Prologue

“What would you do when you first cast your eyes on your beloved?” Bisi folded a matching set of ankra clothes still creased from the tailor’s iron.  This set, made for Renike’s new family, husband, wife, and baby, was like several others stacked beside four open suitcases strategically positioned around the room.

Renike smiled at her sister’s romance novel phrase, “cast your eyes on your beloved,” but responded without hesitation, “I will jump on him of course.  I have missed him so much!”  And she did miss Akin.  Since their wedding fifteen months ago, their only connection had been over the phone.  She couldn’t wait to touch him, feel his skin under her fingertips, and show him his daughter.  ‘He’ll be so proud,’ she thought.  The sisters were sitting on short stools in the middle of what looked more like a war zone than a bedroom.  Clothes, shoes, accessories, packaged foods, Nollywood movie CDs, and other miscellaneous items covered every surface.

“You’re so lucky to be heading to Yankee,” Bisi continued. “Everything is abundant there; light, water, food, money, everything!  You will be picking money from the ground!”

“Then I will pick some and send it to you.  And Mummy.  Even Mummy Akin though she doesn’t like me.” They both laughed.  Akin had been sending her money regularly since they got engaged so she figured, there would be money to send once she joined him.

Renike felt happy, even blessed that she’d finally got a US visa after several unsuccessful attempts before her daughter was born.  But, she was tired of the ‘lucky you’ comments she’d been receiving since Akin came from America to marry her.    She’d been told so many things that she didn’t know what to believe.  People said, “You have it made.  Your life cannot but go up from here.”

“God has favored you o!  You’re heading to the land of milk and honey.”

She’d even been told, “In America, the government pays for everything; nobody works.  You know, those Oyinbo people know how to enjoy life.”

Right now, all she wanted to do was to pack up and go see for herself.  If people were picking money from the streets in America, she would pick some to send back.

She attacked the next batch of packing.  “Bisi, please hand me those purses on the table.”

Instead, Bisi asked, “May I keep this one?  And this one too?  She held out a pink clutch bag in one hand and a turquoise in the other. “I know your husband will buy you finer purses in America.”

Renike, tired of packing, shrugged.  Akin would probably buy her new ones.  He’d sent her all kinds of gifts since their nuptials.  And after the baby was born, he’d gone overboard.

Renike surveyed the room she’d shared with her sister since childhood.  The dusky blue walls enclosed her memories, heartaches, dreams, and aspirations.  Overlooking the courtyard and back door, it had been the secret headquarters of the girls’ squad where they had schemed against parental edicts, their brother and his friends, and wanna-be boyfriends.  Here, they’d mourned their father’s sudden passing.  But they’d also celebrated dreams come true, including admissions to university, Shalewa’s engagement and wedding, and her own wedding and childbirth.  Now, she was leaving to join her husband in America.

As if attuned to her thoughts, Bisi asked, “Don’t forget me when you get there sha.  In case you find a Bro who needs a wife.  I can pack and leave quickly.”

“Bisi, you’re not old enough to be thinking about marriage.  You better face your studies.”

“I’m not too young to think about marriage o.  Sister Shalewa has gone to London with her husband; now you are going to the US to join yours.  Me nko?”  Bisi challenged, sniffing the iru.  Though it had been bound in three layers of nylon, the seasoning still stank.  She doubled the wrapping then placed it in one of the suitcases.  The sisters’ strategy with foodstuff like gari, elubo, egusi, ede, shawa, and iru was to double-bag them in nylon and then distribute them in the four suitcases.  If US customs randomly searched, found, and seized the food in one suitcase, they’d hopefully spare the rest.

“Just because I married at seventeen doesn’t mean you should.  Wait for your own prince.”  Renike picked up her wedding portrait. And couldn’t avoid gazing at it.  Her face and Akin’s stared back at her.  He was ruggedly handsome with chiseled cheekbones, dreamy brown eyes, and a fine moustache which he’d groomed nicely for the occasion. And she herself looked gorgeously bridal.  They wore matching maroon aso oke and matching smiles.  They looked good together. She kissed the photo and lovingly enfolded it in a scarf to protect the glass. Placing it in her carryon beside the rubber doll that she’d passed on to Ayo from her childhood, she whispered, “we’ll be together soon, baby.”

(Excerpted from Renike comes to America)