Page 48 of Death of the Author

48 Family Ties

Zelu landed at O’Hare airport on a Saturday and ordered an autonomous vehicle straight to her parents’ house. She knew she

couldn’t put it off any longer. Every day, every hour she didn’t do this made the situation worse. #Adventure was going to send out a press release with her name in three days,

the mission was in less than a month, and her family had no idea.

As she stepped up on the sidewalk, she felt her heartbeat in her ears. She paused at the door, her key in her hand, tugging

at her pink-and-red Ankara top. With a sigh, she looked back at the driveway. Chinyere’s black BMW, Tolu’s white Honda SUV,

Bola’s new red Tesla, and Amarachi’s tiny blue smart car were sitting there. At least Uzo wasn’t here; she’d record the entire

thing and post it on the family WhatsApp, where the conversation would continue via text. Not that that was the worst of Zelu’s

concerns. The most vocally critical siblings were right inside.

As she pushed the door open, Uzo pulled it from the inside. She must have ridden in with someone else. Zelu wanted to groan,

but forced a smile instead. “Hey,” she said. “Where’s your car?”

“Tolu’s going back to his office tonight, so he gave me a ride.”

“Ah, that explains it,” Zelu said, stepping inside. So everyone was here. Great. She went to see her mother first.

“Mom,” she said, entering her mother’s bedroom. Her mother was sitting in her La-Z-Boy armchair. On TV was an old tennis match

between Serena Williams and some poor victim who had no chance. She wore her favorite maroon nightgown, and her locs were

tied on top of her head.

“Zelu,” she said, grinning with a warmth that Zelu felt in her bones. “Where are you coming from?”

“The airport.”

Her mother gave her a curious look but didn’t press for more information. “How’re you doing?”

“Okay.”

“Is it true that you’re working on the next novel?”

Zelu almost laughed; this could be method writing, she supposed. “Not really. But I think I’m on my way to it.”

“Finally.”

“Whatever, Mom.”

Her mom gave her a deep, knowing look. “I want to read it. Many do.”

Zelu worried her lip between her teeth. “I know, Mom. But it’s hard.”

“Your father would roll his eyes and say, ‘Get on with it.’”

“He totally would,” Zelu said, smiling despite herself.

“Where’d you get all these dramatic stories from?” her mom asked.

“Mom, look at how you grew up,” Zelu said, chuckling. Her mother had been raised in a polygamous Yoruba family who lived in a palace. Entitlement,

backbiting, history, pride, competition, spirits, ghosts, and ambition were all the norm. Zelu had listened closely to her

mother’s many stories about her upbringing and her father’s very different perspective on it and absorbed even more during

her own visits.

“What do you mean?” her mother asked, completely missing Zelu’s point.

Zelu shook her head fondly. “Not important. So, Mom... I have some news.”

Zelu had felt fine until that moment, but the second she realized what she was about to say, her heart started beating faster.

Her mother would be hurt. Why did she keep hurting her?

“What is it?” her mother asked, sitting up.

Adrenaline flooded Zelu’s system. Inhale. Exhale. Clarity. Okay, here goes. She sat down on the bed. “I’m... uh, heh. So, I’m going to space.”

Her mother looked at her, head cocked. “Eh?”

Zelu took another breath, trying not to think too hard, and launched into the speech she’d prepared on the car ride over.

“I’m... So there’s a space launch being financed by this billionaire business guy. I randomly met him at the movie premiere.

He later, uh, heard about me when all that stuff happened in... in Nigeria... He invited me to join him as one of his

crew of four to go into space for three days. We leave in less than a month.”

Her mother kept very still, her expression unchanged. Zelu wanted to crawl under a table and put her hands over her head like

they used to back in the sixties in case of a nuclear attack.

“What are you talking about?” her mother said very slowly.

“I’m going to—”

“Space?” her mother said, her voice spiking so suddenly that Zelu flinched. “As in leaving the planet ?!”

