Julie Iromuanya - Mr. and Mrs. Doctor

He felt pleased. Then he remembered the phone call, his father and his sisters all looking in on him with hard, confident glares as they dropped him off at the Port Harcourt airport. “Docta,” the driver had said, taking his bags from him. And no one had corrected the boy. No one, not even Job — at first. They were all okay with it, the pretending. But Job couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t do the dance anymore, not for them, not for anyone. Maybe that was why Ifi had revealed his secret to his father.

As the boy had set his bags on the curb, Job leaned in and whispered to the boy so only he could hear. There was one bag left, the short, black briefcase containing the stethoscope. Job pushed it into the boy’s arms. “I am no doctor,” he had said. It sounded right in his ears. He was finally owning up, doing what the Americans on the talk shows Ifi craved did, spilling their guts to the world with no shame. He said it all. He confessed. “I am a nurse’s aide, and I am a meatpacker. I am no more a father. I am not even a first son.”

The boy’s face had squeezed up in confusion, then protest. He forced the bag forward, back into Job’s arms. There wasn’t enough English in him to piece together the meaning of Job’s words. Or it was merely his disbelief. The boy tried harder. He clutched at Job’s other bags. He rearranged them. He wiped away the dust that had settled on them. Instead of merely setting them at the curb, he raced ahead to the airport entrance, lugging all the bags, including the briefcase, with difficulty. He believed he had done something wrong, that he was being scolded.

Job handed the briefcase back to the boy. Before the boy could force it back into his arms, he held it there, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a wad of Naira. He paid the boy a hefty tip — even bigger than anything the boy would’ve expected from a doctor — and from the car, his father looked on in approval. The boy said, “Thankee, Docta.” A low bow.

A sick joke, Job thought then as he did now. He couldn’t go along with it. He couldn’t. Not anymore. Once again, he had reached out to the boy. He grasped him around his collar and shouted into his ear, “No doctor! No doctor!” Twice. Just like that, so the boy could understand.

Still, the boy had arranged his face into a smile. He clutched the notes close to his body, protecting them from Job, bowing as he backed away. “Thankee, Docta.”

He could promise them all, like he had promised Ifi, that he would become a doctor, that he would build their hospital, that it was only a matter of time. They just needed to give him time. But they wouldn’t hear any of it. Would they?

No, they would hear it, he thought. That was the problem. They would believe it. No protest. No questions. They would go along with it. His father would even sell his car, release the driver, so that he could fund the expense one more time. All Job needed to do was say that the imaginary clinic needed another financial backer. He could make up a story about the stock market in America. He could tell them any lie, and his father and mother would willingly oblige. Because they had to. Because they must go on believing in him.

But Job was tired. Only then did he know that he couldn’t come back to Nigeria again. That was what Ifi had said after her aunty died. I can’t go back. Then he understood. Then he understood what it meant for her to fix the house, to make the boy hamburgers and tater tots. She was trying to make America home.

On the ride through the Nebraska highways and streets, he had begun to forgive her. We are in the same place, aren’t we? Two who no longer belonged there, but would never fully belong here: foreign Americans.

But they could have more children. Their offspring would grow up to speak unaccented American English. They would never know of police roadblocks, poor water, or power outages. Their children would marry well and wire funds to their family in Nigeria. He had to make this work. They could pay the mortgage, sell the house, and move somewhere brand new, maybe California. They would buy another house with the profits. They could be housekeepers, nurse’s aides, meatpackers, fruit pickers, whatever the world needed, just to make things work, to leave a piece of space behind for their progeny, to send money to the village for their retirement. And their children would have it better. And they’d take care of Job and Ifi in their old age. And these would be the stories he and Ifi would keep to themselves, of how they had scraped and groveled to build their own palace. But they would never lie.

In spite of his grand plans, there was a problem: Cheryl. She had worked herself up into a sweat. Complexion raw, the freckles seemed to bounce from her face to her arms and back in her jagged movements. Whatever he did now would matter. It would affect the course of everything.

At Eppley, Ifi had handed him the keys. At first she had said nothing but “Welcome.” Then she began with a list of household entreaties: the utilities, the maintenance, and the cable. That was it, as if nothing had changed between them.

He had almost expected her to start in on the boy.

Do you know what your son has done today?

What is it?

Let me tell you what that boy has done today.

Tell me now.

Satan has visited that boy . .

But he said nothing in return, and it was like old times. Sitting there in the car with Ifi, Job felt, for once, that everything would be okay, that they could start over. He took her hand in his. Flat, empty fields spun by as they split off of Interstate 480 onto 80. They could have another child, a girl even. They would hang Victor’s picture on the wall, and his rambunctious eyes would light up every room. They would tell the rest of their children stories about their brother. He would be their Samuel.

If they didn’t do well in school: Victor, your brother, he excelled in his studies.

After soccer practice: Victor, your brother, he could’ve played for the Super Eagles.

When it came time for university: Victor, your brother, he would have been a doctor.

But now, how to put things on the right course? What would Emeka do? What would Samuel do? What would his father do? It’s supposed to be easier here, he thought. In this America. Everything is supposed to fall into place. Opportunity is a ripe melon swinging from a tree. Wasn’t that what they had always told him when he was growing up — his father, the boys at school, his mother? A knock on the tree, and opportunity would fall into your hands and split open. No effort. You would take its seeds, its juice, its marrow, and eat as you pleased. Not this.

He must set things right. He must walk over, turn off the music, and tell Cheryl to leave. That is what Ifi is waiting for, he thought. She was waiting for him to be the man and handle this. He did that. He walked over and pulled the plug on the player. The music halted. Cheryl stopped dancing, arms midswing.

“You bastard,” she said. Purpler than he’d ever seen her, even at the height of climax, she was out of breath. Cheryl took his record player, not that fake digital shit, and slammed it to the floor. The translucent lid popped off and cracked in three places. Fela rolled out to the middle of the floor and whirred before landing flatly. The rest of the player — the handle, the needle, all of it — split into pieces all across the floor. It was an ugly, heavy sound. His record player, broken to pieces. Fela scratched.

In three steps, Job was on her. She glared into his face, ready, but not really. He picked her up by the shoulders.

Ifi gasped. “Job!” she said.

There wasn’t time enough for Cheryl to react before he’d pushed her out the door and onto the stoop. All he heard was her sopping-wet cry as he bolted the door. Three locks.