I had never seen a grown man cry until his fingers got jammed in the door's hinges.

A Jar Full of Salt (fiction)

It’s bad luck not to have salt in the house. The first time we ran out, I was seven and my sister’s fiancé had been staying with us for a week. I had never seen a grown man cry until his fingers got jammed in the door's hinges. I hated him. And I hated his fingers too. So when they crinkled like a plastic bottle and his eyes brimmed with tears, I wanted to laugh. But I had been told not to disrespect him like that.

In the evenings when we’d sit down at the dining table, he would first refuse the meal, pretending to be shy, pretending that he didn't want to be a bother to a family that had already done so much for him.

“Nonsense,” my mother would say, placing a steaming plate of rice and beans in front of him. “This is your home too.”

And he’d dive in with the appetite of a half-starved horse.

He slept in my brother’s room. And so, it became forbidden for me to ever step foot there. Before the fiancé came, I would go up there and watch Mickey Mouse Club House. Raheem didn’t mind. He was always on his phone, watching videos and playing games with guns. All I had to do was knock and sneak in. And the remote control would be mine. Sometimes, I even got to change the channel to a grown-up one. Like Fox. Raheem never complained.

That was all over now. With him in Raheem’s room, everything was unreachable. I also had to wear my hijab all the time during his visit. It baffled me that I was the only one who wanted him out. My sister was elated. My dad and Raheem were indifferent. My mother wouldn’t stop humming as she stirred the pot.

“When he leaves, he’ll be taking your sister with him,” Mummy told me as she brushed my hair and parted it with a toothpick (we couldn’t find any of the combs).

This meant that I would be like Nkechi, who only saw her sister once a year. Her room would be empty and the house would be quiet all the time because she was the only one who made any noise. She would be gone, and she would forget me. My mother pulled on my hair. It was the end of the world.

The fiancé was the enemy. So, I made sure to act deaf anytime he called me to get him a glass of water from the kitchen tap. I also stayed in my room as much as possible, trying to avoid him. I missed two dinners in a row and nobody noticed. I wasn’t my father’s responsibility, my sister was busy dotting on him, and my mother was busy watching my sister dot on him with a satisfied smirk. It was incredibly annoying. My brother was probably in his room, doing whatever boys did when they were alone.

On one of these nights, I slept off early and woke up with my stomach gnawing on itself. I needed to eat. Without my hijab, I opened the door and tiptoed into the kitchen. I opened the fridge to gorge myself on some leftover chicken Suya. It was cold but spicy. I tiptoed back up the stairs and just as I was about to enter my room, I saw that the door to my brother’s was wide open.

Curious, I ventured into the room and carefully pushed the door open. They were both on the bed, with the fiancé on top of my brother. Their mouths clashed together to make silent screams that drowned all the air around them. I stood and watched for I don’t know how long. It seemed like forever. Eventually, I went back to my room. I closed my eyes to sleep. The fiancé. He wanted to steal my brother too. I pulled the blanket over my head, a sudden chill settling within me. I was terrified.

Overnight, the fear in me had turned into blinding anger. I didn’t know what to do, I only knew I had to do something.

“Are you okay?” A voice asked, startling me. It was my sister, with her hands on my shoulders. I could feel the heat of the fridge from where I stayed.

“You’re leaving,” I said tightly.

She had a sad smile on her face, confirming my words.

“And Raheem is leaving too.”

She looked confused for some reason. “No, he’s not. Who told you that one?”

Didn’t she understand? How could she not understand?

“He’s taking you both away.”

“You mean my fiancé?” I nodded. “Why would you think that?”

My heart skipped a beat. She didn’t know. That only meant two things. Either Raheem wasn’t leaving, or the fiancé was going to steal him away. I assumed the latter because I knew the kind of person he was. And because I also remembered how he had held my brother. There was no way he wouldn’t take Raheem with him. I ran away before my sister said a word.

It was in the morning. The house was quiet and I couldn’t sleep. With my hijab clasped between my fingers, I walked out of my room and into the kitchen to join my mother. She was mixing the beans for Akara. My mother turned around to look at me, before turning back to continue what she was doing.

“Put it on.” She said, and I knew that she meant my hijab. Wordlessly, I did as she said. I went to stand beside her, my head barely reaching her waist.

“Have you brushed your teeth?” she asked me and I nodded, even though I hadn’t. I didn’t like to brush my teeth, I didn’t see the point.

“Taste it,” she said, putting a drop’s worth of the mixture into my palm. It was cold on my tongue, and tasted raw, with almost overpowering tings of heat and spice. “Does it need anything?”

I shook my head. She stared, waiting.

“Add a little Salt,” I said finally.

My mother paused, frowning slightly. “It finished.” She said.

“Why are we not eating yams this morning?” I asked, even though I was excited for the Akara. But yams were a Saturday morning tradition. Akara was a Sunday tradition. And my mother was such a stickler for things like that that it was worth it to ask. There must have been a reason.

“Oh. Your sister and her husband are leaving tomorrow.” she said simply, beaming. “and he told me how much he liked Akara and pap, so I decided to make some today. You know they’ll want to leave very early tomorrow for the bus, so there won’t be time.”

