, arranged for two of their mother’s best friends

to cook a dinner, and sent invites to make sure the whole family was in attendance. Zelu and her mother were only minutes

from returning to the house in the autonomous vehicle when Chinyere called her phone, frantic. “What are you doing?! How far

are you?”

“Chill,” Zelu said. “We’re almost there.”

Chinyere hung up.

“Everyone’s there,” Zelu said, turning to her mother.

She saw her mother grin in the reflection of the car’s window. She loved her new hairstyle and couldn’t stop looking at herself.

Zelu loved it, too. But she especially loved seeing a smile on her mother’s face. Her mother had shocked Zelu by telling the

stylist exactly what she wanted without hesitation. The stylist had been delighted.

“I...” Her mother had glanced at Zelu from the salon chair. Then she blurted, “If my husband, Secret, were alive, I would

never do this. He wouldn’t like it.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Zelu had said softly.

Her mother nodded and looked forward into the mirror.

“May I?” the stylist asked, touching her mother’s short-haired black wig.

“Go ahead,” her mother said. “Throw it away, even. I trust you.”

The stylist had dramatically tossed it in a wastebasket beside her station, and everyone in Amazon’s World applauded. Zelu’s

mother’s cornrows were undone, her hair washed and then blow dried. Zelu had to take a picture of her mother’s medium-length,

very thick salt-and-pepper Afro. During the funeral service in Nigeria, part of the Igbo tradition was that the widowed wife

had to cut her hair. Zelu’s mother, though Yoruba, had conceded to the request by allowing them to take a chunk off the side.

Zelu could see the spot where the hair had been cut. Then the stylist got to work. And in a few hours, with a rinse to even

out the gray and the addition of some synthetic hair until the twists grew out, Zelu’s mother had shoulder-length twists just

like Amanda Parker. Zelu recorded the moment when the stylist gave her mother a big mirror.

“What have I done?” her mother said, holding the mirror but not looking into it yet.

“Come on, Mom,” Zelu urged. “Look at yourself.”

The stylist, a tall, heavyset black woman with the biggest Afro Zelu had ever seen in person, was grinning, and Zelu zoomed

in on her face as she recorded. She focused back on her mother as she raised the mirror to look at herself. Her mother’s eyebrows

rose. Her eyes grew wide. Her mouth dropped open. She sat up straighter. “Oh my God,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears,

a huge smile spreading across her face. She reached over and touched the stylist’s arm and just looked at her, tears falling.

The stylist laughed and said, “You’re beautiful, Omoshalewa.”

“I am,” she said, touching her twists.

“You are, Mom. You always have been.” Then Zelu thought, You just forgot.

The autonomous vehicle pulled up to the house. The driveway and street were packed with cars and SUVs. Zelu and her mom got

out and her mom turned to watch it drive away. “Where is it going?”

“Either to pick up its next passenger or just to patrol the area while it waits to be requested,” she said.

Her mother nodded. “They need those in Nigeria.”

They opened the front door. Everyone was packed into the entryway to shout “Happy birthday!”: Zelu’s siblings; Auntie Constance,

who’d flown in from Dallas; and several women from her mother’s society. Zelu hung back, bracing herself. She hadn’t told

anyone else about the hair appointment.

“Mom!” Chinyere exclaimed, staring wide-eyed.

Amarachi grabbed Tolu’s arm. “What the...”

Tolu just stood there, frozen, a tight grin on his face.

“Oh, wow!” Uzo shouted, bringing her phone up to snap a photo. “I love it!”

Bola looked at Zelu and pointed at her with raised eyebrows. Zelu smirked proudly and nodded. Bola slowly nodded back and

gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

“Here is my sister,” Auntie Constance sang, not even acknowledging her new hairstyle. She grabbed and hugged her. The society

women gathered around her, though Zelu noticed a few of them frowning. Her mother beamed through it all, shaking her twists

this way and that, showing them off with pride.

“Heeeeey! It’s my birthday!” she shouted.

All evening, the sound of Fourth of July fireworks reverberated around the city of Chicago, mingling with the occasional gunshot.

For the first anniversary of Secret’s passing, it was only Zelu who stayed behind while everyone else went back to Nigeria.

Their mother, who’d graduated her twists to locs, went. Even Tolu, his wife, and their three-month-old daughter, whose nickname

was Cricket, went.

For Zelu, fame was still fame.

“I’ll wear a mustache and wig,” she’d begged her mother, tears dribbling from her eyes. She hadn’t expected her mother to ask her not to go, not this second time. “I don’t care. I just want to touch where Dad lies, be present, see everyone and have them all see me. It’s home ; it’s where we all go to feel grounded.”

Nigeria and her parents’ hometowns and villages were alignment. Zelu used to think this was a feeling that only emigrants

who’d grown up there could have, but it was a need for their foreign-born children, too. There was a deep Americanness to

Zelu’s way of thinking, how she carried herself, even her spirit. However, her bridge to home was healthy and strong. And now that her father had passed and his body was in that land, that back-and-forth was even more

necessary to Zelu and her siblings. Staying away for another year hurt Zelu’s soul.

“It’s not safe for you,” her mother said.

Zelu squeezed her face between her palms and groaned, the news sinking in. She’d really wanted to go. Last time she’d been

in Nigeria, her relatives had seen her as the family’s crippled failure. Now she’d finally bloomed as a person, and she wanted

to show herself off. “Come on, Moooooom,” she whined.

“I’m sorry, Zelu, but no,” her mother said, and that was the end of it.

The day of the anniversary, Zelu was alone. Even Msizi was away, in Durban on important business. She felt excluded. She was

always excluded somehow, be it because she couldn’t walk or because she was too famous or whatever. Zelu couldn’t help but

wonder if her mother also didn’t want people seeing her “robot legs.” She could imagine relatives speculating that her being

part robot was the curse of her fame.

She’d called Hugo in a moment when she was feeling especially low, but he hadn’t picked up. She didn’t leave a message. When

he called her back minutes later, she didn’t answer. He called another two times, but something in her just refused to speak

to him. She’d just stared at the phone as it buzzed and buzzed.

Zelu spent much of the day at the pier, gazing at Lake Michigan and thinking about how her father had danced the dance of

the masquerade at that party so long ago.