Zelu winced. “Yeah.”

Her mother jumped up, clapped her hands, and shouted “ Kai! ” She started speaking rapid Yoruba. She turned to Zelu, who wanted to get up and flee... but she’d already sat down and

she could never get up very quickly.

“Mom, I—”

Her mother’s accent came forth the way it always did when she got stressed. “So you think you are going on spaceship into

space?”

“I am.”

“Ah ah, why ? Do you want to die?! Again?!” She was breathing hard. She threw her hands up as she bounced around. “Heeeeeey, my daughter

is suicidal, ooooo!” She clapped her hands. “ Kai! ”

Zelu leaned forward, her belly feeling like it was full of fire. Maybe I am , she thought. A little bit. She shook her head. Stop it, Zelu . Whenever she thought about going to space, she felt like a great weight was being lifted off her. A great responsibility.

A great obligation. She felt more solid. “Wouldn’t you go if you had the chance?” she asked, pushing all this back down, deep.

“Even if you were scared?”

“ No . I would not. ” She looked hard at Zelu for several moments, and Zelu was sure her mother was about to slap her. “Zelu, why do you hate

us protecting you so much?”

Zelu gasped. “What, Mom? How? I never...” Suddenly she was crying. “If you hadn’t protected me after... after...

all these years, Mom, that fall took my legs! If it weren’t for you, and Dad, everyone... I’d have withered and died. ” She stared at her mother now, who’d frozen, staring back at Zelu. “Look at me now, though. If it weren’t for all your protecting,

I couldn’t be this . I couldn’t be me . This is me, Mom—robot legs, crazy novel that’s all over the place, writing, speaking, strong!”

Zelu was shaking now. She was trying to contain it all—the hope and the despair, the dance of success, and the need to flee

the planet, if only for a while. Sitting down had been a good move. “I’m... not trying to die. I didn’t want to die in

Nigeria; I wanted to see Dad’s grave and reconnect with the land, home! It was a risk, but, well, I survived, didn’t I? I

made sure of it! Now I have a chance to go to space. Don’t you want me to push farther? I can , so shouldn’t I?” Zelu used her shirt to wipe her wet face. “Come on , Mom.”

Her mother glared at her, her eyes moistening, too. Now it was her turn to sit down. She sat beside Zelu and sighed. Then

her face softened. “Your father would have gone, too.”

Zelu felt tears sting her eyes. Finally. Finally, her father was on her side. “He would, Mom.”

“Adventurers, both of you,” she said. She paused. “That’s why you were in that stupid tree to begin with.”

“That stupid tree,” Zelu said.

Her mother took Zelu’s hands and squeezed them. “You are a very annoying child.”

Zelu went to her old room next. She paused and sighed, then walked over to the dead English ivy. It had dried to a crisp years

ago. With her father gone, it hadn’t stood a chance. She’d never had the heart to throw it away. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured

to it. She broke off a brown leaf and sat on her bed, crumbling it between her fingers as she looked around her room.

It was otherwise as she’d left it. She got up and stepped to her desk, where she’d written so much of Rusted Robots. She sat in the chair, feeling her old self stir. She’d been so low back then. She hadn’t known it, but so much was coming.

Once she’d hit the ground, she’d had nowhere to go but up. And now she had higher to go still.

She picked up an old copy of Jamaica Kincaid’s At the Bottom of the River from the stack of books she’d left behind. Flipping through it, she sniffed the pages. The book smelled so old. She’d wanted

so much to write like Kincaid back in college. But she didn’t write like Kincaid at all. Sometimes it was better to get what

you needed than what you wanted.

She went to the living room.

Her siblings were eating from a giant bowl of fried plantain. Chinyere had clearly made it because she always fried the plantains

super dark, nearly burned. A soccer game was on, but the volume was turned down. They all stopped talking when they saw her

walk in.

