Stay with me CEO

lanned to take with me to the funeral and a leather bag filled with gold jewelry. Musa can carry the rest of the luggage for me another time. So that's it: fifteen years here, and although my house isn't on fire, all I'll take with me is a bag of gold and a change of clothes.

The things that matter are inside me, locked in my chest like a tomb, where they will remain forever, my trunk of buried treasures. I leave the house. The air is chilly, and on the horizon the dark sky is turning a violet hue with the rising sun. Musa is leaning against the car, cleaning his teeth with a toothpick. He spits into a mug as I approach and puts the toothpick in his jacket pocket. He opens the car door, we shake hands, and I climb into the backseat. Musa turns on the radio and searches for a station. He chooses one where the day's broadcast is beginning with the national anthem. The doorman waves as we pull out of the condominium. The road stretches out before us, shrouded in a blanket of darkness that fades into the dawn as it leads me back to you. 2 ILESA, 1985 ONWARDS I soon realized that they had come prepared for war.

I could see them through the glass panels of the door. I could hear them chattering. For almost a full minute they didn't seem to notice that I was standing on the other side. I wanted to leave them outside and go back upstairs to sleep. Maybe if they stayed out in the sun long enough they would melt into puddles of black mud. Iya Martha's buttocks were so big that if they melted they would completely cover the cement steps leading up to our door.

Iya Martha was one of my four mothers; she was my father's eldest wife. The man with her was Baba Lola, Akin's uncle. Both of them had their backs bent against the sun and their faces set in a grimace of determination. But as soon as I opened the door, they stopped chattering and smiled. I could guess the first words that would come out of the woman's mouth. I knew it would be an exaggerated display of a bond that had never existed between us. "Yejide, my precious daughter!" Iya Martha said with a big smile, covering my cheeks with her damp, fat hands. I smiled back, kneeling down to greet them. "Welcome, welcome. God must have woken up thinking of me today. That's why you're here," I said, bowing again after they'd entered and settled into the living room. They laughed. "Where's your husband? Did we find him at home?" Baba Lola asked, looking around as if I might have hidden Akin under a chair. "

Yes, sir, he's upstairs. I'll call him, but first I'll get you something to drink. What should I prepare for you to eat? Mashed yam?" The man glanced at my stepmother as if, while rehearsing the drama that was about to be performed, he hadn't read that part of the script. Iya Martha shook her head emphatically. "We can't eat. Go get your husband. We have important things to discuss with you both." I smiled, left the living room, and headed toward the stairs. I wondered what "important things" they had come to discuss. Several of my husband's relatives had already come to our house to discuss the same issue. The discussion consisted of them talking while I listened on my knees. On these occasions, Akin would pretend to listen and take notes while in reality he was writing down a list of things to do the next day. No one in that series of delegations could read or write, and everyone felt intimidated by those who could. They were impressed that Akin wrote down his words.