ROLA
December 1999
Two years in America.
I turned eleven in November. My birthday didn’t fall during Thanksgiving week this time, so Mummy made puff-puff and a boxed cake from the grocery store, the kind you only had to add eggs and oil to. We had a small party in the apartment—just the three of us, plus Abigail and her mother.
Mummy found me a dress from the church donation box, pink with white lace at the sleeves. It was a little tight under the arms and too long at the hem, but when I put it on, I stood in front of the mirror longer than usual.
For the first time in a long while, I thought I looked pretty.
Two years.
In some ways, it felt like forever. I could barely remember Lagos now, could barely summon the details of our compound or my school or the face of Aunty Funke. Those memories were fading, replaced by new ones: the subway, the corner store, Abigail’s laugh, the shade of gray that Brooklyn’s sky turned in winter.
In other ways, it felt like no time at all. Like we had just arrived, were still arriving, would always be arriving. Strangers in a strange land, never quite settling, never quite belonging.
Things were better, though. Objectively better.
Mummy had been promoted at the hotel. She was a supervisor now, which meant slightly better pay and slightly more regular hours. We had even moved into a bigger apartment in the same building—two real bedrooms instead of one.
Toba’s “room” was really a converted storage closet, barely wide enough for a mattress and a small shelf bolted to the wall, but he claimed it proudly anyway.
“We live in a three-bedroom apartment,” he would say whenever he wanted to annoy Mummy.
I had friends at school now. Real friends, not just Abigail. Girls who invited me to birthday parties and passed me folded notes during class. They called our apartment phone to ask for help with homework or projects, and sometimes just to talk.
Nobody really commented on my accent anymore either. Toba said I was starting to sound American now, which felt both exciting and a little sad.
Sometimes I would catch myself saying words differently than Mummy did and feel guilty after, like I was slowly misplacing parts of myself. But mummy was proud.
And Toba was doing better too. He was in ninth grade now—high school—and the bullying had mostly stopped. He had grown taller over the summer, broader through the shoulders. His size made people think twice before trying him. And he wasn’t scared to fight back anymore either.
I was glad for that.
He had finally found his place somehow, somewhere between popular and invisible. The teachers knew his name. The boys on the basketball court called for him sometimes. People laughed at his jokes now instead of his accent.
But.
There was always a but.
As much as I tried to act normal, the nightmares hadn’t stopped.
Not every night anymore, but often enough. Once or twice a week, I would wake up gasping, my heart racing, the man from the stairwell behind my eyes. His hands. His breath. The moment before I bit him, when I was certain—absolutely certain—that I was going to die.
The doctors said this was normal. Mummy had taken me to a free clinic after the third month of nightmares, worried that something was wrong with me. The doctor—a tired-looking woman with kind eyes—had explained about trauma, about how the brain processed fear, about how these things took time to heal.
“She needs to feel safe,” the doctor said. “Support her. Let her know she’s protected. The nightmares will fade eventually.”
They did fade, a little. But they never disappeared entirely. Even now, almost a year later, I could be fine for weeks and then suddenly—out of nowhere—the dream would come. The stairs. The hand. The breath. And I would wake up screaming, and Toba would be there, holding me, whispering that it was okay, that it wasn’t real, that nothing was going to hurt me.
“I’ve got you,” he would say. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
And I would press against him and let his heartbeat slow mine, let his warmth drive away the cold terror, let his presence fill the void the nightmare had opened.
Sometimes I wondered if I would ever be able to sleep without him. If I would ever feel safe on my own, in my own bed, without his arm around me and his breath against my hair.
Sometimes I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
And when the nightmares came, there was only one cure.
“Toba?”
A rustle from the closet-bedroom. Then footsteps. Then my door opening, his silhouette in the frame.
“Nightmare?”
“Yeah.”
He crossed to my bed without another word. Lifted the covers. Slid in beside me. His arms came around me, warm and solid and safe, and I pressed my face against his chest and breathed.
“Same one?” he asked.
“Always the same one.”
“You’re safe now. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“No one’s going to hurt you.”
“I know.”
But knowing wasn’t the same as feeling. And when his arms were around me, I felt safe in a way that no amount of knowing could replicate.
“Toba?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want you to sleep in the closet anymore.”
His arms tightened slightly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean... every night. Sleep here. With me. It’s cold in the closet and lonely and—” I hesitated, searching for the words. “And I need you. I sleep better when you’re here. I feel safer.”
“Rola, Mummy said—”
“Mummy’s not here at night. She’s always working. And I’m tired of being scared in the dark.”
He was quiet for a long moment. I could feel him thinking, weighing, the options.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Until the nightmares stop.”
“What if they never stop?”
“Then...” He didn’t finish the sentence. Maybe because he didn’t have an answer. Or maybe because the answer make me sad if he said out loud.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Go to sleep.”
“You too.”
“I will.”
But he didn’t. I knew he didn’t. I could feel him holding me, feel the tension in his arms, feel the way he listened to every sound in the building, ready to fight anything that threatened me.
My brother. My protector. My home.
* * *
The days fell into a pattern. School, homework, dinner, television if Mummy was feeling generous with the electricity, sleep. On weekends, church—the Nigerian Pentecostal congregation that had adopted us, where Mummy raised her hands and cried during worship. Bored, I sat in the children’s section trying to understand what Jesus had to do with us, with our lives, this city and everything that had happened since we got off that airplane.
Toba came to church too, but he didn’t participate the way Mummy wanted him to. She would scold him in whispers before service, sometimes sharp enough to feel like threats, saying he was inviting the devil into his life with that attitude.
So he sat in the back when he came to church.
Arms crossed. Shoulders stiff. Watching everything and everyone with obvious indifference.