I didn’t know what I hated more. The fact that she said, your sister and her husband, even though they weren’t even married yet. Or the fact that she was making it for him. Or the fact that they were leaving tomorrow, and nobody told me. It was the latter that tore me apart.

I held onto my mother’s dress, took a breath, and sighed. “Is Raheem going with them tomorrow?”

“Are you stupid?” she said, “Why would Raheem be going with them tomorrow?”

I dropped my hold on her garment, shriveling into myself.

“Answer my question nah,” she said.

“It’s just…”

“It’s just what?”

“I saw them together.”

“Who and who?”

“Raheem and him,” I said slowly, a weight leaving my chest as the words left my lips. “In his room.”

“What is this one saying now?” My mother said, her voice had a nervous tint to it. She crouched down so that we could be on the same level and held me firmly by the arms. “Tell me what you saw.”

The words were out of my mouth, without filters, without a single thought, like a fucking vomit. At first, I felt relief wash over me like a tidal wave. Then I saw the fear and disgust etched into my mother’s face, and it made my blood run cold.

Wordlessly, she walked away, while I stared at the Akara mixture that would soon go sour. I stayed in the room until I heard shouting in the house. I walked slowly to the living room where the noise was coming from. I hid behind the door so that their voices would be carried to me.

My sister stood to a side, curved into herself, her eyes unseeing. She looked like a ghost. My father stood with her, his face grim and his hands pulled into fists. I realized the noise was coming from upstairs. I walked out, in plain view of my sister and my father. None of them noticed me.

The stairs creaked slightly as I put my weight on it. The voices got louder, and I realized it was my mother and Raheem screaming at each other. They were in his room, with him. Unlike my father and my sister, they noticed me immediately. I was yanked into the room.

Raheem’s fingers seemed to brand me, his hand tight and hot. “What did you see? Tell her. Tell them the truth.”

There was silence then, everyone in the room breathing heavily.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. All I could think was, this isn’t what I wanted. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be!

It felt like I was shrinking under my brother’s furious gaze, his hand getting impossibly tighter. It was my mother that saved me.

“She is a child!” She said, pulling me to her side. “She wouldn’t lie about something like that. Don’t confuse her,” she said, before she began an onslaught of terrible words on my brother.

I wanted to hug her. It was the first time she had been on my side. My eyes burned with tears. This isn’t what I wanted.

My father came back upstairs eventually, having finally gotten over the shock himself. He pulled my mother back and slapped Raheem hard across the face.

There was a silence then that hadn’t made itself known before. My father had never been the type to hit and insult. This was bad. I tightened my hold on my mother and locked eyes with Raheem. He looked at me like he didn’t recognize me… like I was a stranger. I was right, he did take them both away. My shoulders dropped in resignation.

Years later, I would come to know the entire story. My sister broke up with her fiancé and he was never to be seen again. She had moved to Lagos to continue her Youth Service Corps Program and would only come home once a year which I always feared.

I would know that my parents had sent my brother to a Juvenile Delinquency Center to correct his behavior. And then there had been a mass riot at the center; some of the boys had escaped. Raheem was one of them. The day we heard, my mother sat in the living room, her eyes endlessly on the door. But he didn’t come home. He never came home.

And although, I never claimed to be my mother’s favorite, I could see that she regretted the day I was born. I knew I should have kept quiet. She wished I had kept quiet. And we both could never forgive me for that. Turned out that I was wrong. I would lose much more than a sister and a brother to him. And to 7-year-old me, it was the end of the world.

…

The second time it happened, I spilled the rest of the salt in a cup of warm water to gargle with. I had just had an abortion the day before and a stomach cramp had sent my teeth sinking into my tongue. My neighbor, Bolarin, came to my apartment to charge his phone. All the sockets in his room were not working. He knocked and I told him to come in. I would have guessed that that would have been the day he would have asked me out, but he didn’t.

The large weight I thought would leave me after the abortion seemed to have gotten bigger. The pregnancy had held me down for weeks. It was a huge problem and I had to take care of it before I could even think of anything else.

And now that I was no longer pregnant, there was nothing else to think about, nothing else to do.

Bolarin asked if I needed to go to the hospital and I told him I already had. He asked if I had eaten and I said yes. I yearned for him to say the words. It would mean I would have a purpose for tomorrow, next week. Something to get out of bed for. He didn’t.

Eventually, I got out of bed. I put on a large Abaya and walked to the nearest Chicken Republic I could find, ignoring people’s eyes like the plague. The cashier was nice that day, and I got my food in about five minutes. I felt someone walk behind me in the queue. Sliding my food over the counter, I turned and bumped into the person, looking up by instinct.

It was him.

He was older, of course. And he had gained weight, his once sallow cheeks rounded, his neck adorned with rolls. But it was him. He looked at me, with not a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

“Can I help you?” He asked, with a polished English accent that didn’t sound fake.

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words were bricks in my throat. And as much I wished to throw them at him, I couldn’t. I hated that he looked well. I hated that he could still speak. I hated that he dared to come to a Chicken Republic like a normal person and eat when really, he was a monster.

