Nkem has not waxed her pubic hair; there is no thin line between her legs as she drives to the airport to pick Obiora up. She looks in the rearview mirror, at Okey and Adanna strapped in the backseat. They are quiet today, as though they sense her reserve, the laughter that is not on her face. She used to laugh often, driving to the airport to pick Obiora up, hugging him, watching him hug the children. They would have dinner out the first day, Chili’s or some other restaurant where Obiora would look on as the children colored their menus. Obiora would give out presents when they got home and the children would stay up late, playing with new toys. And she would wear whatever heady new perfume he’d bought her to bed, and one of the lacy nightdresses she wore only two months a year.
He always marveled at what the children could do, what they liked and didn’t like, although they were all things she had told him on the phone. When Okey ran to him with a boo-boo, he kissed it, then laughed at the quaint American custom of kissing wounds. Does spit make a wound heal? he would ask. When his friends visited or called, he asked the children to greet Uncle, but first he teased his friends with “I hope you understand the big-big English they speak; they are Americanah now, oh!”
At the airport, the children hug Obiora with the same old abandon, shouting, “Daddy!”
Nkem watches them. Soon they will stop being lured by toys and summer trips and start to question a father they see so few times a year.
After Obiora kisses her lips, he moves back to look at her. He looks unchanged: a short, ordinary light-skinned man wearing an expensive sports jacket and a purple shirt. “Darling, how are you?” he asks. “You cut your hair?”
Nkem shrugs, smiles in the way that says Pay attention to the children first. Adanna is pulling at Obiora’s hand, asking what did Daddy bring and can she open his suitcase in the car.
After dinner, Nkem sits on the bed and examines the Ife bronze head, which Obiora has told her is actually made of brass. It is stained, life-size, turbaned. It is the first original Obiora has brought.
“We’ll have to be very careful with this one,” he says.
“An original,” she says, surprised, running her hand over the parallel incisions on the face.
“Some of them date back to the eleventh century.” He sits next to her to take off his shoes. His voice is high, excited. “But this one is eighteenth-century. Amazing. Definitely worth the cost.”
“What was it used for?”
“Decoration for the king’s palace. Most of them are made to remember or honor the kings. Isn’t it perfect?”
“Yes,” she says. “I’m sure they did terrible things with this one, too.”
“What?”
“Like they did with the Benin masks. You told me they killed people so they could get human heads to bury the king.”
Obiora’s gaze is steady on her.
She taps the bronze head with a fingernail. “Do you think the people were happy?” she asks.
“What people?”
“The people who had to kill for their king. I’m sure they wished they could change the way things were, they couldn’t have been happy.”
Obiora’s head is tilted to the side as he stares at her. “Well, maybe nine hundred years ago they didn’t define ‘happy’ like you do now.”
She puts the bronze head down; she wants to ask him how he defines “happy.”
“Why did you cut your hair?” Obiora asks.
“Don’t you like it?”
“I loved your long hair.”
“You don’t like short hair?”
“Why did you cut it? Is it the new fashion trend in America?” He laughs, taking his shirt off to get in the shower.
His belly looks different. Rounder and riper. She wonders how girls in their twenties can stand that blatant sign of self-indulgent middle age. She tries to remember the married men she had dated. Had they ripe bellies like Obiora? She can’t recall. Suddenly, she can’t remember anything, can’t remember where her life has gone.
“I thought you would like it,” she says.
“Anything will look good with your lovely face, darling, but I liked your long hair better. You should grow it back. Long hair is more graceful on a Big Man’s wife.” He makes a face when he says “Big Man,” and laughs.
He is naked now; he stretches and she watches the way his belly bobs up and down. In the early years, she would shower with him, sink down to her knees and take him in her mouth, excited by him and by the steam enclosing them. But now, things are different. She has softened like his belly, become pliable, accepting. She watches him walk into the bathroom.