Julie Iromuanya - Mr. and Mrs. Doctor

Job’s snores rose from deep within his belly. Ifi stared into his face, watching as his nostrils widened with each inhalation. She picked up the letter from the floor and placed it in her pocket. She fixed their food.

At mealtime, they ate silently. After hesitating, Job asked, “What do you write about to Aunty?”

“I tell her,” Ifi said truthfully, “whatever it is that she would like to know.”

Job left for work. Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Janik knocked at the door. Ifi didn’t answer it. She put the light out, switched off the radio, and crawled into bed. She reminded herself of how a simple explanation from Job would suffice. Any explanation. When the knocks finally stopped, she rose one last time and set the letter on the couch, where Job would place his briefcase on his return.

WHEN JOB ARRIVED HOME FROM WORK THE NEXT MORNING, THE phone was ringing. He cringed at its sound, hoping it wasn’t Cheryl. It was only Emeka. Emeka’s breath caught on the phone. Gladys was in the delivery room. “My boy is coming,” Emeka said with triumph. “He is here.”

Although they left in the same car, it was as if Job and Ifi arrived separately. By the time they made it to the maternity ward, the contractions had stopped, and the baby had been delivered: he was dead. His body was cold and colorless in the incubator. His features were immovable, like a waxy ball of clay carved with a fine needle. A patch of wet, dark curls was splayed across his crown, as if someone had pressed a palm onto his head.

Each of Emeka’s daughters waited in a line, and one by one they peeked over the glass at the lifeless baby. The room was respectfully somber. And there was Gladys. To one side of her bed was a photograph recently taken, the one Job imagined them sitting for the evening he had collected Ifi from the airport. Emeka and Gladys were surrounded by their daughters, all striking in their likeness to both parents, the youngest in ribbons and hair baubles. Even the eldest daughters stood in the picture, women who in their silly youth could not yet embody Gladys’s grace.

Today, Gladys was drowning in hospital sheets, her face turned toward the sunlight that poured in through the windows. She looked bloated, like flayed dough. Yet somewhere, hidden, was her effortless beauty. Seeing her there, exhausted yet beautiful, Job felt the familiar tug to his chest.

One of Emeka’s daughters was peering at the baby, her gaze incredulous. Her smallest finger darted forward and hooked into the baby’s nostril. She wiggled it around. No one noticed right away, except for Job.

Thinking about it after the fact, Job was struck by how quickly everything happened. How immediately after, Emeka had pulled the little girl to his body and embraced her tightly, and gently said, “Your brother.” How suddenly, almost thoughtlessly, Emeka’s arm had sliced through the air and thwacked the back of her head, hard, like he was catching a falling pebble. Her chin had butted forward, connecting with the rim of the incubator. Her lip had split open. Blood seeped through the crack into the space between her teeth, and a pink film washed over them. Her shrieks filled the room.

For a moment, no one knew what to do except for Emeka, whose arms were tightly wound around her body. He kissed her forehead. “Come now,” he said. “Stop this crying. Stop this.”

In answer, the girl shrieked, “Mommy!” She flung her body at her mother.

Several nurses entered the room. They saw the split lip, now an angry lump. Their gazes were a collection of fury, but they didn’t know where to look or how it happened. Maybe the girl fell. Maybe it was one of her sisters. Or maybe it was him.

Gladys kneaded her fingers into her forehead. A haggard, insistent sound from deep inside her chest hissed, “Go.” She turned to Emeka. “Ngwa, get out!”

At first, no one left the room. Then, gradually, each made their way toward the door. One of the nurses attempted to pry the daughter loose from Gladys, but she was unrelenting. The nurse looked at Ifi. “Go with your aunt,” she said.

For the first time, the little girl stopped crying. “That’s not my aunt,” she said through hiccups. “Mommy says to call her Aunty, but she’s not my real aunty.”

“Well, you don’t have to call her Aunty if you don’t want to,” the nurse said.

“Good,” the girl said. Then after a moment, she reconsidered. “But I want to.” The nurse finally had her hand, but the girl took it back. She glared accusingly at the woman and took Ifi’s hand instead. They walked out of the room together, her cries softened to a just-audible hum.

Job was already waiting with the line of girls in their jeans, denim skirts, and cotton tights, when Emeka finally emerged from the room. He stalked past the row and Job followed. Emeka had made a bad impression, and Job couldn’t help but feel vindicated. After a look at the open doorway, he imagined Gladys on the other side of it, swallowed by grief. He was immediately ashamed.

A circuitous route of glowing corridors and elevators took them outside to the parking lot. Emeka climbed into his car, a shiny SUV with panels of glowing lights on the dash. At first Job waited outside, thinking that once Emeka straightened up and collected himself, he’d go back to the room, to his wife, to his life. Instead he started the car, and Job was forced to occupy the passenger seat.

“Where are you going?” Job asked.

“We are blessed to have the sun on such a day,” Emeka said with cheer.

It infuriated Job. Why must he pretend now? Better to apologize and beg for mercy. “You be careful, my friend,” he said. “Those nurses will call police for what you did to that child.”

Emeka laughed, tightly.

“And what of Gladys?” Job asked.

“Oh, she’ll be fine.” He nodded vigorously. “They’ll be fine.”

After the second circle around the parking lot, it was obvious they had nowhere to go.

“Let us get a drink,” Job said. “It will calm you.”

“You think so,” Emeka said. A look of spite was on his face, a look that Job recognized almost immediately from the little girl. He glared at Job, but turned out of the parking lot. They made their way up tree-lined streets until they approached the cluster of buildings that was Omaha’s downtown. All the bars were closed at that early hour, so they drove until they hit Highway 6. The roads were mostly empty, occupied by scattered fence posts and morose-looking cows with shining marble eyes peering out onto the road.

A billboard alerted them to the only building for miles, the Cattle Crawl. It was a stout brick building surrounded by a ring of rusted cars and trucks. After a moment, they climbed out of the car. The light was on, a flickering pink neon sign that said Come Right In. A man was just putting his cigarette out when he saw them. He shifted his considerable heft to hold the door open and let the two pass.

The lights inside were a misty fog that spread through the room, illuminating stools and tables streaked from wet rags and a scuffed, empty stage. A howling country song murmured through the room. Men sat hunched over the bar. One woman with an old, sour face and puckered lips was among them, sucking a murky drink through a straw.

After looking the woman over for a long time, Emeka leaned into Job, but his voice was loud and delighted. “Disgusting!”

They ordered whiskeys straight up, and the bartender brought them out in cloudy glasses packed with ice. Emeka picked up his glass, inspected the smudges along the rim, and shook his head. At the top of the cluster of ice cubes, a small fleck floated. Job was equally disgusted. If he were with anyone else in the world, he would ask the bartender to bring another glass.