5| ℬᎾℳᎯ

   HE CALLS MY NAME. As if wanting to make sure I heard him. I did. Even though he said it like he just wants to get done with his shift.

   My internal organs are failing, failing one by one.

    I drag my myself back from oblivion. "Dr Hart told me they would get worse as I grow older, but I didn't think older was seventeen."

   "How can you tell without more tests?" Mom asks. The voice sounds too thick to be hers and she's more eager to hear that she heard wrong than to believe that her worst fear has been confirmed, and then there goes the doctor, whose job is to explain his diagnosis even though it's only going shatter the heart of a poor single mother with a single daughter.

   "The echocardiography results, the continued hypertrophy and fibrosis in her heart, as seen on the MRI. From the ultrasound, the enlargement in her liver is not profound and we can manage that, but the failing heart and collapsed lung are enough to confirm the organ failure. " 

   "She didn't say it would happen so fast." I think aloud. The five years didn't happen so fast, truthfully, what happened fast was that I thought it wasn't going to happen, I chose to believe my weird silent positive affirmations meanwhile life was just going to do her thing. Again. I've always been half foot here and there all the same, but now—just like that—I'm officially dying.

   Wow, life sucks. No jokes.

   "Since the heart attack and initial fibrosis, it's been about five years and the life expectancy for this complication is usually five years. Dr. Hart should have told you–" 

   "That I'm dying?"

   "Bomate." Mom stops me.

   The doctor opens his mouth, then closes it.
"We could try–"

   "I don't want any treatments." I snap. "How has all of them worked? Tell me, I'm dying, aren't I?" 

   "Bomate, stop asking that will you?" Mom says. I feel the pain and instant stress in her voice.

   "How long do I have?" I change the question. There's no point asking if I'm dying.

   "Boma–" she holds her face in her hands.

   "HOW LONG DO I HAVE?" My voice hits so hard that it shakes even me.

   "Typically, five months of quality life without support."

   "Five months? I know you can't joke about something this serious, but are you joking?"

   "That is if a transplant is not done. It could be shorter or longer but five months, on average."

      Scary. Scary is what five months is. 

   "After five months, you would require life support, dialysis and other end of life–" 

   "Thanks. Mom, can we go now?"

   My heart has taken up residence in my throat. I can't stop blinking. FIVE MONTHS. I'm trying to believe it and not believe it at the same time. My eyes are brewing hot juice. I don't want to cry but who am I to stay chill? Exactly. Nobody. Which is why I'm secretly fighting against believing that this is where  I end.

   "After everything, I still get to die." I stand up. "I don't even want to live this stupid life anymore, good riddance." I let the tears drop as my defence shatters.

   "Boma! Sit!" she finally looks up at me. Scared, shocked and still trying to be optimistic at the same time. "Let's discuss your treatment options!"

   "What options Mom? You know there's nothing they can do." 

   "We'll put you on the transplant list," Dr. Ekene says.

    I face him with the angriest scowl I can produce. "And you didn't think of doing that five years ago?"

   "It's not too late, Boma," he says.

   "Tell me. How much does a new heart, and lungs cost?" I ask. 

   He doesn't reply because it's not a sum that should be spoken of, it's not right for life to be weighed with money.

   "Boma we can figure that out." Mom says.

   "Okay, say somehow, a miracle happens, and the money is available. Can you find me a person who's going to donate their organs to me in five months?" I ask him.

    We both know the answer as the office grows cold with a silence that is torn apart by the child wailing next-door.

   Maybe someday soon, he is also going to be told that all the needles, drugs and blood was for nothing.

   "Please, sit. Just. Sit. There has to be something." Mom says.

   I look her in the eye and leave the office. I hear her breakdown while the doctor tells her to take heart and to 'Trust God'. That's the line they use when your case with them is done.

°°°°°

   I'm in the car again, my hands and feet are freezing, I'm trying to catch my breath, my hair and jacket are damp from running in the rain. I wait a few minutes and then I see mom coming. I don't look longer, she'd want to talk, or cry, and I'm avoiding that. 

   So I put my headphones on and slump into the seat. I'm not listening to anything, just the emptiness of my thoughts. She gets in and drops her head on the steering wheel. I see her fighting tears, the way her hands tremble make me want to reach out and hold them, to put her at ease, but I close my eyes instead. 