“Well, hello, stranger,” Amarachi said. “Long time, no see.”

Amarachi was right. Zelu hadn’t seen them in weeks, and she hadn’t explained why. There was an NDA, but it was really the fact that she didn’t feel she could trust her siblings with the secret. And they’d only tell her not to go, and Zelu hadn’t wanted to risk their convincing her. Her siblings were a united front with their tools of shame and guilt. They knew where she was weakest, and their sheer relentlessness would have been impossible to resist, especially after what had happened in Nigeria.

“Uh... yeah.” She sighed, sitting on the edge of the couch beside Chinyere. “Okay, I just flew in from Colorado. I’ve got

some news.”

“Oh, dear God,” Tolu muttered. “What now ? You gonna tell us you’re marrying a Saudi prince as a second husband? Or maybe you just bought an automated yacht. Fuck.”

Chinyere and Uzo glanced at each other. Amarachi rolled her eyes.

Zelu curled her fingers in her lap. “Can you all just... sit down?”

They sat. Chinyere and Amarachi on the couch with her, Uzo on the floor (her phone up as she recorded), Bola on a chair behind

the couch, and Tolu in their father’s armchair. Her siblings. The closest people on earth to her, no matter how distant they

often felt.

Zelu took a deep breath, glanced at the side panel on her exos to note how much charge they had left (90 percent), and then

told them everything. She explained about the NDA she’d signed right after she’d agreed to participate. She told them about

the flurry of meetings with the #Adventure team directors, organizers, payroll people, doctors, and lawyers. The flights to

Florida, Colorado, and Nevada to go through a gauntlet of intense training. She’d gone with her crew to Disneyland and they’d

ridden the kiddie roller coasters, worked their way up to the mild coasters, and then finally ridden what she’d viewed as

the embodiment of death: Space Mountain. Then she’d gone on Space Mountain again and again, and by the end of that day, she

was a different woman.

She’d endured a centrifuge. She’d gone up in a plane and experienced incredible g-forces and minutes of weightlessness. She’d

hiked up a mountain in the cold of Colorado. She’d hiked through Death Valley in Nevada. She’d done underwater training. She’d

learned techniques for handling intense g-forces from fighter pilots—a combination of breathing exercises and clenching her

butt cheeks. She’d met with a psychologist and a therapist.

When she finally stopped talking, they all looked at one another. Chinyere to Tolu. Bola to Chinyere. Uzo to Tolu. Bola to Uzo. Sibling to sibling to sibling to sibling. Glances like a ball in a pinball machine. Something was happening, and Zelu didn’t know what it was.

Chinyere spoke first. “I’m done,” she announced, throwing up her hands.

Zelu braced herself for the acidic, self-righteous lecture, but then she saw that her sister was smiling . She frowned, skeptical.

Chinyere stood up and shook her head. “You win. I can’t be mad at you anymore. I...” She looked right at Zelu. “I don’t understand you. I don’t know what you are. But... you’re fucking amazing.”

It was like a dam broke; they all started talking at the same time.

“Yeah, this is amazing,” Tolu said.

“I’m scared, though!” Uzo added. “I’m not even going to Google the details.”

“Don’t,” Bola said. “It’s wild! I cannot believe you’re going to be one of the passengers! When this news drops at work, no

one will leave me alone!”

“First one in the family to leave the planet. Can’t wait to tell that to our uncles,” Chinyere said.

“We don’t need to tell our uncles shit,” Amarachi snapped.

“You sure you can do this?” Tolu asked Zelu. “You know, with your...” He tapered off.

“She escaped armed robbers in Nigeria,” Chinyere cut in. “She can do this.”

“Exactly!” Bola shouted.

Tolu sighed. “Dad would have loved this.”

