Buns In The Oven.
I throw my weight into the punch, my nightdress dusted in a film of white powder as the dough reluctantly begins to push back. I strike again, this time with my palm splayed across the dough, to flatten it before it can fully recover. Then I take one end of the flattened dough and fold it into the middle, like that, I knead, until pretty soon, I have a symmetrical ball, I pick up the ball and toss it about, you know, to show him who’s boss. My sphere is perfect, but I smash the dough back into my table, raising a cloud of flour in my wake. I keep on kneading.
Making bread is mindless labour, once your hands get into rhythm, your mind isn’t needed as much and is free to wander, and ooh the places she would take me, of course my mind is she.
It wasn’t my life long goal to be making bread by torchlight at past four in the morning. I had woken up to pee sometime around one and when I lay back down to sleep, I’m haunted by my own imagination: his hands on her, the reflection of his pleasure in her eyes. An arm casually flaps around me as if to save me from my thoughts, I push it away and move towards the edge of the bed. For a moment, I contemplate waking him to tell him, that I know, but I pick up my phone and go on Pinterest…
Its 3:27.am when I take off my headphones after watching funny videos on Instagram. My ears are greeted first with the salutations of a well fed mosquito, buzzing in gratitude. After I have flicked over my ear to acknowledge his salute; I hear it, the short inhale krrrrr, the loud exhale grrrrrrrrrrgh, this heavy grunting travelling down a flight of stairs, through a wall then a fence then another wall into my bedroom and into my ears. (Actually, it just passed through their window through to my window; because sound travels through the shortest distance). There’s a cough, the snorer is breathing quieter now, I worry for the spouse, all I had to bear was a cheating husband, while he/she had to sleep with all that noise, and who knew, he/she could turn out to be a cheat as well, talk about double trouble.
My eyes are puffy and tired but I know sleep won’t come. So here I am kneading dough thinking I might be needing divorce.
I roll the dough into a log and butcher it into ten fat blobs, the blobs which I then roll individually and set on a tray to rise. The loo calls, of course I take my phone with. I’m still sitting on the bowl a while after peeing, grateful for the rest on my swollen feet, wondering if depression can cause one’s bladder to shrink. There’s light now so I put my phone to charge, wash my hands and head back to the kitchen where I turn on the oven to preheat.
The first rays of sun filtering in through the kitchen window catch me staring a second too long at a sachet of cyanide on the counter. A glance at the wall clock says it’s time to wake up the children and get them ready for school. Only, it’s Saturday, and I don’t have any children.
I was pregnant though, once, years ago, before we started trying. And then we tried, and tried, and tried. It was painful, exhausting and expensive but we kept trying; my period, on the clock, eating out my heart.
The rolls of dough are perfectly risen on a greased baking tray, the oven is hot and ready to have them, but I’m sitting and just looking at them: so even and pretty, my OCD should be sated, but my mind is on my husband’s mistress. I hear her laughter; a lone tear trickles down my left eye. I haven’t cried since I saw them: the emails, the pictures, the video. Another tear races the first to my chin. I didn’t expect it to happen so soon. I want to hate him, but I can’t. Still, that’s the closest I’ve come to responding to his infidelity. I have been numb for a long while; long before I found out, about Angela, before our perfunctory anniversary sex four months ago, maybe even before I quit the fertility pills; but now I’m feeling everything. “Did I push him to this? He was so happy”, I think. “I was so cheerful, he made sure of it.” my mind travels to Nice, France, two years ago. He wanted me to forget. After a delicious dinner at The Royal, he said, and I remember because that’s all I thought about for months after that. His eyes deep in mine, our noses almost touching, the heady scent of mulled wine not at all dimming the seriousness of his words: “Nkem, my love. WE are a family… If we have an addition to this family, that’ll be great. But WE are complete” and for the first time after our honeymoon year, we made love without trying to conceive. By the time the buns are in the oven, the tears are coming down in torrents.
I hear my phone ring from the bedroom; it stops midway before I can get up, wash my face and get to it. Chike is up, I don’t pick up his calls, and I wouldn’t dare especially now. I march to our room hating his guts.
My icy glare meets his eyes, but they aren’t cold and distant this morning, the excitement in his eyes is echoed by his voice calling “Nkem?” it’s been a while he called me that. “Your phone.” “It rang.” he sputters, breathlessly, his shoulders heaving every two syllables, “Nneka”. “From Bridge” “the clinic” He’s taken my hands now, they’re trembling “she said.” “you.” “WE.” “you’re pregnant.”