°°°°°

   At the gate, I get out of the car and run into the house. I hear her call out my name. I don't stop or turn around. This time, I honestly just want to be alone. I hope she understands.

   On getting to my room, I lock the door and collapse onto the floor, burying my face between my knees, as the word 'dying' and 'five months' keep ringing in my head. Shorter or longer, what does that mean?

   I'm turning eighteen in five months, and I'm supposed to be dead?

   This can't be happening. 

   Maybe he was wrong. But I saw the scans myself. He wasn't. 

  You can't have a chronic disease and not know what organ failure means. It's the worst. Literally the death sentence. It puts you straight to the front of the scythe. There is no point even thinking of beating it.

   I yell into my jeans. My crying sounds guttural, like a woman whose child died, or a gladiator whose heart was ripped out of his chest. 

   I don't know what's worse, having lived knowing any crisis could be my last, or being on death's list.

   I don't want to die. . .

°°°°°

   I'm woken when the wind's swishy whisper, accompanied by thunder's angry clap, take siege of my room. The cold humid air spilling in through my open window bites eagerly at my exposed fingers. 

   I fold my numb legs and sit up, putting my head against the door. My eyes rotate for a few seconds, like I was left to drift in space and I put my hand over my face to make them still.

   I'm still in my jean trousers, jacket and sneakers. Mom didn't turn on the generator so the only source of brightness is a glimmer of the street light that shines in the corner close to my bed and occasional lightning sparks. 

   "Am I really going to die soon?" I whisper to myself, it sounds lost in all the noise resonating through the walls. 

   My brain replays the appointment in slow-motion, the MRI sheet, the white patches in my right lung, the partially deflated left one, the thickening and enlargement in my heart, the nodules on my liver. I'm pretty sure he wasn't joking. I palm away the tears that find their way to my cheeks. Even the feel of the jeans against my skin makes me want to rip it. 

   I pull out my phone from my back pocket, tapping the screen to display the time: 11: 25pm. 

   I turn off the airplane mode and without pause, a hundred notifications flood my notification bar. For one, I can see Chinny has tagged me all over Instagram. She also wants to know how the appointment went.

   I'm not going to tell her. 

   As I scroll through the notifications, it's the missed calls from Ivan that get my attention. I would call back normally but right now, I make my way to bed. Each step feels like my feet are made of quicksand.

   I don't feel like closing the curtains today. I only have enough strength to lay down and drop my phone in between my pillows. 

   Bzzzz. My phone vibrates noisily under my pillow. I take a while. I already know who it is.

   "Hey, I've been calling, and you've not been answering, are you good?"

   I look at it and feel the urge to reply and tell him that I'm fine, but I'm not, so I don't reply. I put the phone down again and put my head on my pillow. Hoping he leaves me alone. 

   The phone buzzes again. After hesitating, I pick it up.

   "I can see you're online. Why aren't you answering?"

   If I went offline, he'd think I'm avoiding him, which is what I'm doing but I don't go offline.

   "Did I do something wrong?"

   "Boma?"

   "Okay. I'm coming over."

   "I'm fine." I reply.

   I'm not fine but it's better this way. I used to like to think that after I was finally ready to break the rules, it was going to be with him. Now, those thoughts are fantasies that would never happen. I'm never going to be eighteen, I'm never going to learn to drive, I'm never going to go to the university for sure, I'll never get married of course, I'm going to die a virgin, and I'll never have kids, goodbye to all the baby names I've saved. 

   I really wanted to do those things. I believed that if I got there, starting with turning eighteen, then I beat it, and Ivan made me feel like those things weren't so unachievable, even when he knew that SCD was very unpredictable with its outcomes.

   Falling in love right now is not going to do the world much good. I'm going to die, and he is going to move on.

   My phone lights up again.

   "Did something happen?" 

   "Did you have a crisis???" 

   Six Feet Under begins playing, he's calling. I watch the phone ring. The song feels exactly how I feel at this moment. I don't want to take it, I really don't want to speak to anyone. 

   How am I supposed to talk with him? What should be my answer to that question?