She stayed for another two hours, just talking with her siblings over dinner. The jollof rice and plantain had never tasted so good. They talked about space, the training, how they were all going to navigate the upcoming press. All of her siblings believed that Zelu had manifested this opportunity. “It’s just too coincidental,” Chinyere said. “You used to talk about being an astronaut all the time before your accident. Then after, not once. You made such an effort to not look back... but the want was still there!”

Zelu didn’t argue with them. To talk about it too much would have made her angry. What had they expected her to do? Keep trying

to do something that was basically impossible? How healthy would that have been, really? But she didn’t want to ruin the mood,

so she just laughed and nodded and let her siblings talk.

The truth was, they’d never truly understand her and her ways. Not really. Maybe her father would have, but he was gone. Even

Msizi, who knew what she wanted and loved her for it, wouldn’t ever fully understand. The difference now was that instead

of fighting these facts and trying to explain, and explain, and explain, she could let all this be.

When Zelu stepped into the frigid night air, closing the door behind her, she quietly thanked her father. “I know that was

you,” she whispered. She inhaled deeply and then exhaled slowly. “Clarity.” She started walking. It was cold, but she was

so warmed on the inside, it didn’t matter. She felt thin, light, transparent, like she could shed her exos and fly. She brought

out her phone and asked Yebo to call the autonomous vehicle. It came within ten minutes and drove her home.

When she stepped into her condo, all the lights were off. Msizi had flown to LA on a business trip. He’d be back in two days.

She went to her chair and sat down, removed her exos, and plugged them in. She wheeled to her room. As she entered, she paused,

frowning. Closing her eyes and taking deep breaths, she sat very, very still. She stayed like this in the doorway, eyes closed,

motionless as she could be. She was looking deep into her body, scanning especially her abdomen. Minutes passed. When she

opened her eyes, she wasn’t sure how she was sure, but she was sure. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said out loud. Maybe that’s why the jollof rice and plantain tasted like Technicolor ambrosia.

In the morning, she went to Walgreens. As soon as she got home, she took the pregnancy test. After five minutes, she looked at it. The result was negative. At this, she merely rolled her eyes and kissed her teeth. “I’m not out of the woods, just can’t see them yet,” she muttered, throwing the test away and covering it with other trash so Msizi wouldn’t see it. Some things you just knew. She put it out of her head, because that was all she could do for the time being.

Three weeks later, only a few days before the launch, she took another test. This one was positive. She was forty years old

and pregnant. The feeling, though she’d never felt it before, was unmistakable. Some things you just know. She told no one.

Not even Msizi.

No one was going to keep her from going to space.

She was leaving the Earth today.

She slowly opened her crusty eyes. Then the need to urinate hit her hard and she pushed herself up. She glanced at Msizi and

was glad he was still asleep. This was going to be tricky. She took a deep breath and tried not to think about the dangers

of the launch, all that could go wrong, all that she’d be leaving behind... and all that she’d be taking with her.

She went to the bathroom to relieve herself. Afterward, she stared in the mirror. Tears fell from her eyes, but she felt okay.

She felt more than okay. She looked down at her belly and rubbed it, giggling. “We’re going to space,” she whispered.

“You all right?” she heard Msizi ask from the bedroom.

“I’m great,” she said. “You?”

“I’m terrified.” He was going to stay all five days in the hotel, waiting for her. She felt a pang of guilt.

“Am I really going to do this?” she asked her reflection.

Msizi only sighed. He still wasn’t fully on board, but he was trying. “You called everyone?”

She laughed. “Why? Because I might die?”

“Stop it, Zelu.”

“Well, it’s true. I’ve made peace with it. You need to, too.”

He was silent.

“Msizi,” she said.

Still no response.

She went into the bedroom. He’d buried himself entirely under the blanket. She poked the outline of his head, and he curled

into a ball to hide himself.

“I just hate when you talk like that,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” But it didn’t stop her from dwelling on the dark fantasy of never returning to Earth. Maybe

it was the pregnancy rewiring her brain, but the idea didn’t sadden her. It excited her.

“Good,” Msizi said.