When the pastor talked about faith and trust and God’s plan, Toba’s jaw would tighten. And when the church erupted into “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” around him, he stayed silent.
“Why don’t you like church?” I asked him one Sunday after the service, as we walked home through streets that were emptier than usual because even Brooklyn seemed to rest on Sundays.
“I don’t dislike it.”
“But you don’t believe it either. I can tell.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“I believe in things I can see,” he said finally. “Things I can touch. Things I can protect.”
“Like what?”
“Like you. Like Mummy. Like this.” He gestured at the street around us, the buildings and cars and people. “I believe in what’s real. What’s here. I don’t need a God to tell me right from wrong.”
“But Mummy says—”
“Mummy needs to believe in something bigger than this.” His voice wasn’t unkind, just matter-of-fact. “She needs to think there’s a reason daddy didn’t care about us and why we came here. That it’s part of some plan. Some purpose.”
“Maybe there is a reason.”
“Maybe. Or maybe things just happen. Maybe the universe doesn’t care about us at all, and we have to make our own meaning.”
I thought about that. About a universe that didn’t care. About making our own meaning in a world that didn’t offer any.
“What’s your meaning?” I asked.
He glanced at me, a small crooked smile twisting his tight pink lips.
“You,” he said simply. “You’re my meaning. Keeping you safe. Making sure you’re okay. That’s the only thing I care about.”
I should have felt loved. Should have felt grateful. And I did—those things were there, underneath.
But something else was there too. Something that made my chest and tummy warm. So warm I wanted to be closer to him, as close as two people could possibly be.
I was eleven years old.
I didn’t understand what we were becoming. Didn’t understand the boundaries between us were blurring. Day by day. Night by night. Didn’t understand that the safety I felt in his arms was beginning to transform into a flame that would eventually consume us both.
All I knew was that the world was large and frightening and full of people who might hurt me. And in that world, there was only one person who made me feel truly safe.
Toba.
My brother. My everything.
* * *
Mr. Henry started coming around more often.
Not to our room—Mummy would never allow that. She would never let a man see the cramped space where we lived, the mattresses on the floor, or the hot plate we cooked on because the building’s kitchen was too far away and too dirty. But he appeared at church every Sunday, always finding his way to Mummy’s side during fellowship. And sometimes, during the week, he would show up at the building.
“I was in the neighborhood,” he would say, standing in the hallway, a bag of groceries in his hands. “The plantains at the African market were so fresh, I bought too many. Please, take some.”
Or: “My sister sent garri from home. I cannot finish it alone. For your children.”
Or: “Sister Adunni, your daughter mentioned the heater is broken again. I know a man who can fix it. Let me make some calls.”
Mummy always protested. Always said it was too much, that she couldn’t accept, that he was too kind.
But she always accepted. And sometimes, when she thought we weren’t watching, she would touch the things he brought—the bag of rice, the tin of palm oil, the yams wrapped in newspaper—with something like wonder. Like she had forgotten what it felt like to have someone take care of her.
I was eleven now. Old enough to understand what was happening.
“He likes her,” I told Toba one night, after Mummy had gone to bed early—exhausted, as always, but smiling slightly from the soup Mr. Henry had dropped off that afternoon. “Deacon Henry. He really likes her.”
“I know.”
“Do you think she likes him back?”
Toba was quiet for a long moment. We were in my room—our room, really, since he slept here every night now—lying side by side in the darkness.
“I think,” he said slowly, “that Mummy is scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“Of wanting things. Of hoping. Of letting someone in and having them hurt her.”
“Like Daddy hurt her?”
“Yes. Like Daddy. Like everything that made her run away and come here.”
Mummy was Daddy’s second wife. According to what Toba had heard, Daddy’s family had wanted him to marry her, but he had already gone ahead and married another woman—one who had given him a child before Mummy ever entered the picture. Whenever mummy did something he didn’t like, daddy insulted her easily, swearing at her in Yoruba and calling her names.
She fought with the other wives too, never backing down when words were thrown at her. People in our compound said she was “strong,” but Toba and I saw the parts of her that strength was covering.
Even now, I noticed the way she flinched sometimes when men raised their voices. She kept everyone at arm’s length. Even us. Her children.
“Maybe it would be good for her,” I said. “To have someone. Mr. Henry seems nice.”
“Nice isn’t the same as safe.”
“What do you mean?”
Toba rolled onto his side, facing me. In the faint light from the window, I could see the outline of his face—the strong jaw he was growing into, the serious eyes.
“I mean that Mummy gave herself to someone once. To Daddy. And look at what it cost her. Her youth. Her freedom. Her whole life in Nigeria. Everything.” He paused. “I don’t think she has it in her to risk that again. Even for someone nice. Even for someone who brings groceries, fixes heaters and makes her laugh.”
“That’s sad.”
“It’s safe. There’s a difference.”
We lay there in silence for a while. From the next room, I could hear Mummy’s breathing—deep and even, finally resting.
“Toba?” I yawned.
“Yeah?”
“Are you ever going to let someone in? When you’re older? Are you going to... find someone?”
The question hung in the darkness between us. I felt him tense beside me, felt the shift in his breathing.
“I already have someone,” he said finally. His voice was low and strange. Almost a whisper.
“Who?” I whispered back.
He didn’t answer. Just reached out and took my hand, threading his fingers through mine.
“Go to sleep, Rola.”
I wanted to push, wanted to make him explain. But his hand was warm in mine, and his presence beside me was solid and safe, and somewhere between one breath and the next, I fell asleep.
* * *
Title reveal
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June 1st looks like a perfect time for the title reveal indeed 🥹
June 1st