Julie Iromuanya - Mr. and Mrs. Doctor

Ifi was not done. She flung open the front door. “Victor,” she said, breathless. “Victor.” In one wide step, she took the broken porch stairs, trampling through the hydrangeas along the side of the house. She pushed past Gladys, who was already at the door. “Victor,” she said again. She was too fast for Gladys.

He took a step back.

Ifi halted. “You are not my Victor.”

“You are not well.”

Hands were on Ifi’s back. She was rising. Have I fallen? she thought.

Gladys propped Ifi against her doughy side and walked her around the porch and up the stairs into the house. “Get the mail,” she instructed the boy. Gladys sat her down on the couch like a lumpy package. A moment later, Ifi heard the boy’s footsteps following them into the house.

“You are not well, my dear,” Gladys said again. “Why didn’t you call your friends and tell us what happened? If I had not glanced at the newspaper this morning, sef, I would not have known. If I had not seen your husband’s car in the street, I would not have stopped. If my boy had not looked in your window and seen you, we would have gone.”

Gladys was a blur. There were sounds, the clunk of water hitting the pot, the whisper of flames on the range.

“Boy, get away from the glass.” With a broom, Gladys pushed the pieces into a dustpan. A sound like wind chimes as the pieces collected in a heap at the bottom of the rubbish bin. “Look at this floor. Paper everywhere. What have you people done to this table? This kitchen. A hole large enough for a cat in your wall. I tell you, this place is not fit for a human. It smells.” She sifted through the papers scattered about the floor. “I will help you, my dear.”

A warm cup. Ifi’s hands closed around the mug. Her lips parted and the hot, bitter liquid drained into the back of her throat. Her eyes opened. Gladys sat next to Ifi on the couch. Dressed in blue from head to toe, she had a patch of dirt and leaves stuck to her rear. Her headscarf was partially unraveled, and the free ends of her braided ringlets drooped to one side.

Ifi’s eyes took her in, and in one fell swoop Gladys’s lips twisted into a frowning smile. A large tote bag was draped over one arm. She set it down, and the gold bangles at her wrists jingled. “Had Emeka not said, ‘Gladys, my dear, look at this newspaper’ this morning, I would never have known.”

The boy. His name was Michael. When Gladys admonished him for playing among the broken pieces of glass, Michael sighed in exasperation and cut his eyes at his mother. No, Victor would never do that, Ifi thought. Victor would smile that dull smile of his just before trotting away.

“You people have been hiding from us, but I say, we are Igbos in this America.”

Yes, the lips were the right size. The nose the same. The belly the same. The legs, just a shortened version. Still, Ifi thought, He is not my Victor.

“We are brothers and sisters. We are family,” Gladys continued. “We must care for one another.”

Michael tilted his face into the hole in the wall. His fingers found a piece of loose plaster, and he placed the pieces in his mouth. He tasted, balked, and spat the moist chunks back into the darkness. He made a sound. “Blech.”

Gladys forced her fingers into his mouth and plucked out the remaining pieces caught in his teeth. She raised her nose into the air and pinched it closed with her fingers. “This place smells.” Then, “This is unsafe, my dear. One day a big rat will come to your house.” Sifting through her purse, she retrieved a phone and dialed a number. As Ifi watched in silence, Gladys arranged for someone to come and fix the wall.

“Mama, what’s that smell?” Michael asked.

“Shut up,” she said to him.

“Mama, I think you have something on you. Is that doggy doo?”

“This room smells,” Gladys said again. She sniffed and glanced around the room, finding the smell on herself. “ Nshi! ” It was from the neighbor’s dog. In a flurry she disappeared to the kitchen, her sandal backs clicking as they met the hardwood floors. Water. She returned with a damp spot on the back of her blue wrapper dress.

“My dear,” Gladys said on her return, her nose raised, clutching a bag of waste. “You are not taking care of yourself. Take this rubbish.” She sent the boy out with the trash.

Ifi chuckled. Gladys was pretending that the smell came from the bag instead of from her.

“You are not well, oh. Why has your husband left you alone? Why did he not take you with him to bury the child? What kind of husband is it that leaves his wife alone when she is not well?”

The thickness in Ifi’s head thinned until just a bit of vapor fogged her head. More liquid and her mouth opened up too. In a clear voice, she responded, “Because he is with other women.”

Silence. Gladys’s hands trembled. The mug in her hand shook. Brown liquid seeped onto the floor. “I am tired,” she said for explanation. She found a rag in the kitchen and began to wipe. “Emeka works all day, and the boy runs me around the house all night. You see how skinny I am? Like I don’t eat. Because of the boy.” But she was far from skinny. In fact, she had grown rather large and lumpy, her face covered in blemishes.

“My Victor kept me too. He was a noisy baby and a noisy child.”

“He doesn’t allow me sleep. Even now. Ah ah! The boy is four years.” Gladys had an anxious look to her. “I have six daughters. Why must my lastborn give me so much trouble, heh?”

“It is something.” Ifi’s eyes fixed on Michael. The eyes. The lips. The nose.

His feet thudded along the hardwood floors. Now at the window, he glared out at the sun. He picked at his navel — an outie — placed his finger in his ear, tasted it, mixed it with the snot in his nose.

Disgusting. Ifi cringed.

Just the same, she reminded herself, He has the eyes, the lips, the nose. “As if my Victor is walking,” she said to Gladys.

“No,” Gladys said softly, “not at all.”

“The old people would call him ogbanje.”

“Nonsense,” Gladys said.

“My Victor’s spirit cannot rest. My boy’s spirit remains in that boy.”

“You are not a believer of such foolishness,” Gladys said. Still, an unmistakable tremor rippled across Gladys’s face. Ifi knew that Gladys had always been a believer, paying native doctors for years in hopes that she would conceive a son. Like Ifi, they had all heard the stories — from their grandparents and great-grandparents, from their superstitious second cousins or aunts — about the children who refused to remain dead.

“My boy’s spirit does not rest. He was not ready to go. He is a special child.” Ifi frowned. “How long will he live among us this time?”

“Blasphemy,” Gladys said, her hands reaching out to the boy. They closed around his wrist protectively.

“Ow!” he said.

Gladys turned on him. “Shut up! Don’t talk back to your mother.”

He let out a fiendish wail that escalated into a dog’s snarl.

“No, not like my Victor at all,” Ifi said softly. “Victor does not walk with malice.” But then she wondered, Has he changed so much? A descent into another world and back. An unjust end. Perhaps he has learned jealousy, she thought.

“It is my boy, Victor, born again in Michael. It must be. It has to be him,” she pronounced. Then frowning, she added, “My Victor could not leave me without saying good-bye. He has gone a long way only to come back to his mother. Gladys, dear, you can see it. Can’t you see it?”

A wave of tenderness washed over Ifi. She reached out to Gladys in concern. “I am afraid for you, my friend.” This boy is in danger, she thought. His body was slight. He would need to be fed well at the proper intervals. The food must be prepared properly. Because he was blessed and also cursed, his sisters surely despised him. Therefore, it only made sense that they should not drink from the same glasses anymore. And never, never must the boy ride a bicycle. This time, Ifi decided, I will protect my Victor.