   I didn't have a crisis, but I went to the hospital and they told me I was going to die in five months and when I came back home, I cried myself to sleep for six hours. Now I probably have four months and twenty nine days?

   I can't tell him that, and I don't know what else to tell him. I let the phone ring till it drops.

   "Ivan, it's late. I shouldn't even be up, and neither should you." I text instead. 

   "What does that even mean 'we shouldn't be up?' we were up till five this morning and it wasn't a problem then?" 

   That's true, but then, I didn't know I was dying. It doesn't sound fair. It isn't fair. I know he doesn't deserve this, but I can't do more than this right now. I don't reply.

   "Okay, first thing tomorrow, I'm coming over."

   I think about telling him goodnight with a quick 'I'm dying' added to the end. I type it and delete it. I don't know him that well to tell him that. 

   He goes offline and then I'm a crying mess. Every pore in my face is adding to the stream, my nose too. My head bangs with each sob, simultaneously my chest burns with each breath. The last time I cried like this was never.

   "Boma?" Mom knocks twice. I want to answer, but I want to cry more. So, I don't answer.

   "Boma." She turns the knob and I just wish I hadn't locked the door because I want her in here with me but I'm also too sad to walk to the door and search for the key. She leaves and I cry even harder, I really need her now. 

   My heart feels like it's melting, I can't stop the tears and I don't want to. Maybe self-pity followed by denial is a side effect of dying. 

   A few steps in front of my bed, I gaze out the open window, wishing there was someone out there who I could share my pain with, but the truth is as bare as the unforgiving night sky; there's nobody, I'm alone.

   I hear keys and I turn. Thank God she found a spare. I can't wait for her to hug me.

   She opens the door, and starts picking up my stuff.

   "Uhmm, I couldn't sleep too. I was wondering if you would like to watch Food Network and eat ice-cream with me until I can fall asleep." She says it like she doesn't care that I'm crying my eyes and nose out. 

   "There's no light." I sob

   "I'll turn on the generator. "

   "You didn't take off your dress and your makeup." I say. My voice is shaky and breathless from all the crying. She looks at herself like she only just realised it. 

   "And, you didn't take off your shoes," she says. I can tell she has cried a lot more than I have.

   "I'm sorry, Mom."

   "About?" she pretends she's confused.

   "Everything." I say. She doesn't say anything. "For being mean and hard on you and disrespectful and selfish and acting out my teenage-daughter, I-just-want-to-be-left-alone thing. It wasn't fair," I say, unable to stop crying.

   She walks over to my bed and pulls me into her warm chest. "I don't care about that. Right now, I just need an ice-cream partner. Are you game?"

   I nod, yes.

   She smiles, pasting a passionate kiss on my forehead. "There's no choosing, we're having plain vanilla." 

   I roll my eyes at this one because she never has plain vanilla. Plain vanilla is always vanilla plus cinnamon.

   "Keep your cinnamon out of my bowl please." I say. 

   "You swept all of it away, remember?" she chuckles. "Don't stay up long so it doesn't melt." She walks out and closes the door.

   When the lights come on, I walk to the mirror. I know who looks back. I know her hopes and her dreams, I know everything she knows. I know she's scared. That scares me.

   I change out of my jeans and slip into my night-tee, one out of a series of oversized cotton tee-shirts I always wear at night. They carry all my emotions which right now is somewhere between sadness and hopelessness; grief and confusion.

    The storm rages outside as I walk down the stairs to the kitchen, dragging my blanket lazily behind me. I can already smell the cinnamon. 

   How did she get another bottle?

   "Well that was quick," she says scooping what I guess is my portion. It's a big scoop and I get momentarily excited.

   "CinnaMOM," I sit on the counter, swaddling my body in my blanket. " You always have an emergency bottle kept away don't you?"

   "Cinna-What?" she chuckles. 

   "That's what I'll call you every day from now."

   "What. Why?"

I pick up the new bottle, fondling it between my fingers. "Why can't you do without this thing?" 

   She takes it from me, sprinkling it on her ice-cream. "This thing is an amazing spice, and being that I love it so much, I wouldn't mind the cinnaMOM. Makes me think of you."

