Purple Hibiscus

heavy so that speech became a labor. Her friend left soon afterward, and Aunty Ifeoma stormed inside, nearly knocking a lamp over. I heard the thud of a slap and then her raised voice. “I do not quarrel with your disagreeing with my friend. I quarrel with how you have disagreed. I do not raise disrespectful children in this house, do you hear me? You are not the only child who has skipped a class in school. I will not tolerate this rubbish from you!
I na-anu
?” She lowered her voice then. I heard the click of her bedroom door closing.
    “I always got the stick on my palm,” Amaka said, joining me on the verandah. “And Obiora got his on his buttocks. I think Mom felt giving it to me on my buttocks would somehow affect me and maybe I would end up not growing breasts or something. I preferred the stick to her slaps, though, because her hand is made of metal,
ezi okwum
.” Amaka laughed. “Afterward we would talk about it for hours. I hated that. Just give me the lashes and let me out. But no, she explained why you had been flogged, what she expected you to do not to get flogged again. That’s what she’s doing with Obiora.”
    I looked away. Amaka took my hand in hers. It felt warm, like the hand of someone just recovering from malaria. She did not speak, but I felt as though we were thinking the same thing—how different it was for Jaja and me.
    I cleared my throat. “Obiora must really want to leave Nigeria.”
    “He’s stupid,” Amaka said. She squeezed my hand tight before letting go.
    AUNTY IFEOMA WAS CLEANING out the freezer, which had started to smell because of the incessant power outages. She wiped up the puddle of wine-colored foul water that had leaked to the floor and then brought out the bags of meat and laid them in a bowl. The tiny beef pieces had turned a mottled brown. The pieces of the chicken Jaja had killed had turned a deep yellow.
    “So much wasted meat,” I said.
    Aunty Ifeoma laughed. “Wasted,
kwa
? I will boil it well with spices and cook away the spoilage.”
    “Mom, she is talking like a Big Man’s daughter,” Amaka said, and I was grateful that she did not sneer at me, that she echoed her mother’s laughter instead.
    We were on the verandah, picking the stones out of rice. We sat on mats on the floor, beyond the shade so we could feel the mild morning sun emerging after the rain. The dirty and clean rice were in two careful mounds on the enamel trays before us, with the stones placed on the mat. Amaka would divide the rice into smaller portions to blow the chaff out afterward.
    “The problem with this kind of cheap rice is that it cooks into a pudding, no matter how little water you put in. You start to wonder if it is
garri
or rice that you are eating,” Amakamuttered, when Aunty Ifeoma left. I smiled. I had never felt the companionship I felt sitting next to her, listening to her Fela and Onyeka cassettes on the tiny tape-player-radio, which she had put batteries into. I had never felt the comfortable silence we shared as we cleaned the rice, carefully, because the grains were stunted and sometimes looked like the glassy stones. Even the air seemed still, slowly rousing itself after the rain. The clouds were just starting to clear, like cotton-wool tufts reluctantly letting go of one another.
    The sound of a car driving toward the flat disrupted our peace. I knew Father Amadi had office hours that morning at the chaplaincy, yet I still hoped it was him. I imagined him walking up to the verandah, holding his soutane in one hand so he could run up the short stairs, smiling.
    Amaka turned to look. “Aunty Beatrice!”
    I whipped around. Mama was climbing out of a yellow unsteady-looking taxi. What was she doing here? What had happened? Why was she wearing her rubber slippers all the way from Enugu? She walked slowly, holding on to her wrapper that seemed so loose it would slip off her waist any minute. Her blouse did not look ironed.
    “Mama,
o gini
? Did something happen?” I asked, hugging her quickly so I could stand back and examine her face. Her hand was cold.
    Amaka hugged her and took her handbag. “Aunty Beatrice,
nno
.”
    Aunty Ifeoma came hurrying out to the verandah, drying her hands in front of her shorts. She hugged Mama and then led her into the living room, supporting her as one would support a cripple.
    “Where is Jaja?” Mama asked.
    “He is out with Obiora,” Aunty Ifeoma said. “Sit down,
nwunye m
. Amaka, get money from my purse and go