Sister mine

I had not seen her in a long while. That was to be expected. Her flight from town had been sudden but not secret. It had been paramount that she leave when she did and any delays at that point would have spelled disaster.

She wore her hair long now. I wondered if it was really hers. She had always had short hair, cut low like a mini afro. Framing her face, her hair glowed in the light of the room like it would if you were looking through a glass of coca cola. It elongated her jaw. It made her look very feminine. Her beauty was almost a shock not because she had been particularly unpleasant to look at before but because it came with a calmness and elegance that I had never seen or possibly that I had not been able to discern at eighteen.

"I cannot believe you are getting married." she laughed, her voice singing out to me. My stomach tightened. She saw my discomfort and chuckled reaching for her drink.

"Don't worry Lola, you don't have to invite me. I will never cause you any embarassment."

Those words, simple and unembellished cut through me like a sharp knife and it was a few seconds before the pain began to spiral out. I looked away as I felt my eyes fill with tears.

"Lola, please don't." her voice had changed. It was not just that the laughter was gone and her tone held a tinge of cold warning. I had just never heard her sound like that. Is this what nine years could do? Suddenly I was very exhausted. I could not simply sit there and make small talk, skirting around the issues whilst we endured for as long as we could in each other's public company and then flee to the familiarity of my world.

"I would be glad if you can come to the wedding." I told her simply.

Her eyes went cold. "I do not need your sympathy." she spat her words at me like my invitation was decorated with feaces. I ignored her. There was no going back.

"It would be great if I can have all my sisters with me on my wedding day."

A slow smile spread across her face. It was not a good one. It was mocking and unkind. I deserved it.
"So, now I am your sister? Pray tell, how could that be? I thought I ceased to be that nine years ago, you know, when the old man forbade every single one of you contact with me."

I winced, " Sis Dupe, can we not move past that? I know what we did was not right but I am here now, trying to make things right."

She shook her head, "you cannot make right by yourself a decision that took a group to make wrong." she sat forward and I saw that her eyes were misty and filled with pain, "do you know what that felt like, fleeing my country like a thief in the night with nothing to my name but citizenship and yet no one not even mom bothered?" she gave me a once over with her eyes and it felt like I had been wiped down with a rag.

This was not going to be easy. I did not expect it to be. We had all turned our backs on her. All she had asked was a chance to be herself. It was because she loved us, she had said at the time, that she wanted to make sure that she was not living a lie and that we knew who she was and what she was doing. Of all the things that I could have conjurred, no where did it occur to me that my older sister could have been involved in a torrid affair with another woman. My mother fainted when the words left Dupe's mouth and my father did not speak for three days. When he would utter sounds next, it was to publicly declare his disownment. No one was to have anything to do with Dupe ever again.

Things had begun to escalate even before she came clean. Sandra, with whom Dupe had been carrying on was married to an older man who was a colonel in the Nigerian army. Only God knows how he found out. All we know is that somehow there was struggle, a gun and a dead man. Sandra fled and Dupe her lover, receiving no sanctuary from her family even though she had not been present or involved with the shooting, fled with her. The man's family still came calling and made sure the whole world knew that one of Chief Kayode's daughters was involved in "unnatural practices". It had been a little over nine years and still the whispers had not died down.

And I was about to resurrect them. No one in the family knew that I had actively sought her out and that I had come with the sole purpose of inviting her and Sandra to the wedding. It was going to be held in London anyway and everyone was coming over. I wanted my family there, complete and unabridged.

"She is my sister and I want her there." I had told Ima.
"Do you also want the ensuing drama of that decision?" he had asked. He did not like the idea.
I was just tired. How do I tell my children about all their aunties and uncles and leave out Dupe?

Dupe and her love for mangoes. Dupe and her off key serenading. Dupe and her piano playing. Dupe and her sarcasm. Dupe who would lie just as our eldest sister, Subi had instructed about who broke the coffee table and then under further cross examination also inform on the culprit. Dupe who had written two books that had made the best seller lists and got her a literary award. Dupe who was a gay rights activist. Dupe who had survived attempts on her life for her work. Dupe who was a lawyer and had travelled to every single continent. Dupe who was so funny that she always escaped dadddy's spanking by giving her own side of the story in such a way that the man could not hold back his laughter. Dupe who braided my hair and my scalp erupted in boils. Dupe who tried to teach herself to drive and killed the cashew trees in the compound. Dupe who would sit in silence for hours and then rush off to pen her thoughts. Dupe who could not dance to save her life. Dupe who would hug me even though I pretended not to like it. Dupe, my big sister.

There was so much that was her that that by which she was now known was such an insignificant part. She was a good person. I loved her. She was my sister.

"Deepee sis" I called the name I had used for years because in the beginning that was what my toddler lips could form, "I could not come to you then because I was very young and confused. I am about to start my life on my own terms and it would make me proud if you can please come and celebrate the beginning with me."

She looked at me. I held her gaze. And then she laughed.
"Men, daddy is going to piiiiiiiiiiiiissssssed."



Soul exists because God loves it.
-The Shariyat-ki-Sugmad bk 1.