   "Bad idea. CinnaMOM is boring anyway. So you're still just Mom."

   "I feel kind of sad you think I'm just mom." She says. 

   I pull my bowl towards myself.

   "Wait. I have an idea, how about if we add chin-chin or your bran cereal as a topping."

   Hmmm.

   "That's a little out of your league. But I like the chin-chin idea."

   She gives me two thumbs up before grabbing the chin-chin and the cereal box. I go wild on the chin-chin, adding a little more than necessary. It makes her laugh. I laugh too.

   With my eyes closed, I take the first spoon. The crunch of the chin-chin against the smooth velvety vanilla with the coolness against my warm tongue makes me take the second and then the third. I think I'm on the seventh spoon when I realise she's staring at me, so I stop.

   "Sorry," I say with a mouthful of ice-cream and she laughs.

   I love watching Mom laugh. I feel like she doesn't do enough of it, her life has been one tragedy after the other. I'm now one of those tragedies. 

   She takes her bowl to the sitting room, I drag myself along, half eaten bowl of ice cream in my hand. We settle on the longest couch, directly in front of the TV. She turns it on.

   "I called Tee," Mom drops her bowl on the table and hands me the remote. "We'll travel on Friday." 

   "This Friday?" I ask, she nods solemnly. 

   "When will you be back?" I ask, switching the channel to Food Network. There's a Chopped marathon going on. I smile.

   "Saturday morning," she's looking at me like she's waiting for me to make a fuss, so she can cancel.

   "That's okay. Chinny could sleep over. Nothing to worry about. You could even come back on Sunday." I smile encouragingly. 

   "If I do that, I'm sure you won't go to your prom on Saturday. So, I won't."

   "Did you tell him about the doctor's visit?" I ask her.

   "No. Do you want me to tell him?"

   "If you want." I shrug. "I couldn't tell Ivan though."

   "He called?"

   "Like a million times. We just finished talking when you came knocking. If that could pass as talking."

   "Aww, what did he say?

   "He was going to come."

   "This late? Sorry early, sorry it's late. It's like midnight," she laughs.

   I laugh too. She gets so giddy when I tell her about Ivan. Sometimes, I think mom wants us to be more than friends. 

   "I told him not to anyway." 

   She's looking straight through me, at this point she seems to be happy and distracted and that's a good thing. I'm distracted too.

   "Mom!"

   "Uh? What?"

   "Stop looking at me like that, and don't ask like how," I say. 

She laughs again. "Don't mind me baby," she smiles. "You were saying?" 

   "He's coming first thing in the morning. The real morning may be around breakfast."

   "That's good. You two could go out after breakfast." 

   "Really? Like go out-go out, or just a walk outside in the compound like the last time?"

   "Do whatever you want."

   "Mom. You don't have to."

   "What, don't you want to?"

   "We're just friends, remember?" I put down my bowl. She puts hers down too. Her face says it all, she's ready for a serious conversation about boy matters with her teenage daughter.

   "I thought you liked him-liked him?" she asks

   "And I thought you said eighteen?" I ask her, and she rolls her eyes

   She looks at me and I can read her thoughts, 'how about now that eighteen is not so sure?' Tears form in her eyes as she tries to conceal her sadness. 

   "Mom, stop." I pull her face to look at mine. "It's okay. I'm fine right now. I'll be fine for a lot of now's." I smile just so she can smile too. 

   "Boma. . ."

   "Look at it this way, you're getting married to the love of our lives, finally." She smiles.

   It's working. I continue, "I'm graduating high school, I got to do that. I know you want me to get to do a lot of other things and trust me, I don't know how, but I will. Don't think about today anymore, let's just pretend it never happened."

   "How are you the one consoling me?" The tears drop. I wipe them, fighting back at mine.

   I scoot closer to her, resting my head on her boobs. She buries her face in my hair, it's her weird fetish for whenever she gets nervous.

   "Because I have a lot more to lose if you're unhappy," I say. 

  Pulling my blanket tighter, she drops another cinnamon scented kiss on my forehead. I like it here.

   "Saturday, I'll let him take you to prom." She whispers. I turn my head up, she smiles and wipes her tears.

   Mom means the universe and all its alternates to me. 
 

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