Kavita thought it was a phase—that Vivek was just going through something and it would pass. So she prayed and said countless rosaries, rubbing the color off the beads with hundreds and hundreds of Hail Marys until she thought her hands were actually full of grace. She took him to the cathedral to see Father Obinna, the priest who had baptized him and fed him his First Communion. When Vivek came out from their conversation, his forehead was wet with holy water. “Pray some more,” the priest told them, and Kavita believed him, trusted him. If there was something more, something spiritual, wouldn’t the father have seen it? She wasn’t sure. “The Catholic Church can’t do anything,” Mary told her over the phone. “You should allow him to come to Owerri, so I can take him to my own church. They fight these things with holy fire.”

“I don’t know,” Kavita said. “He’s been doing a little better since we got back from the village, you know? He’s eating again, sleeping in his own bed.”

“Has he cut that hair?”

“I don’t think that’s important—”

“Ahn! Kavita. You know how things are here. It’s not safe for him to be walking around Ngwa looking that . . . feminine. If someone misunderstands, if they think he’s a homosexual, what do you think is going to happen to him?”

Kavita’s stomach dropped. The thought had worried her, too, but it was different—more terrifying—to hear it put into words. Vivek couldn’t end up like those lynched bodies at the junction, blackened by fire and stiffened, large gashes from machetes showing old red flesh underneath. Most of them were thieves, or said to be thieves, but mobs don’t listen, and they’d say anything afterward.

“He’s going to be fine,” she told Mary. “He was born here, raised here. People know who he is.”

Mary laughed bitterly. “You think it matters? You don’t know Nigeria. People have killed their neighbors and burned down their houses. He’s not safe, I’m telling you.”

Kavita started to get upset. “Why are you putting that into the world? Vivek isn’t doing anything to anyone.”

“I know it’s hard to hear,” Mary said, softening her voice. “But you know how these men are. The boy is slim, he has long hair—all it takes is one idiot thinking he’s a woman from behind or something, then getting angry when he finds out that he’s not. Because, if he’s a boy, then what does it mean that the idiot was attracted to him? And those kinds of questions usually end up with someone getting hurt. Ekene doesn’t want Chika to cut the boy’s hair out of wickedness, you know. We’re trying to look out for him. Just because he’s half-caste doesn’t mean he’s going to get special treatment forever, not the way he’s behaving. You’re his mother. It’s your job to protect him. I’m telling you, bring him to Owerri. We can help him at the church here.”

“Let me talk to Chika about it,” Kavita answered. It was an excuse she used when she wanted to end a discussion, pretending that she couldn’t make a decision without her husband’s input, and Mary, like everyone else, stopped bothering her as soon as she said it. They said good-bye, got off the phone, and Kavita went into the parlor, where Chika was reading a newspaper. “Your sister-in-law is getting on my nerves,” she said, sitting in an armchair and crossing her legs, pushing her braid over her shoulder, the black of her hair now silvered with age. “She keeps trying to get me to bring Vivek to her church.”

Chika didn’t look up from his paper. “Mary means well,” he said, his gold-rimmed glasses balancing on his nose.

“She said Vivek’s not safe, that he looks—” She paused. “That people might try to hurt him.” Her voice warped hesitant, unwilling to say out loud the possibility of worse.

Her husband sighed and dropped the newspaper into his lap before turning his head to her. “Well,” he said, “is he?”

“Chika!”

“It’s a fair question, Kavita. Look at how he presents himself.”

“My God, it’s just hair! It doesn’t mean anything.”

Chika gave her a gentle but knowing look. “Is it me you’re trying to convince, or yourself?”

They stared at each other for a few seconds, then Kavita dropped her eyes. “What if it’s something we did, Chika? What if we made a mistake somewhere and that’s why he ended up like this?”

Chika reached out a hand and caressed her knee through the silk of her trousers. “Don’t blame yourself,” he said. “The boy has his own life, and we can’t control every aspect of it.”

