Page 81 of Death of the Author

“Where were you—” Zelu began, but quickly stopped talking as Chinyere gave her a sharp look.

“You look nice, Mom,” Amarachi said.

Chinyere leaned close to Zelu’s ear and murmured, “Funeral home, making the last payment. All done.”

Zelu nodded.

“This wig is looking raggedy,” their mother said.

Amarachi touched her cornrows. “I can buy you a new one that you like.”

Their mother shrugged, indifferent.

“What hairstyle do you want, then, Mom?” Chinyere asked.

Omoshalewa gazed hard at herself in the mirror, her daughters watching her closely. Zelu studied her mother’s face in the strong bathroom light. Despite the pain of losing her beloved husband, she was still fresh-faced and lovely. Her little society friends would probably be disappointed.

“I like that woman’s hair, the journalist who interviewed you,” she said, looking at herself dreamily. “The Pulitzer Prize winner.”

Zelu blinked, remembering the journalist who’d ambushed her onnational TV and gotten her canceled. “Oh, you mean Amanda Parker?” She frowned, pushing away the unpleasant memory and the fact that her mother remembered it so well. “So you want twists?”

“I don’twantthem,” their mother said. “I just like them. They look fun and pretty.”

Chinyere and Amarachi laughed. “Mom, that’s not you,” Chinyere said.

Their mother looked pressed. “Ah, bring my wig,” she snapped. Amarachi handed it to her.

Zelu frowned, frustrated. If there was one person who knew what it was to be put in a box, it was her.

The day of the funeral in Nigeria, Zelu spent the morning in Chicago at her condo with Amarachi, Jackie, and Msizi. Tolu had connected a camera and bought a ton of data so that he could stream the entire ceremony. Zelu was glad he had, yet wished he hadn’t. The sight of her father’s body again, despite the blurriness of the image, made her sick. He’d been paraded around in front of people, first in the United States and now in Nigeria. People danced and sang around him, and her mother looked miserable. She sat the entire time in what looked to Zelu’s eyes like a cage.

When her family returned, Amarachi, Zelu, Jackie, and Msizi met them at the airport. There was hugging and crying. Her mother had brought Zelu and Amarachi a giant bag with some stock fish, jars of ogbono and egusi, new clothes, and a huge, colorfully beaded mask.

And then everyone went their separate ways. Meetups at the house became more sporadic, and Zelu avoided most of them. Amarachi, Bola, Chinyere, and Tolu spent the most time with their mother. Tolu’s wife, Folashade, spent a lot of time with her, too. She gave birth to her and Tolu’s first child, a daughter, nine months after the funeral.

On her mother’s birthday, Zelu surprised her, bursting into the house and declaring, “Mom, we’re going to Amazon’s World!”

Amazon’s World was Chicago’s most famous (and expensive) black hairsalon. It specialized in natural hairstyles, and Zelu had scheduled the appointment during those two weeks she’d stayed with her mother.

“What? When?” her mother asked. “Isn’t everyone coming over this evening?”

“Yep, that’s why we’re going right now!” Zelu said.

When the autonomous vehicle that would ferry them downtown arrived, Zelu’s mother took a step back from the curb. “I don’t know about this.”

“Mom, I take it everywhere.”

She couldn’t argue with this fact. “I’m afraid,” she admitted.

Zelu laughed, taking her hand. “Everyone is at first.” She pulled her mother, but she wouldn’t move.

“I am not of your generation,” she said.

“That’s okay.”

“No. I’m afraid.”

Zelu let go of her hand. “Mom, you and Dad taught us all about how to face our fears, remember? You both came to this country with nothing but your sharp minds. You left your families, your cultures, all that you knew, to come to this complex place with its nasty history, maze of trials, and spectacular opportunities. So you couldstretch. How are you going to be afraid of a piece of technology your child has been using reliably with no problems foryears? Come on, Mom. Let’s go downtown and get your hair done. You deserve it!”

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