He sits and counts the days and the hours
mama has been away to the market
for seven market weeks now
and they all say that this market she went to
is located in some very far away place
and he tells himself that he will ask her
why she did not wake him the morning she left
to go to this far market to say good bye
He had woken up to learn she left for the market very early
at that time of day when the dew still holds back the lizard’s tail
and slows down their running,
at that time of day when night spirits
are hurrying back to their abodes
before their sworn enemy the sun catches
them out and abroad
and so he waits and asks
“when will mama return from the market
other children’s mothers come back and go again
and I sit, waiting for mine, mine who will not come back
mama, when will you return from this market”
And he wished she would come back
prayed to Chineke and his personal chi
to hasten her return
so that he could tell her
how everybody had been so nice to him lately
and how papa no longer scolded him
how nda Uzoemena had come and taken
him to mama’s maternal village four days
after mama had gone to the market
and he had stayed two days
he would tell her of all the woman who hugged him
all saying Nwam-oo
and the nice meals they all competed to cook and bring for him
and Nne, his grandmother who held and hugged him,
and the hushed whispers of the women when he was there
and how he thought Nne cried the day he arrived
and how when he asked why
she was said it was from joy of seeing him,
him, son of her only daughter Nwabuaku
He would tell her when she came back
that once or twice in the night
he heard papa sobbing
when papa thought he was asleep
and he smiled as
he imagined how mama would then tease papa,
papa who always said men do not cry
yes, there was a lot he would tell her
how nda Nneka now came over to cook for papa and him
in the evenings and would stay to chat with them afterwards
how her onubu soup tasted more bitter than hers
and how he had resisted the first time she tried to bathe him
a boy of four was a man he prpoudly told her
and needed his privacy
he would tell how he overheard nda Uchechi and nda Onyemauche
discussing the other day
and one of them, he couldn’t remember which one of them,
saying that papa
would need another woman to look after the house, and how
they said Auntie Chimaoge would be perfect for the role
and he wondered why, but he would ask mama
and he knew she would smile softly and shyly and explain
as she always does
and he still sits and waits, missing her with each day that passess
not knowing when she will come back,
very sure she would come home
but telling himself that he would not tell her any of these stories
until she had given him the ripe udala, the akara and yes, the utara ukwa
she would have bought for him from the market,
and then he would hug her and hold her
and ask her to never ever leave him lonely for this long again .
Reflections 