But I couldn’t get the words out. I dashed out of the restaurant without a word, leaving my food behind. I hated that he might have gotten to eat it.

I lunged myself against the grimy wall at the back of the restaurant, deafened by the sound of the giant power generator. What were the odds that I would see him today of all days? This had to be some kind of punishment. I wish I had someone to apologize to, some way to suffer once and for all for my crimes, but there was no one to turn to, nowhere to go.

I looked up, there was a storm gathering on the horizon. My stomach gnawed itself. I could have gone back, but I didn’t think I could face him again without crumbling to dust. I walked back to my house, the weight so heavy on my chest that my heart could have seeped out of my back.

…

I moved to the United States when I was 32 years old and knew this was where I would die. The sky was bright blue, the air frigid and the people brisk. But the constant longing for home which I’d always battled with was finally properly placed. I was far away from home and as such should yearn for it. This was normal and to be expected. The wrongness of wanting to go home when I was already home in Nigeria had been a slow, torturous death.

I lived in a small apartment with two other girls. One of them was South African, but the other one was Nigerian. And while I had expected some kind of camaraderie with Tina, their soft alliance against me wasn’t a surprise. I always left the lights on and often forgot to flush the toilet.

I worked three jobs with an intensity and numbness that baffled me. I didn’t know where I had gotten the work ethic from, but I did know I ended my shifts with my feet and shoulders hurting so badly it was impossible to focus on anything else. Not my mind. Not the thoughts running through it.

On one of those days when my shift ended, with the shreds of strength still in me, I walked to a park. I got myself a Sandwich and sat down with my hand wrapped around a milkshake. There were ducks in the pond. I wished I had something to feed them with. Without thinking, I pinched off bits of bread and threw them into the pond. The ducks didn’t rustle.

“Jemima.”

I startled. I turned to look at the person that called me, and then I choked. The bread had gone down the wrong pipe and there was no air left in the world.

I coughed, downing some of the milkshake and his hands went to tap me on the back. The contact felt like electricity. Finally, my body complied and the racking of my lungs lessened until I could speak.

My voice came out hoarsely. “Raheem.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “You’ve grown so much.”

It’s hard to believe that after not seeing my brother for 25 years, the first thing that came to my mind was how unkempt tired, and ragged I probably looked. But it was. I knew he didn’t think I’d grow up to be this.

I ran the back of my hand against my mouth. I laughed uneasily.

“Me? Look at you. You… look great.”

He did. He had grown into his face. He was no longer all angles and sharp edges, but he looked like… like a man. He even had a beard. I never saw him as a bearded type of person.

“Huh… Thanks. Can we sit?”

“Of—Of course.”

“I don’t know what to say to you.” Raheem began. “I guess I should start with I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have disappeared like that. I should have reached out.”

His words seemed slow to me, careful.

“No, no. I - I understand. We just-- I just-- I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done--- what I did. I destroyed everything.”

“No. I did. I was young, and foolish and reckless.”

I nodded, my eyes stinging. The silence was stifling.

“We waited for you,” I said, my voice trembling at the end.

“When?”

“Mummy and I. After the Juvenile detention riot. We thought you’d come back home.”

His eyes hardened. “I wanted to. But I couldn’t.”

“I --”

He caught me off.

“It’s done, Jemima. Talking about it won’t do any good. I’m just really happy I saw you.”

I nodded. “Me too.”

He looked like he wanted to speak some more but he didn’t know what words to use.

“Mum and Dad are fine, by the way.”

“Oh,” he said, turning his head away. “That’s good.”

“Do you want me to say hello to them for you?”

“No.” He said, firmly, he wouldn’t look at me. “Not yet.”

“Well, I have to go now.” He said, standing up, he cleared his throat. I stood up with him, gripped with a sudden panic.

“Can I get your number?” He asked, turning his phone to me.

I nodded and put it in.

“Okay.” He said and rubbed his hand down his coat to dust off invisible particles. He gave me a quick side hug, and his warmth burned through my jacket. He smelled like a rich cologne and stale cigarettes.

“I’ll call you.” He said stiffly. And then he turned around and walked away.

I wanted to say something, anything. But I couldn’t find the words.

Give me your number. Where do you live? How did you get here? Are we still family? Do you still love me? I’ve carried the weight of this. Please forgive me. I’m sorry. Please call me.

But I couldn’t. But I would the next time we speak. I held my phone tighter and walked home. It was impossibly cold out now. I entered my apartment quickly. Tina and Cynthia were seated on the couch, nursing cups of coffee. I couldn’t help it. I crouched against the back of the door and I sobbed. They rushed to me. Their heat crowded me in. There were hands in my hair and on my face. I was nestled against someone’s shoulder. They shushed me, gently, telling me it would be alright. Their heat crowded me in. But it was only temporary.

“Did you get the salt?” Tina asked awkwardly when I finally stopped sobbing.

Raheem never called. The next time I saw him, he was walking on the streets of New York on a phone call. I hid until I was sure he wouldn’t see me. And then I kept walking.