Banji looked different in remembering. The blue of his button-down shirt, a soft velvet, faded into the light blue sky of Yvonne’s dream. She liked how memories always had room for the fictions of her world. There were no words necessary when remembering, only thoughts and smells and images. The gap between Banji’s teeth looked different here, wider with more room for Yvonne to stick her tongue. They looked whiter, too, like erasure, yet in her memories, there were no mistakes—everything was exactly as it ought to be.
Before he got sick, Banji’s shoulders stood at attention and announced his presence long before he appeared. He was round all over—a round head with round cheeks that matched his round eyes perfectly. His steps were always small and decidedly slow paced; he walked so effortlessly that sometimes Yvonne thought he was gliding. To a stranger, Banji’s slow nature may have signaled uncertainty, but Yvonne saw what others didn’t—he was free. Freedom suited Banji, and he wore it like a cloak. It covered him so well that he walked with the ease of someone who didn’t worry about where they were going because they were certain they would arrive.
Yvonne feared that Banji’s pursuit of freedom had led him to his final state—a mere shadow of himself. Perhaps it was something else, a darkness, heavy and oppressive that clung to his spirit. Freedom often triumphed, but sometimes it lost, and when it did, Yvonne watched how the elephant-sized darkness made Banji’s usually erect shoulders sink like mud. But in her mind and in her memories, Yvonne could preserve Banji as he once was. In this way, Yvonne was the sole guardian of something precious and invaluable—their shared memories. She felt like she was guarding something precious, his memory, and hers too.
Her reminiscing was cut short by the oppressive heat that beat down through the bus windows and onto Yvonne’s forehead. Exhausted by the summer sun, she squinted as she reached frantically in her cloth purse for a napkin. She swore she could feel her skin absorbing the heat, and it seemed to work from the outside in, drying up every last bit of energy she had for this ride to Banji’s mom’s shop.
“Pure water!” a long-limbed boy repeated as he ran alongside the Danfo. Yvonne wondered briefly if she looked as thirsty as she felt. The boy, no older than twelve, reminded her of a picture she loved of Banji when he was young. Mama Deborah, Banji’s mother, kept the photo at her shop.
In the photo, Banji stood at the edge of Lake Victoria, his eyes so dilated there was almost no white space left. Yvonne thought he looked fearful. Banji thought himself brave. Whatever it was, the boy had the same wide-eyed look.
“Keep the change,” she said as she pulled out 200 naira and gave it to the boy. She wasn’t sure what compelled her to say those words, especially because she would need change when she transferred buses to get to Mama Deborah’s shop. He took the money from her hands with a big toothy smile before running towards the next vehicle, calling out again: “Pure water!”
“Madam, you dropped your napkin.”
Yvonne’s attention shifted from the boy to the round-faced girl sitting next to her. She watched as the small girl picked up her white napkin from the floor and placed it inside of her hand. Why am I being so absentminded today? she thought. But she knew why. Even inside the crowded bus, Yvonne could still hear the lisp of the female doctor who said she was six weeks just as clearly as she could see Banji’s eyes, wide like they were in the picture. Just as clearly as she could feel her heartbeat slow.
Banji spoke first, “I think it’s a boy.”
Yvonne looked him in his courage-filled eyes, “It’s a girl.” Yvonne knew then it was too early to tell, but hers was a family of women, so of this she was certain. That was weeks ago, or months maybe, every day since then blended like the onion did with the tomato, a combination of lost individuality and maintained taste. The sudden kick to her stomach served as a reminder of reality: time was coming just as fast as it was going. Yvonne smiled at the thought of new life, especially one that she created with Banji.
Even before she got pregnant, Yvonne noticed the newfound constriction of her favorite jeans. Once, after not seeing each other for two weeks, Banji smiled so big that she thought he was going to say something about her new haircut, but instead he grabbed her face, pinching her cheeks teasingly and smiled.
“If love means all this extra weight, maybe I don’t want it,” she said to Banji, who only rolled his eyes and kissed her in the space right above her nose and between her eyes.
Yvonne smiled at the thought. He was the only man who could do this, ease her into her own liberation. A liberation that was concerned about one thing, and one thing only, on her showing up in the world not as she wanted to be but as she was. What Banji brought to her was a sense of belonging that ran deep like a river. With him, there was always enough air to refill her lungs. Their love was affirming like first place, or last place with an assuring smile, like the last puzzle piece, like a congratulations email, like hearing “I am so happy you are here.” Like the flickering flame of a candle at 3:00 a.m.
