When I opened them, the yellow-mango woman was still there, a little blurry, but still there. I was stunn

, the appropriate sheen of tears for my eyes, and sniffles for my nose. I was prepared to close my hair salon for the next week and go in search of a miracle with my mother-in-law in tow. What I didn't expect was another smiling woman in the room, a yellow woman with a blood-red mouth who smiled like a new wife. I wished my mother-in-law were there. The only woman I had ever called Moomi. I visited her more often than her own son. She was there with me when my newly done perm was washed away in a river by a priest whose the

mouth seemed sinister to me and began to mean much more to me than just signs of age. I was torn apart. I wanted to be what I had never been. I wanted to be a mother, I wanted my eyes to shine with secret joys and wisdom like Moomi's. But all your talk of suffering terrified me. "She is much younger than you," Iya Martha said, leaning forward in her chair. "As they like you, Yejide, your husband's relatives know your worth.

i came to sit beside me on the couch. Baba Lola shook her head. "Kneel, Funmi. Even twenty years after the train began its journey, the earth will always be ahead of it. Yejide is ahead of you in every way in this house." Kneeling, Funmi placed her hands on my knees and smiled. My hands itched to slap the smile

ouse I was wearing. Her hands were just below my knees, wrapped around my bare legs. I couldn't look past her hands, past the long, puffy sleeves of her dress. I couldn't look at her face. "Hold her, Yejide." I wasn't sure who had just spoken. My head was on fire, growing hotter, on the verge of boiling. Anyone could have said those words: Iya Martha, Baba Lola, God. I didn't care. I turned back to my husband. "Akin, did you know about this?" You knew and you didn't have the heart to tell me. Did you know? You son of a bitch. Afte

ways be your husband." What more could he possibly want for you? Wasn't it because of you that he got Funmi an apartment to stay in, when he has a rather large two-story house?" Iya Martha looked around, stretching out her arms

hed, and say I was sorry for insulting my husband and his mother in one breath. They would have accepted my apology-I could have said it was the devil's fault, or the weather, or my new braids, which were too tight, making my head ac