“We’ll keep her,” Olanna said firmly.
She could raise a child, his child. She would buy books about motherhood and find a wet nurse and decorate the bedroom. She shifted this way and that in bed that night. She had not felt sorry for the child. Instead, holding that tiny warm body, she had felt a conscious serendipity, a sense that this may not have been planned but had become, the minute it happened, what was meant to be. Her mother did not think so; her mother’s voice over the phone line the next day was grave, the solemn tone that would be used to talk about somebody who had died.
“Nne, you will have your own child soon. It is not right for you to raise the child he had with a village girl he impregnated as soon as you traveled. Raising a child is a very serious thing to undertake, my daughter, but in this case it is not the right thing.”
Olanna held the phone and stared at the flowers on the center table. One of them had fallen off; it was surprising that Ugwu had forgotten to remove it. There was truth in her mother’s words, she knew, and yet she knew, also, that the baby had looked like she had always imagined her and Odenigbo’s child would, with the lush hair and widely spaced eyes and pink gums.
“Her people will give you trouble,” her mother said. “The woman herself will give you trouble.”
“She doesn’t want the child.”
“Then leave it with her people. Send them what is needed but leave the child there.”
Olanna sighed. “Anugo m, I’ll give this more thought.”
She put the phone down and picked it up again and gave the operator Kainene’s number in Port Harcourt. The woman sounded lazy, made her repeat the number a few times and giggled before connecting her.
“How noble of you,” Kainene said when Olanna told her.
“I’m not being noble.”
“Will you adopt her formally?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“What will you tell her?”
“What will I tell her?”
“Yes, when she’s older.”
“The truth: that Amala is her mother. And I’ll have her call me Mummy Olanna or something, so that if Amala ever comes back, she can be Mummy.”
“You’re doing this to please your revolutionary lover.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re always pleasing other people.”
“I’m not doing this for him. This is not his idea.”
“Why are you doing it then?”
“She was so helpless. I felt as if I knew her.”
Kainene said nothing for a while. Olanna pulled at the phone wire.
“I think this is a very brave decision,” Kainene said finally.
Although Olanna heard her clearly, she asked, “What did you say?”
“It’s very brave of you to do this.”
Olanna leaned back on the seat. Kainene’s approval, something she had never felt before, was like a sweetness on her tongue, a surge of ability, a good omen. Suddenly her decision became final; she would bring the baby home.
“Will you come for her baptism?” Olanna asked.
“I still haven’t visited that dusty hell, so yes, maybe I will.”