I Do Not Come to You by Chance - By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani Page 0,99

went into the school auditorium for the matriculation ceremony. This morning, her phone call had woken me from sleep.

‘Kings, you’re still sleeping!’

‘No . . . I’m awake.’

‘Kings, please wake up and start getting ready. By the time you get here, the ceremony would have already gone halfway.’

She obviously did not know the abilities of my latest BMW 5 Series. Anyhow, my sister had a right to be anxious on this special day of her life. I had felt the same way on my graduation day.

I remembered everything about that great event as if it had happened just yesterday.

My mother spent the evening before supervising the slaughtering and plucking of three grown chickens, putting the finishing touches to four adult male shirts and plaiting her thirteen-year-old daughter’s hair. Yet by the time the rest of us woke up on my graduation day morning, she was already in the kitchen and the whole house was consumed with the smell of good things. While washing the odour of kerosene fumes off her body, my mother sang the first two stanzas of ‘There Shall Be Showers of Blessing’ at top volume.

Ordinarily, I would have expected that my mother would be the one to cry. But from what she said, as soon as I rose to collect my certificate, her only response was to stand and clap. My father, on the other hand, sat in his seat and wiped his eyes. I was the very first of the second generation of university graduates from the whole Ibe extended family.

After the ceremony, I left the auditorium and went to meet them at a prearranged location, under the mango tree by the university health centre. Aunty Dimma was waiting with them. She had insisted on coming to the school as well, instead of just turning up at the house later in the day like our other invited guests. As soon as they saw me approaching, all of them rushed towards me.

‘Congratulations,’ my father said, shaking my hand.

‘Congratulations,’ my mother said, giving me a hug.

‘Congratulations,’ Ola said, placing her hands on my shoulders and giving me a holy kiss on the cheek.

Ola had worn a smart blue skirt suit which my mother later told me was too short.

‘Congratulations,’ Charity said, hugging me around the waist and refusing to let go.

‘Congratulations,’ Godfrey and Eugene said, with their eyes on the coolers of food that would soon be opened.

‘Mr Chemical Engineer,’ Aunty Dimma said, locking me inside her arms and pecking my cheek.

We ate. Some people I knew and many people I did not came round, and my mother dished out some food from the coolers for them. The total expenditure for the day’s celebration had seriously head-butted my parents’ budget and broken its two legs, but they did not mind. My graduation from university was supposed to be the dawn of a new day in their lives.

Fortunately, things were different this time around. I had made sure of that. Finances were the last thing my family had had to worry about while preparing for Charity’s matriculation.

We would never have found Charity in that crowd. There were human heads everywhere. After the ceremony, I and my mother and Aunty Dimma proceeded to the designated meeting place by the car park and waited. It was not long before Charity joined us. She and my mother and Aunty Dimma did their hugging routine.

‘Hmm . . . Charity, you’re now a big chick!’ Aunty Dimma said. ‘You look so beauuuuutiful.’

‘Thank you,’ Charity said and blushed.

In her dark green River Island skirt suit and black Gucci heels, Charity definitely looked sharp. I had purchased the top-to-toe outfit specially for this day. No stupid man would ever jump out of the hedges and turn my sister’s head upside down because of Gucci.

‘Did you people see me?’ Charity asked.

We had seen her sitting amongst the matriculating students, but at the end of the ceremony, she had disappeared amid the sea of tasseled caps.

Eugene could not make it. He had exams coming up soon and the nine-hour journey from Ibadan would have been too much of a distraction.

Godfrey eventually arrived. Accompanied by three of his friends. Dressed like a drug baron. Pierre Cardin shirt unbuttoned almost to his navel, white Givenchy, silver-capped shoes, and texturised hair. Two gold chains dangled from his neck, a gold bracelet danced around his wrist. No wonder he was constantly running out of pocket money and ringing me to send some more. Often, I succumbed. I wanted to be as much of