The first two days with Phina was awkward. Translation: I desired the magical abilities to wish her away, since I was most unlikely to suggest she left on her own accord. Then I got over it. There were too many discomforting times that followed; it seemed very uneconomical to waste so much energy on just one of them. Like when dad came back from the village, after he could no further extend his sojourn with excuses Nkolika didn’t buy. The first night of his return, he took us all out to the newest restaurant in town, and we all pretended we were having the time of our lives. Well, I bet the children were – and that included Phina. Certainly not the adults — that included me — for sure. Dad and his wife, as always, kept things polite. As did him and me, but we both knew i had been debriefed. Of course we weren’t going to talk about it. No. It would be the elephant in the room, and we’d do a great job of talking around it. However well we could stitch up our mouth not to utter a word, it didn’t mean we could stop our bodies going right out talking loud and clear. And they weren’t saying things we wanted to hear. After a week, Phina and I escaped to spend some time with Emem at Port-Harcourt, before we both suffocated from all that tension. It turned out the least best decision we could have made after all. 

Emem only had to take one look at Phina to decipher that there was a story lurking somewhere pretty close. She had met Aunty Cece’s girls. That was time they were in Nigeria for Christmas, and had spent the entire holiday at our home. And anyone who had eyes ever saw those girls, she wouldn’t need telling that they didn’t explain Phina. Phina was way ‘whiter’. But, the great thing about having a friend who didn’t ask questions was that it was much easier ignoring her inquiring eyes. Nevertheless, that wasn’t what was wrong with the trip. First of all, the timing of our visit couldn’t have been worse – no thanks to Emem for not saying so when we called her the day before to know if we could come. You didn’t need to be a sorcerer to recognise that Emem and her husband were at a ‘we-are-not-talking-to-each-other’ period. They couldn’t even pull off being in the same room at once. Akan was perpetually having some place to go, and Emem was forever feigning that was all dandy with them. Phina and I couldn’t agree if Emem had welcomed our coming because she wanted company or if Akan was pulling his disappearing acts because he didn’t want to scream at his wife in our presence. I tended towards the latter, but I didn’t argue it when Phina insisted it was the former. Neither scenario was pleasant, much less when you are in the middle of it. So, by the third day, we packed up our kaya and were gone ASAP.