What She Left Out

Somto ordered the fish pepper soup and then immediately began talking about someone from her office who had done something unforgivable involving a shared printer and a confidential document, and Nneka laughed in the right places and added the right responses and was grateful, genuinely grateful, for a conversation that required nothing from her.

They met at this restaurant every other week. A small place in Surulere that Somto had found three years ago and declared perfect, and it was perfect, low lighting and honest portions and a waitress who remembered that Nneka did not take chilli.

“How’s the planning?” Somto asked, when the printer story reached its conclusion.

“Moving,” Nneka said. “We found the venue.”

“We?”

“Damilare and I.”

The pause before she said Damilare’s name was less than a second. She felt it. She was not certain Somto felt it.

“Which one?”

“A garden space in Ikoyi. Bougainvillea on the wall, good light. You’ll love it.”

Somto pointed her spoon at her. “See, this is what I mean. You describe a wedding venue like you’re writing copy for it. Bougainvillea on the wall, good light. Who talks like that?”

“People who work in brand strategy.”

“People who are keeping themselves at a slight distance from their own wedding,” Somto said, not unkindly.

Nneka picked up her glass of water.

“I’m not keeping distance. I’m just not the kind of person who cries at fabric swatches.”

“Nobody’s asking you to cry at fabric swatches.” Somto leaned forward slightly. “I’m asking if you’re happy. Actually happy. Not performing happy, not managing happy. Actually.”

The question sat between them on the table like something Nneka had to decide whether to pick up.

Tell her about the venue visit, something in her said. Tell her Damilare wasn’t there. Tell her about two hours in a garden with someone who asked if you actually liked any of it. Tell her about the name on the phone.

“I’m excited,” Nneka said. “It’s a lot to manage at once but I’m excited.”

Somto looked at her for a moment, the way she sometimes looked at her, like she was reading something written in a language she almost spoke.

“Okay,” she said. She picked up her spoon again. “Tell me about the venue.”

Nneka described the garden. She described the bougainvillea and the afternoon light and the coordinator with her clipboard. She talked about the catering options and the layout and the way the space would look in the evening with the right lighting.

She did not mention that Damilare had not been there.

She did not mention that his brother had.

She did not mention that she had not once thought about the name Reena during those two hours, and that the absence of that particular anxiety had felt like breathing fresh air after a long time indoors.

She said nothing about any of it and the nothing sat inside her chest the whole drive home, solid and specific, shaped exactly like the things she had decided not to say.

She changed into something comfortable and sat on the edge of the bed and thought about why she had done that. Not lied. She had not lied. But she had edited, and she had been editing things for long enough to know that editing was its own kind of untruth.

Why didn’t you just tell her?

Because saying it out loud makes it a thing.

It’s already a thing.

She lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

Damilare came in at half past nine. He smelled like his office, like the particular combination of air conditioning and the cologne he wore every day, reliable and familiar. He kissed her forehead and asked how Somto was.

“Good,” Nneka said. “Same as always.”

He changed and got into bed beside her and was asleep in eleven minutes. She had counted, without meaning to.

She lay in the dark beside the sound of his breathing and thought about a question nobody had asked her before last week.

Do you actually like any of this?

She was still thinking about it when she finally fell asleep.

To be continued…