Kavita nodded, pulling herself together. “You’re right. Besides, he’s getting better. He’s even going out.” She looked up at him. “Soon he’ll be able to go back to school and everything will be normal again. You’ll see.”

Chika looked at his wife, at the hope thrumming out of her eyes, and said nothing. Kavita ignored whatever he wasn’t saying. She knew he wanted the same thing for Vivek, so it didn’t matter. He would see. Everything would be fine.

* * *

—

Vivek kept losing weight, so Kavita took him to a doctor, who checked his blood pressure and pulse, listened to his lungs, and asked him about his meals, frowning at his responses.

She put aside her notes and looked at Vivek, the collar of her white coat stark against her neck. “You know you’re not eating enough,” she scolded.

“I don’t have an appetite,” he replied, shrugging. “Everything tastes like nothing.”

“You have to try,” Kavita said. “Beta, I can see your ribs.”

Vivek pulled his shirt back on and it hung from his shoulders. “I’ll try, Amma. I promise.”

“Are you smoking?” asked the doctor.

“Cigar or igbo?” Vivek quipped, and Kavita smacked his arm.

“Stop that nonsense.”

The doctor just looked tired, or perhaps bored. “Either one,” she said.

“No,” said Vivek. He answered the remaining questions as Kavita gazed at his face, the smudged darkness around his eyes. They drew some blood for tests and the doctor told him again to eat some more before sending them away.

“Let me take him to my church,” Mary insisted, when she called that evening to ask how the visit went. “It can’t hurt, Kavita. They will try and remove any evil thing that has attached to him. You believe in prayer, I know you do. Your own church has not done anything for the boy. Let us try, biko.”

Kavita was hesitant but she was, after all, his mother. She couldn’t fold her hands and not try everything. So, that weekend, she sent him to Owerri. She’d wanted to wait and send him when Osita would be there but Mary advised against it. “That boy doesn’t go to church,” she said. “He’ll just convince Vivek against it. We don’t need another thing blocking his deliverance.” So they didn’t tell Osita that his cousin was visiting, and he wasn’t there the weekend Mary took Vivek to her church.

Late Sunday evening, Kavita was in the parlor when Vivek returned from Owerri, slamming the mosquito-net door open as he came in. “Beta?” she called as he walked past the parlor. “How was it?”

Vivek stopped to look at her, and Kavita flinched. She had never seen him so angry, fury just packed into his burning eyes.

“I’m never going to Owerri again,” he said, his voice tight. “You people can go if you like, but I won’t follow you. You hear?”

“What happened?” Kavita swallowed down the anxiety. Nothing could have happened. Mary would have called her if something had happened. “Was it the church service?”

Vivek stared at his mother. “Have you ever been to her church before?”

“Yes, of course, beta.” She twisted her fingers together. “It goes on for a long time, but it seemed all right. What happened?”

“No, I mean have you ever gone when they’re doing a deliverance?”

Kavita shook her head and her son leaned forward slightly, pinning her to the armchair with his unforgiving gaze. “But you sent me anyway.”

She was starting to get alarmed. “Vivek, what happened?”

“They are bastards!” he spat. “You think it’s all right to treat someone as if they’re an animal? In the name of their useless deliverance? Mba, wait. They called it an exorcism. Because, apparently, I have a demon in me, did you know? They had to beat it out.” He lifted up his shirt, revealing a swath of dark red welts on his side.

She gasped and stood up from her chair to go to him, but Vivek dropped the shirt and held out his hand, warning her away. “Don’t touch me,” he said. “And stop trying to fix me. Just stop. It’s enough.”

After that, Vivek locked himself in his room and didn’t come out for the rest of the night. With trembling hands, Kavita picked up the phone and dialed Ekene’s landline, rage biting inside her. She didn’t understand. How could Mary have allowed them to do that to her son, to Mary’s own nephew? “What is wrong with you?” she shouted when her sister-in-law picked up. “Ehn? Are you mad or what?”