There had been other loves, or feelings she once thought were love, but none quite like this. Banji felt like the bowl of porridge that was just right; not too hot, or too cold.
From the outside looking in, no one would expect that the curtain, which hung behind the shop that Mama Deborah owned with her friend, covered up a sitting space big enough to fit a full family. Yvonne smiled at the thought of Mama Deborah’s words when she would walk through the curtains and into the back room of the shop.
“Oya now,” she’d yell, “my daughter is here! Get her some water.”
Every time, like clockwork. The deep baritone of her voice sounded like the jazz songs Banji used to play, like the way her bed called her name on rainy days—like comfort.
There was so much in the room to marvel at, but Yvonne’s eyes landed on Banji first, whose bony frame resembled nothing of the husky man he used to be. From the back, if she didn’t already know it was him, he would have been unrecognizable; from the front, his gaze told Yvonne’s favorite story, how souls remained unchanged even as bodies transitioned.
“Ololufe, my love, come sit by me.” The shake of Banji’s voice let Yvonne know that he was having one of his bad days.
“I was just sitting for the long bus ride,” Yvonne replied. “Let me stand small.”
She hoped Banji could not hear the deception on her tongue, that he could not feel that the truth she spoke was burdened by unspoken lies. She remained certain she was doing what she knew was right, for him and her and them. As if to affirm her, the rapid kicks from inside her stomach also signaled that she had made the right decision. and that the long black cotton dress was the right choice of attire.
“You leave soon…” said Banji, in what seemed like his smallest voice.
“In two days,” replied Yvonne.
“When will you be back?”
“Soon.”
Yvonne spoke with strength she pretended to have. Lying to Banji was not getting easier. It had been months since she told him she lost the baby, months since she started wearing only large, flowing, black dresses, and months since she fell asleep without tears in her eyes.
“Black again?” Kay, Yvonne’s best friend said when she saw Yvonne getting ready to leave the house earlier that morning. “You should only wear black when you’re in mourning.”
Yvonne shook her head up and down before leaving the house to see Banji, “That’s what this feels like.”
Yvonne knew the Diversity Visa Lottery wasn’t a lottery in the sense that there were no “winners,” but still, she applied a month after the doctor encouraged her to, for her sake and the baby’s. This is also when she noticed for the first time the voice within her that told her trying and doing were not one in the same, and Banji was not getting any better. On the day the visa came, the air was wet with pre-rain dew. The sky darkened and the wind blew what was left of the sand near the entrance of the hospital into the chasms. “Banji collapsed near the market” is what Mama Deborah said when she called. Yvonne could hear the dread in her voice, the sorrow that came from loving a child you could not save from the strongholds of life. Banji’s decline into the unfamiliar was a gradual occurrence, like the drip of black coffee on a Sunday morning, like the way the tortoise wins the race, like baby teeth, and growth spurts, and sunrise. It started with slow movements and progressed into slowed speech and then further into weight loss and discolored teeth. No one prepared Yvonne or told her how to sustain a thing that unravels, especially when that thing is love. They tried, but love is like a snowflake, so each person can only account for their own and no one else’s. That day, Yvonne looked at a curled up Banji and added addiction to the list of things that no one prepared her for.
She waited there with him for three days, long enough for him to regain the strength he lost, long enough for him to keep his hand steady enough to entangle their fingers together and not let go. She waited until the nurses left and his mother too, until it was just them in the room.
Some people can trace the day their whole life changed, down to the very moment. Life before the moment, and life after. Yvonne knew as the words began to form in her mouth, words she had practiced over and over again, that she was approaching her moment. She surveyed the room for one last glimpse of the familiar, hoping that there was something she could hold onto, maybe long enough to change her mind. But there was nothing, there was only her and the staggered breathing of the man she loved more than she knew what to do with.
“I lost the baby.”
Banji looked up and let out a cry so deep it brought Yvonne to her knees. The overflow of his pain, mixing with her own, rid her of the ability to stand.
“I am so sorry. I know this is my fault,” Banji stammered through his tears.
“The fault is not yours or mine. It just is.”
“Can we name her still?
“Yes, you pick a name.” Yvonne’s voice did not shake, she had prepared for this moment.
