Adanma,
Words fail me as I write to you. Today I went to visit my husband at the nursing home again. I knew my faith, my constant belief in hope would destroy me. I took along with me a memory, something that gave my legs strength to go and visit him one last time. The nurses already told me not to come anymore, I see the pity in their eyes, they say that coming here isn't good for my health.
He stared blankly at the black and white picture.Tears threatened to flow down, heavy words stuck in my chest. It was the best day of our lives and he didn't remember.
How can one not remember his wedding day?
Why did I come? My heart, it begins to hurt all over again.
I remember meeting my husband like it was yesterday.
Someone once told me flowers are the earth’s way of
laughing. I sought for undefined happiness. The one no one understood to take
away from me. Like the simple joy from touching a hundred flowers and not pick
one. Earth would have been my paradise. If it were not becoming as selfish as
the humans living in it. I found myself walking down the street of the
vegetable village market that day, and I felt the heaviness of his stare, I felt his eyes
caress the back of my neck down my waist. My skin flushed and my insides tingled. I was too nervous to turn around, I felt I walked awkwardly. I walked into one of the shops and sat down
ordering a Moringa tea, that was when I noticed him. His blue eyes were almost
transparent so you could see his soul which shone brightly with careless
excitement. He smiled at me then and I tried to avoid his eyes. That evening
ended with my dark cocoa skin being loved by this white stranger. It was almost
amazing how we could be so different and fit in so perfectly, his pink knuckles
gently stroked my face as he looked into my brown eyes as he watched me orgasm.
He gave me my first orgasm, it felt like rain, like I was the heavens and I had
released a downpour of pleasure on myself. In that moment I was complete, I was
alive, I could feel. No one ever made love to me like this, most of the men I
knew would rather turn you round and fuck you like a dog. I grew up believing men never cared so much
about a woman’s feelings or her orgasms, only their satisfactions. Most of the
friends I had faked orgasms, some didn’t even bother. Kemi told me she was sure Tunde was deaf
because all she did was make horrid harmony to any song that came to her mind
then. Salmat just cried, Niyi was always
so violent, thrusting into her too hardly and pulling her hair.
You know that moment when you just know. Things may not
always be perfect, things may end disastrously, tomorrow may be the end of it,
but you just know that this person is the love of your life. That you know your
heart will never be able to love any other person, that you will never be able
to give yourself the way you will to this person. That you both share the same soul. This day was my moment. We got married weeks later and
we had many other nights, and I had many other orgasms.
And then Alzheimer's happens, and we are strangers again. I am lying to you if I tell you I understand white men and their diseases. How can someone just forget, forget that he has a wife. He is not the same man, he is like a toddler who is learning everything afresh.
I want to come home. I am tired of living in his apartment that intoxicates me with his stench. I miss the hot Nigerian weather and the busy Lagos streets. I don't know how Mama would feel, I remember how she made it clear that she never wanted anything to do with me. Tell her I wouldn't mind having Apostle do the purification rites on me, this place is driving me mad. Maybe she was right and I am sorry for being the devil's child.
I just want to come home. I hope you are well, I am looking forward to seeing you.
Your sister,
Felicia.
