Caim > Recent Status Updates

“It says something about her position in the world in relation to this woman that her mother could make this go away…that she, Somkele Nwachukwu, is breathing well, that she hasn't turned into ashes. Ashes because if she ever goes even an inch near the pain she'd felt when she'd believe Mezie gone, she's certain that she'll dry up and crumble.”

“This kind of rubbish disaster doesn't happen to beautiful people or rich people. Like, if this woman were fine or rich, there will be people here for her. Does that make sense?…This is a thing that happens to only ugly people and poor people, and then I came here, and found out that I was right to think so. I am not calling her ugly. But—"

“It will be okay," Amara says finally.
It will be okay — what people say when the only option is to hope for the best of an utterly irredeemable situation.”

“She loves the agile men controlling the traffic, directing cars into tight parking spaces for change. She's glad for this feeling, and she wishes that Bryan could be here, the Bryan before the incident, the glass-eyed, touristy-eyed Bryan, the Bryan for whom this scenery would have felt like a kind of homecoming.”

The codependency of concealing the truth…

"One week," she says. "Please."
She's able to ask this now because she knows something she did not know before, that he's become bound to her, that they are ruined tree branches now fused…He's inherited her fears and burdens, and what greater love is there? Falling to the deepest depths and rising to the highest heights together.”

"Bryan, I am a good person."
He turns to her fully, and his face is cold, naked. He's perhaps thinking that everyone believes themselves beacons of goodness, attributing their ugliness to the circumstances of life. Twisted and bent by life, so they twist and bend other people. The cycle of pain.
"Do you believe that?" he says.

“Sommy has avoided looking at Mezie for fear that she might absorb his evident weakness, but she finds herself turning now, inspecting. His head is bowed, his elbows rest on his knees, and his hands are clasped Itis a wonder what they've all become, Sommy thinks, killers and liars.
It is a wonder how she and her mother sashay through it all with the grace of peacocks.”

Sommy has a dangerous attachment to Bryan…

“The thought of losing him feels like strangulation, a total absence of air. It distorts her insides…she thinks that he of all people should understand the pain of uncertainty, that peculiar, burning position of not knowing. Ir is where he left her, just as Mezie had done during her first months in lowa.”

Sommy gets that easy lying from her mama!

an intrinsic characteristic — to be a liar. I agree, Bryan.

🪄⚡️ “The sun pours a glorious light all over now. The sound of laughter and music and people requesting that their plates be refilled and their drinks replaced infuses the air, Sommy thinks, with a kind of magic.”

“Did the world work for men in this way: They did whatever they pleased, and everyone understood, explained it away? How different this scenario would be if she were in Mezie's shoes, stringing two men along and everyone was aware of it.”

more magic references

Wow! Sonny sounds just like Kayla talking to Nia! The brutal words is deserved though…

Whew! That heaviness is deep!

The last 15-20% of this book may have been my favorite! It felt the most reflective and serendipitous than the other 80-85%.

“Blood may be thicker than water, but love is thicker than blood.” 💕💕💕

The way that she delineate her mother distance from her dad, enthusiastic inheritance for life, so beautifully worded, and probably my favorite part of book. For some reason she describing that her dad had given her enthusiasm for life resonated with me.

THERES THE MAGICAL ELEMENT!

🎼 “Osadebe to Flavour, a sonic composition of Igbo music from the late eighties to date.”

“Over twelve years. It's the same amount of time Chisom has been in love with Mezie. She formed her person around his person. It's what sixteen-year-olds do. To untangle herself would perhaps require a loss of an identity…But she fears that her "loss of identity" angle might strike a close emotional chord, for it is the same sort of crisis in which Bryan is enmeshed.”

“She remembers still Faze's "Need Somebody" cooing through the headphones. It was Chisom who had gone with Mezie to open his first bank account, and who had, the next day deposited her savings into the account, which she said belonged to him, since they were going to get married anyway.“

“Elin says, "I guess the grass is always greener on the other side." Same thing she'd said to Bryan during their first conversation, Sommy notices.”

“She understands it now, that this sort of love overwhelms, and all a person can do is tame it how they know best. Her mother lets hers explode; her father sits on his, soothes the feeling until it's a quiet, disciplined thing.”

“Bryan stands and goes on to shake her hand. He is s usual impressive self. Sommy's always proud whenever she introduces him to people. She can see how people see him: polished, oozing the scent of a good life. She can see how their perception of him elevates her in their eyes.”

“He is not your father," Sommy says. It is her duty to say this, to undo his delusions. It is her duty because she loves him, and when you love someone, you disassemble their untruths.”

“She, on the other hand, doesn't only see the adult, she sees the child, too, sees the same person who she'd run around the carpark with, playing hide-and-seek, the same person she'd shared her snacks with. And perhaps, she thinks, this is the way to see people: to see the child alongside the adult, because the child is always there, under all that fluff that comes with age.”

What????… this was so sudden.

“Kayla and Nia?…There aren’t two people in the world more different.”

If you replaced “Kayla and Nia” with “Bryan and Sommy”, it’ll still be true.

I KNEW something was going on with Kayla and Nia!