Sebastian is in my apartment when I get back from work the next day, lounging on the sofa he got me on our first anniversary: white with black spots and stripes. Like a cow and a zebra all at once.
He stands and walks to me. I remember to throw my arms around him and he presses me against himself. There is no time for words. With Sebastian, there is seldom any time for words.
Afterwards, when he is exhausted, my sheets around his midriff, he points to my table and says he got me something. I catch my reflection in the mirror as I walk over to the table. My camisole is still on, and there are a few creases on my skirt. My hair is hardly tousled. There are two boxes on the table: One has a necklace and the other, chocolate. He got me this exact necklace a few months ago. But the chocolate is nice. I eat half the box while I watch him sleep.
When I sleep, I dream about both of them again, my grandma and Iya Farouk. They are in the parlour. My grandmother is on the zebra-cow sofa, staring at the TV, and Iya Farouk is on the floor, her legs stretched out before her, eating boiled eggs off a crate.
'It's just lazy living really,' my grandma says, her eyes on the TV. 'Not caring about anything, I mean. What do you like? Nobody knows. What don't you like? Nobody knows. You think it's fun and games going through the motions because it's safe and easy. It's disgraceful. Must be from your mother's family.'
'No,' Iya Farouk says. 'Her mama and her mama mama na fire.'
'That's true,' my grandma says, crossing her hands over her large bosom. 'Your sisters, too.'
She turns to me and laughs. 'You lazy piece of shit.'
I wake up. Beside me, Sebastian is stirring. 'Sebastian?' I whisper. 'Yes?' he groans.
'What if I told you I wanted to go far away from here, start a new life?'
'What?'
I repeat myself. His eyes open and he shrugs slowly. 'Well that's an improvement from wanting to kill yourself three years ago.'
'I wish you wouldn't say it like that.'
'I'm sorry,' he says, and a few moments later he starts to snore.
My mother screams at me on the phone during lunch break on Tuesday. ‘Everybody is here! These people live far away. Why aren’t you here? They will say I have come again, the gutter girl from Abiriba!’
I tell her I will come after work. I call Sebastian and tell him we’re going today and ask if he’s gone home yet. He says it’s perfect, and no, he hasn’t gone home. He never meant to go home. He’s catching a ride from my apartment to the airport tomorrow morning. He says he’s ordered food and taken out the trash. And that he’ll fix the bathroom bulb and get a new remote for the TV.
I say thank you, and think, like I have several times, that he really is a good person.
This is the fourth story in the Market Diaries series.
Read the previous story: Market Diaries #3: The Other Grandmother
Juliet is a Nigerian writer and storyteller drawn to the unseen narratives of everyday life. The 'Market Diaries' series explores the profound moments hidden in the ordinary bustle of the market.
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