Purple Hibiscus

wonder if we ever really had an asusu anya, a language of the eyes, or if I imagined it all.
    “You’ll be out of here next week,” I say. “You’re coming home next week.”
    I want to hold his hand, but I know he will shake it free. His eyes are too full of guilt to really see me, to see his reflection in my eyes, the reflection of my hero, the brother who tried always to protect me the best he could. He will never think that he did enough, and he will never understand that I do not think he should have done more.
    “You are not eating,” Mama says. Jaja picks up the spoon and starts to wolf the rice down again. Silence hangs over us, but it is a different kind of silence, one that lets me breathe. I have nightmares about the other kind, the silence of when Papa was alive. In my nightmares, it mixes with shame and grief and so many other things that I cannot name, and forms blue tongues of fire that rest above my head, like Pentecost, until I wake up screaming and sweating. I have not told Jaja that I offer Masses for Papa every Sunday, that I want to seehim in my dreams, that I want it so much I sometimes make my own dreams, when I am neither asleep nor awake: I see Papa, he reaches out to hug me, I reach out, too, but our bodies never touch before something jerks me up and I realize that I cannot control even the dreams that I have made. There is so much that is still silent between Jaja and me. Perhaps we will talk more with time, or perhaps we never will be able to say it all, to clothe things in words, things that have long been naked.
    “You did not tie your scarf well,” Jaja says to Mama.
    I stare in amazement. Jaja has never noticed what anybody wears. Mama hastily unties and reties her scarf—and this time, she knots it twice and tight at the back of her head.
    “Time is up!” The guard comes in the room. Jaja says a brief, distant
“Ka o di
,” not making eye contact with either of us, before he lets the guard lead him away.
    “We should go to Nsukka when Jaja comes out,” I say to Mama as we walk out of the room. I can talk about the future now.
    Mama shrugs and says nothing. She is walking slowly; her limp has become more noticeable, her body moving sideways with each step. We are close to the car when she turns to me and says, “Thank you,
nne.
” It is one of the few times in the past three years that she has spoken without being first spoken to. I do not want to think about why she is thanking me or what it means. I only know that, all of a sudden, I no longer smell the damp and urine of the prison yard.
    “We will take Jaja to Nsukka first, and then we’ll go to America to visit Aunty Ifeoma,” I say. “We’ll plant new orange trees in Abba when we come back, and Jaja will plant purple hibiscus,too, and I’ll plant ixora so we can suck the juices of the flowers.” I am laughing. I reach out and place my arm around Mama’s shoulder and she leans toward me and smiles.
    Above, clouds like dyed cotton wool hang low, so low I feel I can reach out and squeeze the moisture from them. The new rains will come down soon.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    Kenechukwu Adichie, “baby” brother and best friend, draft reader and story mailer—for sharing each early “no,” for making me laugh.
    Tokunbo Oremule, Chisom and Amaka Sony-Afoekelu, Chinedum Adichie, Kamsiyonna Adichie, Arinze Maduka, Ijeoma and Obinna Maduka, Uche and Sony Afoekelu, Chukwunwike and Tinuke Adichie, Okechukwu Adichie, Nneka Adichie Okeke, Bee and Wasp, all the Odigwes, all the Adichies—for being my pillars, for propping me up. Uju Egonu and Urenna Egonu, sisters more than friends—for proving that water can be just as thick as blood; for getting it, always.
    Charles Methot—for being so solidly there.
    Ada Echetebu, Binyavanga Wainaina, Arinze Ufoeze, Austin Nwosu, Ikechukwu Okorie, Carolyn DeChristopher, Nnake Nweke, Amaechi Awurum, Ebele Nwala—for beating my drums.
    Antonia Fusco—for editing so wisely and so warmly, for that phone call that nearly had me doing cartwheels.
    Djana Pearson Morris, my agent—for believing.
    The people and spirit of Stonecoast Writers’ Conference, Summer 2001—for that loud ovation, complete with whistles.
    Friends all—for pretending to understand when I did not return phone calls.
    Thank you.
Dalu nu
.

About the Author
    CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE won the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2007 with her novel
Half of a Yellow Sun
.
Purple Hibiscus
is her first novel and was