“Nwokolo, get back in here,” my father’s younger brother, Jekwu, shouted at me. “Go and stand with the women! Where is your brain, eh? Don’t you know what that is out there?” Oh, I knew what it was. I was in southeastern Nigeria, deep in the village, and a titled Big Man had died. Everyone knew what was coming, even the one Naijamerican in the group. But I wasn’t in my right mind. Dad had died. He was lying in his casket right out there in the dark, beyond the circular driveway, at the wall on the plot of land where he would be buried. Alone.
