White Onions: A short story by Adeayo Adekunle

She allowed the tears to flow freely as she chopped the onions. It didn’t matter anymore if the tears were the remnants of her pain or from cutting the onions—white onions.  Nifemi would be four in August, she would start asking questions. Questions Ireti wished she wasn’t obligated to answer.  She had anticipated that period and she had done everything possible to be ready for it. She no longer felt the heaviness of the need to give her daughter the right answers, but she would.  The time was short and the past happenings made it seem as though the whole universe had ganged up against her to make sure she failed.

It all started three years ago. She had met this good looking gentleman named Fred at a friend’s party and from the moment she saw him, she knew he was the one—the next one. They got talking that night and one thing led to another, so they kissed. It was that that kind of passionate kiss that gives you an assurance that
this means something, the kind of kiss that spelt hope. And Fred lived up to her expectations. They became intimate, like twin souls, like two coats spun from the same wool—another self in a different body. They dined at the Ocean Basket Restaurant; they saw movies at Ozone and the galleria. They vacationed in London and lodged at The Ritz. It was the most wonderful experience.

After Six months had passed her expectations became increasingly high. She had been taking pills to prevent history repeating itself, but she believed it was time to stop. She believed the time was ripe for Fred and her to take their relationship to the next level.  She felt like she owed him for all the love and care and she felt guilty for preventing his seed from taking root in her.  She decided to put an end to the guilt, so she told him—everything; About Ladi and how she bore him a daughter, where she was and with whom. When she finished, the questions had started pouring in. Fred had discovered he was six years younger than she was, and that she was a baby mama to a thug.

They were dinning at The Oriental hotel in Victoria Island when the discussion had begun, and they continued in Fred’s car in the parking lot. At 8pm they were still there talking of what could have been. Fred had told her he couldn’t do it. That he couldn’t father another man’s child. At that moment she thought she had heard someone else—maybe from the radio. It couldn’t have been Fred who said that. The shock reverberated through her being and it shook her like an earthquake. When she looked at his eyes, they were still those soft, brown deep-set eye balls she had always known and they reminded her of those moments of wild passion when her body will shake and those same brown eyes will bore into hers, at the peak of pleasure. She knew from that instant that there will be none of those days anymore.

...To be Continued Next Week.

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