Julie Iromuanya - Mr. and Mrs. Doctor

A pause. A breath.

He reached for Ifi’s hand. His hand lingered for a moment before she accepted it. They could move forward as one.

Each of the locks came undone. Three locks.

Cheryl stood there, the keys shaking in her trembling fingers. She kicked the door open, placed her hands on her hips, and glared at Job. “Excuse me,” she said, her voice wavering. “I’m not going anywhere, okay? This is my house too. This is mine.”

“Go before we call the police.” Ifi rose to the center of the room. She stood face to face with Cheryl with the tough, stubborn look Job had grown used to seeing on his mother, his sisters, his aunts. He remained behind her and allowed them to have it out. “You get out of here, you crazy woman. Out of my house,” Ifi said.

Cheryl stammered. Her voice trembled and warbled. “B-but, that ain’t fair!” Her gaze implored, full of tears. For a moment, it was almost as if she was begging Ifi. “What he’s doing, it ain’t fair. It ain’t fair.” Composure finally came to her. “I ain’t going anywhere. This is my house too. I own it. Job owns it. We both own it.” She cut through the room and picked up a worn leather handbag next to the dining room table. Sure enough, there was the deed to the house. She held it up triumphantly.

For the second time that day, Ifi looked at Job with that look, a look that said, What have you done?

“You can’t kick me out of my house,” Cheryl said. “I’m your ex-wife. This is our house.” She glared at Ifi, the look of a child who has stolen bubblegum. “Did you know that? Your ol’ man here. Me and him were married. Before you were ever even in the picture. And you wouldn’t be here. And him neither. If it wasn’t for me.” She looked to Job. “Don’t think for a second that I still love you,” she said. “It’s business. It’s all business. It’s papers.” There was a familiar ring to it, like the day they met.

“You refuse to go?” Ifi seemed truly confused.

But Cheryl didn’t look at Ifi. Instead, she forced her glare on him, a plaintive expression that said, Don’t make me. “Job, you fight me on this, I’ll call the cops. They’ll come get you. You know it.”

It was true. They’d see his color, they’d hear his accent, and they’d take him away and lock him in a cell. They’ll beat me, he thought. They’ll search my body. A ring began in Job’s ears as the flashing camera bulbs blinked in his eyes. Heat filled his face. She’d take him to court, and she’d win everything.

She was crying again. “You take this house away, I have nothing.” There was penance in her tone, but it couldn’t erase what they’d all acknowledged. All of what she said was true. They would take him away. They would leave her, the woman, the white American, the house.

“I’ll have nothing. Can’t you see?” She was sorry. Very sorry. She must have known she had done it all wrong. Job hated her. He could tell that she saw it on his face. She pressed harder. “I’ll have nothing. Nothing.” Actually, she was begging. “No home. No Luther,” she said. “No Victor.”

At the sound of Victor’s name, something in Ifi broke. Job could see it happening before his eyes. Her face moved, just a piece. The rest of it was still. And then he knew he’d lost her, completely this time. It was over now. He felt sure of it. Suddenly, he hated Cheryl. She had ruined everything. She had ruined his chances at a future. How could he and Ifi grow together? How could they rebuild their future? Victor was never Cheryl’s. She bought him a teddy bear, candy, ice cream. She fixed him apple slices with peanut butter. That was it. The boy didn’t even like the apple slices. He always spat them out when she wasn’t looking. He buried the seeds, said he wanted an apple tree to grow. That was it. That’s not a mother, he thought.

He advanced on her.

“Job. No,” Ifi said. A wrinkle rested on her brow as she thought. All of a sudden, she was all action. A roll of electrical tape was on the floor, near the back wall.

For the first time, Job noticed that the hole in their living room wall was no more. He gawked in surprise. Even the room was tidy, everything put away. From his place by the door, he could see that the dishes were washed and stored in the cabinets. It was as if in his absence their life had been lifted up and set almost right. Almost. Until this, he thought.

In awe, Job and Cheryl watched as Ifi ran a thick, jagged line of electrical tape down the middle of the hardwood floor, from the front door through the dining room and the kitchen. Solomon’s judgment.

“It’s all business,” she said.

He saw his life as Solomon dictated: On one side, a couch, half the cracked television, half the dining room table, half the kitchen; Cheryl on one side, Ifi on the other; Cheryl crouched to the floor, nothing but a soggy towel; Ifi with a hard look on her face, a look so hard that Job knew he’d never be able to penetrate it. Maybe they’d divorce. Maybe they wouldn’t, not in the courts anyway. Instead, Ifi would continue on at the motel and make her half of the mortgage payments. She’d send money home to her cousins. Cheryl would make the other half of the mortgage payments, but she’d always be a little late. Ifi would cook jollof rice and egusi soup on her half of the stove, and Cheryl would boil hot dogs and drink Slim-Fast shakes on the other side. Over one half of the sink, Ifi would straighten her hair with a pressing comb; over the other half, Cheryl would suds hers with strawberry-scented shampoo. A neat stack of cookbooks and newspapers would rest on one side of the dining room table. On the other, a messy stack of detective novels, romance novels, books about traveling the world.

His face felt hot. His ears were thick. Suddenly, he couldn’t tell the two women apart. He’d reversed their faces and bodies, Cheryl’s bleached face on Ifi’s ashy brown legs. Ifi’s plaited hair wisping around Cheryl’s freckled forehead. This will be my world, he thought in horror. It can’t work. It can’t possibly work.

“Nonsense,” Job said. All he needed was to undo this, reach over and undo this. The Great Wall of China. The Berlin Wall. It would come down. It must. He began to unstick the tape. But it wouldn’t come up. Not easily, anyway. He marched over the line. A silly line, just tape, he told himself. In the kitchen, he shifted through drawers, looking for a knife, any knife. A butter knife. Peeling at the tape did no good. It was fixed, hard and fast. On his hands and knees, he worked himself up into a sweat, scraping at the tape, peeling with the bits of his fingernails. Dirt and dust trapped in the floorboards itched his nose, his face leered that closely. He glanced up. It was a long line. I’ll never remove it all. Yet he couldn’t stop.

A knock. The door. Three sudden sharp pings of the doorbell.

Through the screen, they all could see him standing there, his round gut set on two spindly legs. Never in his life had Job been so glad to see his dear friend. Emeka.

October advanced, yet it still felt hot and humid. Out in the bush, it stank of cow dung. Emeka and Job sat in his SUV riding 75. Job had bragged over beers — made it sound more like a silly anecdote, something to laugh over, made it sound like once the night was over, he could go home — and Emeka ate it up. “Crazy women,” Job said, “A-mer-eeka. Nigeria. Alaska. They are all crazy.”

They were filled with beers and the sight of strippers with bruised thighs. They both had liked one the best, shiny blond hair, lithe movements. Twenty-two at most. Only he couldn’t remember if it was him who liked her or if it was Emeka who liked her. Emeka had a thing for blondes. Said she was Swedish in a laughable mixture of Irish and Australian syllables. Like the rest of the dancers, she was some girl from Seward or North Platte. None of that mattered, though. All he could remember was her look when Emeka introduced them both, an engineer and a doctor. They were sweating. She hung on to them all night, until close. They just kept paying up, charging the night to their MasterCards. At the end of her song, she even slipped them her number. She told them she would blow job their brains in.