“You don’t want to come outside?”

Kene was standing outside the car, holding the door open for Nnenna. The hot humidity mingled with the cool air of the car, settling on her skin. Kene’s lips curled and she started tapping her foot. Nnenna got annoyed. She wanted to tell her ‘Who are you tapping for? Dirty your shoes nau.”

 But her stomach curdled. She looked into her lap, her fingers wringing together.

“I’m coming,” she said quietly. Pain wrenched her heart. She had been determined before. But not excited. Not like Kene. 

Her younger sister sighed now and stomped away in the sand, leaving the car door wide open, the mottled white hospital walls in front of her. Nnenna hadn’t expected him to be in a hospital like this. Has he been ok since she left? Or was this just the closest hospital? 

Bile had climbed into her throat when she heard.

“Tanker fell on him!” Kene had laughed garish and gleeful over the phone then danced with such intensity that Nnenna could hear her feet slapping the tiles of her home. “The something that has been killing innocent people finally got that nonsense! Can you see? Squashed him and his stupid Prada abi Rolls Royce.”

“BMW,” she’d whispered and that brought out a fresh peal of laughter.

“You need to do something,” Kene started saying over and over. “You need to free yourself. You still regard that goat too highly.”

“He’s my husband.”

“On paper,” she pointed out. “Destroy him in your spirit.”

So she followed her to the hospital because she refused to spit on his grave if he died. After all, she didn’t want him to die. After all, she didn’t want him to haunt her, because she didn’t want to see his face and want him again in the afterlife.

“Kene,” tears pricked at her eyes. Her sister came even though she didn’t raise her voice.

“I think I still love him,” she sounded pitiful.

Her sister sighed, reached into the car and hugged her. 

“Obviously.”