Eudora
My sister asked me the question nobody in the house has asked, straight out, over the ugu. I answered her.
Sunday, the kitchen, the low stool. Mama went to the compound to shout at somebody about water, and Eudora, who is nineteen now and has never in her life approached anything sideways, said: so are you happy?
Not: is it true. Not: why. Not: have you prayed. Are you happy.
I said, no. Then I said, sometimes. Then I told her about E. leaving and about the stadium road and about the woman under the umbrella who said God is not a man, and she listened the way she listens, which is with her whole face, and at the end she said, that woman is right, and then she said, I told Papa he was a coward, and I said I know, Mama told me, and she said, I will tell him again.
Then Mama came back and we cut ugu and nobody said anything and it was the best hour I have had this year.
For the record: Eudora Chisom Nwaorisa, my sister, on the last Sunday of August 2020, asked me if I was happy. It is the first time anyone in my family has treated it as a thing that could have an answer. I am writing her name in full because I want it in full.