Banji closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he didn’t speak, but his eyes moved frantically around the room as if he was looking for something. His gaze didn’t steady until his eyes landed on the picture of the Virgin Mary, which hung above the door frame behind Yvonne’s head.
“Did you know, in Spanish, they call the Virgin Mary, La Virgen de los Dolores? Dolores means sorrows. It translates roughly to Our Lady of Sorrows.”
“Banji.”
“Just listen. There is a shortened form of the name. A nickname if you will.”
“Banji.”
“Keep listening,” he paused. “Lola. Lola is the shortened form. I like it. It holds true to meaning—she is our lady associated with sorrow. But you know why else I like it? Think of all the names that end in -lola. Maybe she gets sorrow, but she also gets a little of all the other meanings, too.” Banji smiled before continuing, “My grandma’s name is Temilola, which means wealth is mine, and her mother’s name was Damilola, meaning prosper me. You see, maybe she gets all those meanings too.”
“Maybe? I mean, certainly.” Yvonne crawled into the small hospital bed. She didn’t bother to place a pillow between her stomach and Banji’s as they faced each other; the loss was new so there would be no suspicion about her still-rounded stomach. She just hoped the newly named baby wouldn’t kick. As she watched, Banji’s eyes grew heavy with sleep; her own eyes drooped with sorrow. She knew there was no going back. There was a list of things life had prepared her for—sacrifice being one of them. Love and addiction were not.
Sweat trickled down from all sides of Yvonne’s face. Right when she woke up in the morning, she knew it was the day. The baby was coming. From the corner of her eye, she could see Kay packing up last-minute items for the hospital. Yvonne was not sure if it was still the pregnancy emotions or what, but the sight of Kay brought tears to her eyes. Mama Deborah’s voice rang clearly in her head, “You only get a friend like this once.” There were friendships, and then there was Kay and her—soul sisters.
Yvonne told Kay about her plan to run away to America an hour after telling Banji she lost the baby. She did not want to be talked out of it or persuaded otherwise; she had done what she felt she had to do. What Yvonne didn’t admit to anyone—not even herself—was that Banji was leaving her. She felt him slipping away more and more each day. Moving toward what she was certain looked like death. That day, Kay had on a bright-red pixie-cut wig, which made Yvonne feel like she was talking to a clown instead of a person. Yvonne had carved out a space in the back of her mind for her to sit and rest while her mouth moved and told her story for her. In that sense, she wasn’t really sure if Kay wore a red wig that day or not. She could barely remember anything else that happened from the time she left the shop, only that she was with Banji, and then suddenly with Kay, who listened to her as she spoke. That was three months ago, when her six-month-old bump was getting harder to conceal.
But time passed tenderly in grief and even more so during pregnancy. Days seemed like weeks and Yvonne still couldn’t believe that Banji didn’t question her obviously ridiculous story. “I am going to the east to take care of my family. I will be back soon.” Her voice didn’t even crack. Yvonne had never thought herself a liar, but some identities you take on for the sake of preservation.
“Be safe,” Banji said. He didn’t ask any questions. Maybe he felt himself slipping away too.
“That was the easiest birth I’ve ever done,” the nurse sighed with relief.
Yvonne smiled and looked down at her newborn baby, who was now wrapped in pink with her eyes closed. Lolah had Banji’s features; her cheeks were so round that, when she cried, they almost completely covered her wide eyes, and she had enough hair for two babies.
The actual birth was relatively quick, painless, and nothing like Yvonne had imagined. Yvonne expected all the things she had seen in the movies: women screaming and crying, and sometimes losing enough blood to take their lives. She looked at her baby girl and wondered if love was learned in the womb. Maybe, Yvonne thought, her small new daughter felt all the pain from her waking life and decided to come into the world exactly as she intended to be, with joy and as much grace as possible. As if she knew her name and wanted to say sorrow wasn’t her story after all.
“Have you picked a name?” Kay spoke as she joined Yvonne to stand over the sleeping baby’s crib.
“Lolah, with an h.”
“Lolah?”
“Yes. Lolah.” Tears formed and fell from Yvonne’s eyes. There was never a moment in her life, and there would never be again, where she felt that she needed Banji, not wanted, but needed him. Just as the thought looked for enough room to take up permanent space in her being, Lolah opened her eyes and Yvonne felt her heart preparing for what it may be like to love again, differently, and better. She would leave sorrow for another day.
