Page 121 of Death of the Author

“Your father would roll his eyes and say, ‘Get on with it.’”

“He totally would,” Zelu said, smiling despite herself.

“Where’d you get all these dramatic stories from?” her mom asked.

“Mom, look at howyougrew up,” Zelu said, chuckling. Her mother had been raised in a polygamous Yoruba family who lived in a palace. Entitlement, backbiting, history, pride, competition, spirits, ghosts, and ambition were all the norm. Zelu had listened closely to her mother’s many stories about her upbringing and her father’s very different perspective on it and absorbed even more during her own visits.

“What do you mean?” her mother asked, completely missing Zelu’s point.

Zelu shook her head fondly. “Not important. So, Mom... I have some news.”

Zelu had felt fine until that moment, but the second she realized what she was about to say, her heart started beating faster. Her mother would be hurt. Why did she keep hurting her?

“What is it?” her mother asked, sitting up.

Adrenaline flooded Zelu’s system. Inhale. Exhale. Clarity.Okay, here goes.She sat down on the bed. “I’m... uh, heh. So, I’m going to space.”

Her mother looked at her, head cocked. “Eh?”

Zelu took another breath, trying not to think too hard, and launched into the speech she’d prepared on the car ride over. “I’m... So there’s a space launch being financed by this billionaire business guy. I randomly met him at the movie premiere. He later, uh, heard about me when all that stuff happened in... in Nigeria... He invited me to join him as one of his crew of four to go into space for three days. We leave in less than a month.”

Her mother kept very still, her expression unchanged. Zelu wanted to crawl under a table and put her hands over her head like they used to back in the sixties in case of a nuclear attack.

“What are you talking about?” her mother said very slowly.

“I’m going to—”

“Space?” her mother said, her voice spiking so suddenly that Zelu flinched. “As in leaving theplanet?!”

Zelu winced. “Yeah.”

Her mother jumped up, clapped her hands, and shouted “Kai!” She started speaking rapid Yoruba. She turned to Zelu, who wanted to get up and flee... but she’d already sat down and she could never get up very quickly.

“Mom, I—”

Her mother’s accent came forth the way it always did when she got stressed. “So you think you are going on spaceship into space?”

“I am.”

“Ah ah,why? Do you want to die?! Again?!” She was breathing hard. She threw her hands up as she bounced around. “Heeeeeey, my daughter is suicidal, ooooo!” She clapped her hands. “Kai!”

Zelu leaned forward, her belly feeling like it was full of fire.Maybe I am,she thought.A little bit.She shook her head.Stop it, Zelu. Whenever she thought about going to space, she felt like a great weight was being lifted off her. A great responsibility. A great obligation. She felt more solid. “Wouldn’t you go if you had the chance?” she asked, pushing all this back down, deep. “Even if you were scared?”

“No. I wouldnot.” She looked hard at Zelu for several moments, and Zelu was sure her mother was about to slap her. “Zelu, why do you hate us protecting you so much?”

Zelu gasped. “What, Mom? How? I never...” Suddenly she was crying. “If you hadn’t protected me after... after... all these years, Mom, that fall took my legs! If it weren’t for you, and Dad, everyone... I’d have withered anddied.” She stared at her mother now, who’d frozen, staring back at Zelu. “Look at me now, though. If it weren’t for all your protecting, I couldn’t bethis. I couldn’t beme. This is me, Mom—robot legs, crazy novel that’s all over the place, writing, speaking, strong!”

Zelu was shaking now. She was trying to contain it all—the hope and the despair, the dance of success, and the need to flee the planet, if only for a while. Sitting down had been a good move. “I’m... not trying to die. I didn’t want to die in Nigeria; I wanted to see Dad’s grave and reconnect with the land, home! It was a risk, but, well, I survived, didn’t I? I made sure of it! Now I have a chance to go to space. Don’t you want me to push farther? Ican, so shouldn’t I?” Zelu used her shirt to wipe her wet face. “Comeon, Mom.”

Her mother glared at her, her eyes moistening, too. Now it was her turn to sit down. She sat beside Zelu and sighed. Then her face softened. “Your father would have gone, too.”

Zelu felt tears sting her eyes. Finally. Finally, her father was on her side. “He would, Mom.”

“Adventurers, both of you,” she said. She paused. “That’s why you were in that stupid tree to begin with.”

“Thatstupidtree,” Zelu said.

Her mother took Zelu’s hands and squeezed them. “You are averyannoying child.”

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