Present Day, 2024, Lagos, Nigeria.
Karen Ezeani’s plans for the evening did not include Mama dying.
She shifted to adjust her willowy frame by the transparent door to the balcony, cradling a glass of bourbon—her refuge when she felt troubled. She could not bring herself to enjoy the drink, yet she was drawn to it for no reason other than it seemed to possess the inexplicable formula to dissolve knots of anxiety. Karen’s face contorted as the amber liquid touched her lips, and she drew a sharp breath. The smooth texture trailed a fiery path down her throat, prompting her to tighten her grip on the glass. She waited for the sensation to settle before daring another sip.
Her gaze settled on floodlights on the Ikoyi Link Bridge, a good mile away, brightening the dark skyline. For a minute, she was lost in the steady glow of white light, lured further into her thoughts.
A few hours ago, she had sauntered into the living room, wrapped in a woolen bathrobe, lethargic from a long shower. Barefoot, she reveled in the soft carpet beneath her feet, comforted by the familiar shades and planes of her home in contrast to the work trip to Ghana: the faint smell of sandalwood, pale orange hues from the evening sun reflected off cream walls, stark white sheets of her carefully laid bed—crisp and neat—half-finished books in a wicker chair. Mundane details she would otherwise have ignored now held some significance in the wake of her distress.
She turned away from the hypnotic allure of the lights, swallowing a lump in her throat—not from the bourbon, but from a twinge of shame at her annoyance when Mama’s name had beamed on her phone screen. She had stared at the vibrating gadget for longer than necessary before pressing the green button.
To her surprise, Uloma’s sobbing filled her ears once she picked up the phone, replacing the rich tenor of Mama’s voice she had expected.
“Eh, Adesuwa, oh! Mama is dead, Mama is dead, oh!”
Karen’s brows furrowed. “Uloma, what happened?”
“Mama, Mama is dead.” Her cousin sobbed, “Mama is gone, Adesuwa!
“What did you say?” Her eyes widened in shock, numbness seeping into her. “Uloma, Mama, what happened to my mother?”
Her cousin’s loud sniffling filled the heavy silence.
Karen’s voice trembled. “Uloma, what did you say?”
“Mama died this morning, Adesuwa,” Uloma wailed in Igbo. “Ewoo! Mama, eh!”
Her limbs gave way beneath her, and she grabbed the dining table’s edge for support as though the earth had tilted.
The line made distorted noises until the static dissipated into sounds of shouting and weeping. The cacophony of anguish at the other end of the call reverberated from a distance. Karen’s mind pivoted into a comatose, awake yet dreamlike frenzy as if plunged into a trance. Her eyes were fixed on the long arm of the wall clock, watching, yet unaware of its clockwork movement ticking away the minutes. Mama died. Karen squeezed her eyes shut, counting from one to ten. Her eyes brimmed with tears, and she squeezed them shut again, but they spilled from the corners of her eyelids. Karen gave up, her glazed eyes settling on her other well-manicured, quavering hand as the news from her cousin continued in a loop. She pressed the cell phone closer to her ear to keep it from falling through a trembling hand, feeling the device warm against her skin.
“I went to give her medicine, oh!” Uloma continued sobbing, lamenting until a woman’s voice filtered into the call.
“Ndo,” the woman consoled Uloma, hissing and gnashing her teeth.
A jarring sound from the neighbor’s stereo knocked her out of her daze, and the music she had hummed along to in the past threatened to grate her nerves. She loosened her grip on the phone, her hand stinging from a cramp, wiping the other hand on the bathrobe.
“I should have known!” Her cousin choked out another wail. “I should have known, oh! Mama said she felt sick yesterday. If only I knew, eh! Mama, eh! Why, Mama?”
At last, her body resumed its sensitivity to feel and to be aware. Karen listened to the younger woman weep. Uloma, the offspring of Mama’s younger brother, Mama’s closest relative, had lost her parents at the age of seven in a fatal accident on the way home from a wedding in Abia State, and she had lived with Mama since. For her part, Karen’s mouth had gone dry, but she swallowed what little saliva she mustered. Wrapping her free arm around her stomach, she clutched at the familiar guilt that pooled into a painful cyst when she thought of Mama— images of her mother playing in her mind like still frames from a silent movie; she squeezed her watery eyes shut at intervals, determined that no tears would escape. She did not want to cry; she would not, not after alienating herself from Mama.
Stung by the news, the guilt, everything at once, she gathered the strength to disconnect the call, setting the offending device on the dining table in clunky movements and wiping both hands on the bathrobe in repeated swirls.
Hard as she tried, it proved impossible to curb her body’s natural response, and pain had to run its course. Her breaths turned into short-winded gasps, each inhale and exhale cutting through her nose. The trembling in her hands grew worse with each passing second, and she clenched her fist, welcoming the smarting from embedded nails in her palm. The tears she had reined back rolled down her cheeks in vengeance.
Karen sat for a long time, her tears now suspended, as her gaze remained locked on a point in the bare wall, anchored to emptiness as though tethered by a rope. She sat until her shoulders slumped further in fatigue; her body, limp and exhausted from the sudden onslaught of emotions, demanded rest. Her movements to the bedroom were in a blur; she stripped off her bathrobe in mechanical motions, aware yet unaware of her actions, pressing a nude body between cool sheets, haunted by Mama’s saddened eyes.
*****
Excerpt from YOUR TOMORROW WAS TODAY published by Silver Drive Press. Copyright © 2026 by Oyindamola Dosunmu.
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