ORE
Being in Terry’s presence was intoxicating. Ore felt like she had the first time she tasted alcohol. It was at her first house party in university. This one had been thrown by her next-door neighbour; a third year Law student whose father worked in the House of Assembly. He was asking Ore’s roommate out and the house party was a way to impress her. Ore’s roommate, a tall, almost-nerdy girl named Grace had asked Ore to go along with her. Curious Ore had tagged along and had been convinced to have a drink by a boy she promptly forgot when she left. She didn’t know what the contents of the red cup and perhaps that was what had excited her. The not-knowing gave a dangerous edge to the drink.
It was a similar feeling to what she was feeling right now sitting across from Terry. She didn’t really know anything about him except that he was interested in her and that made him dangerous and thrilling.
“So, how did you two meet?” Terry was asking.
Ore glanced at her husband. He loved to tell their story, plus she didn’t really feel like going down memory lane especially with Terry.
“In a basic way, actually,” Ramsey said with a laugh. “At the ATM.”
“Really?” Terry looked at Ramsey, then at her.
“In Nigeria, we often have long queues at bank ATMs, so here I was waiting in line to withdraw some money and this…beautiful lady walks up and begs me to let her in my front. I mean, ridiculous, right?” Ramsey nudges her with his elbow, a playful smile on his lips.
Ore smiled, playing along. Ramsey enjoyed this – entertaining and playing the role of a charming young man whenever he had an audience.
“Well, it was her audacity for me. The fact that she expected me to just let her in like that. That caught my attention. Plus, she was hot. I mean, look at her.”
Ore tried not to blush as Terry’s dark blue eyes landed on her.
“I had just lost my mother,” she said, meeting Terry’s eyes. “Somehow standing in a long queue was not something I was capable of handling at the time. I know it’s weird, but that was really what gave me the audacity like Ramsey says.”
“It’s not weird,” Terry said. “I lost my sister to cancer a few years ago. I find that there were simple tasks that I couldn’t stomach while I was still grieving.”
“Oh,” Ore stared at him. “I’m sorry for your loss. How old was she?”
“Forty-three. She was older and we had always been close. How about you? How did you lose your mum?”
“She was sick. Doctors couldn’t really point out what her ailment was but my brother thinks her sickness was one of the heart. Like, she had gone through so much in life that it had finally caught up with her and was eating her up from inside.”
“What do you think?”
Ore shrugged, turning away from his intense gaze. “I’m not sure. I’m realising that there’s a lot I didn’t know about my mum.”
“Okay,” Ramsey gave a small clap. “Enough of the grim talk, people. We are here to celebrate this new partnership and get to know each other better. For your investment sake, right Terry?”
“Right, right. Cheers to that.”
“So, what about you? Any wife or children in the horizon?” Ore knew she was being brazen now.
He gave a lopsided grin, his bushy eyebrows forming a smooth arc. “None. I’m as single as they come. My kind of business doesn’t quite allow for a sustainable relationship.”
“Oh man, every man needs a woman who will hold down the fort when they’re away,” Ramsey said. “Right, babe?”
Ramsey reached across the table and placed a hand on Ore’s. She nodded because she had no other choice.
“Well, I do enjoy travelling. I’m not sure how ready I am to be tied down to one place.”
Ore nodded again as he spoke. A part of her envied his life. He was in control of his choices and his time. He could go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted without answering a million questions. Even as she thought about it, she realized she was idealizing his life, comparing her situation to his.
If she was in a normal, safe and happy marriage, would she crave his lifestyle? Would she fantasize about being with him, being him? Her mind went back to the conversation about her mother. Yes, their mother had been sick. They had seen it in the way she shrunk no matter what she ate, in the way her appetite waned over time, the way the light in her eyes dimmed. The doctors said different things at first; malaria, typhoid, arthritis, high blood pressure, ulcer.
It was frustrating because for each new diagnosis, there were new prescriptions and so by the end, she was pumped full of medication that she was convinced it was the drugs that were killing her from the inside.
Recalling her conversation, no, her fight with Benjy, she began to consider the fact that perhaps he was right. It was the prolonged years of unhappiness that had finally caught up with their mother causing her to wither like an out-of-season flower.
Was she towing the same path as her mother had? Staying with someone who she wasn’t happy with? What was happiness anyway? Wasn’t happiness overrated? Was anyone happy all the time?
There was a time she could confidently say that Ramsey made her happy. They were happy together. He was charming, he listened to her, he spoiled her with gifts and luxurious treatments. And then things changed. The change was subtle, so subtle that it felt like if she blinked twice, she would miss it.
Was this how it felt for her mother? Had she really been so naive and missed all the signs of unhappiness that her mother exhibited?
Ore suddenly had the urge to call her father. They still spoke once in a while…she was perhaps the only one who spoke to him slightly regularly. The last time they had spoken, he had hinted that he was seeing someone and Ore had been surprised. Her father, a man in his seventies, was seeing someone? Who, she wondered, would want to be with him?
Granted, he was a good-looking man and he had aged well. In fact, it seemed like he and their mother had aged in opposite directions. Where Mum got wrinkly and shrivelled fast, Dad became more robust, his cheeks filling out, lined with grey beards that gave him a ‘distinguished’ look.
She saw it now, what Benjy had said. She didn’t need to be privy to the abuse to realize what their father had been doing to their mother. She should have read the handwriting on the wall when she got older.
Ore felt a physical sensation of nausea as this truth crept into her consciousness. Her father was not the man she thought he was.
“Excuse me,” she said, pushing away from the table.
She had zoned out of the conversation minutes ago and she hoped Ramsey hadn’t noticed.
“Are you okay?” Ramsey asked.
“Yes, I just need to visit the ladies,” she said.
If she didn’t feel physically ill, she would have laughed at herself for her choice of words. Who called the toilet in their own home the ladies? But of course, she was the hostess and she needed to be prim and proper, she needed to present the persona that Ramsey wanted others to see.
She turned and walked away, leaving no room for more inquisition from Ramsey.
In the toilet upstairs, she took out her phone and searched for her brother’s number on WhatsApp. They hadn’t spoken since their last fight and Ore missed him.
“Hey bro. You were right. Can we talk?” she texted.
Just as she was exiting the app, she saw a Facebook Messenger notification pop up on her screen:
“Are you okay? I’m sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable.”
Her blood pulsed as she read the message.
It was Terry.
