hand, brown foam spilling over his knuckles.
The boy turned to him with a broad smile, his teeth catching sunlight.
“Abacha don die!” he shouted back. “Abacha don die!” He dipped between two cars, narrowly missed being hit by an okada, and was lost in the growing press of people.
Chika pulled back into the car and a hesitant smile spread over his face.
“Thank God,” he murmured, and Vivek, who had been sleeping with his head thrown against the car seat, woke up and stared blearily around him. His hair was damp with sweat from the back of his neck. The collar of his T-shirt was darkened with it, as was the fabric under his arms.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“Abacha is dead,” his father replied, swerving the car into the next lane and cutting in front of a bus. The driver shouted and made rude gestures.
“So what happens now?” Vivek asked.
“It’s a new day for Nigeria,” Chika replied. “A new day.” He smiled at his son and put a hand on his shoulder. “For all of us.”
Perhaps he was right and it was a birth of sorts, but Chika had forgotten that births come with blood, and in the case of his son, they came with loss as well, birthdays and deathdays all tangled up in each other.
A few weeks into Vivek’s return, as tensions arose between the police and a vigilante group, a seven o’clock curfew was imposed in Ngwa. Vivek had been taking long walks at night, and when his parents told him he’d have to stop, he lost his temper. “You’re keeping me in a cage!” he shouted. “You think I want to stay in this house every night like a prisoner? Is that why you brought me back?” He ran outside and refused to come back in after it got dark. He climbed the plumeria tree in their backyard, cradling himself in its broad branches.
“Leave him there,” Chika said, disgusted. “Let him fall out and break his neck. Onye ara.”
He slammed the back door behind him and refused to let Kavita go outside so she could beg Vivek to come indoors. “Beg him for what? I said let him sleep there with the chickens!”
In the morning, Vivek was covered in mosquito bites and there was a splatter of yellowwhite chicken shit on his shoulder. After Chika left for work, Kavita boiled water for the boy to take a bath. She didn’t know what to say to him, so she said nothing. While he was bathing, she called Rhatha and invited her to come over with her daughters.
“It’ll be good for the boy to have some company closer to his age,” Kavita said. Rhatha brought her signature cupcakes, complete with sugar dragonflies perched on top of the icing.
Somto and Olunne came in matching blue jeans with floral cutouts and garish polyester blouses with draping sleeves. They smelled like bubblegum, and their hair was pulled tight into ponytails.
“You girls have gotten so big!” said Kavita, as they hugged her hello. “I’m sure Vivek won’t even recognize you. How many years since you last saw him? Four? Five?”
Somto brushed an imaginary crumb off her green blouse and smiled at Kavita. “Closer to six or seven years, Aunty. Before we left for boarding school.”
“Yes, yes, that’s right. Well, come in, let me go and call Vivek.”
“It’s okay, we remember where his room is,” Somto said. “Can we go and give him some cupcakes?” She looked at her mother first, then at Kavita for permission. Olunne’s eyes widened at her sister asking to go into a boy’s room, just by themselves, but she rallied and gave Kavita a quick smile, a shy flash of teeth.
Kavita and Rhatha exchanged glances, then smiled back at the girls. “Down the corridor,” said Kavita, and watched as they traipsed off with the tray of covered cupcakes.
“That’s friendly of them,” she noted.
Rhatha waved a hand. “Oh, they heard he’s got such long hair now and wanted to see it for themselves. I think they’re halfway jealous.”
Kavita blinked. “Over hair?”
“Darling, you wouldn’t believe it. They’re obsessed with those Sunsilk advertisements and they quarrel over whose hair is longer all the time. It’s ridiculous.”
“Oh, that’s right, they had to cut their hair for school, didn’t they?”
“Yes, but it didn’t kill them.” Rhatha flapped a hand and sat next to Kavita, her face solicitous. “But tell me, darling, how are you? You must be worried sick about Vivek.”
Kavita suppressed a sigh. Rhatha was a bit of a gossip, always spilling people’s business. If