The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Page A

in front of an impatient-looking woman, he whistled happily as he knotted his tie and she watched him with a kind of desperate sadness, wanting so much to feel his delight. There were emotions she wanted to hold in the palm of her hand that were simply no longer there.
    While he was at work, she would pace the apartment and watch TV and eat everything in the fridge, even spoonfuls of margarine after she had finished the bread. Her clothes pinchedher waist and armpits, and so she took to walking around with only her abada wrapper tied loosely around her and knotted under her arm. She was finally with Tobechi in America, finally with her good man, and the feeling was one of flatness. It was only Chinwe she felt she could really talk to. Chinwe was the friend who had never told her she was foolish to wait for Tobechi, and if she told Chinwe how she did not like her bed but did not want to get up from it in the morning, Chinwe would understand her bewilderment.
    She called Chinwe and Chinwe began to cry after the first hello and
kedu
. Another woman was pregnant for Chinwe’s husband and he was going to pay her bride price because Chinwe had two daughters and the woman came from a family of many sons. Kamara tried to soothe Chinwe, raged about the useless husband, and then hung up without saying a word about her new life; she could not complain about not having shoes when the person she was talking to had no legs.
    With her mother on the phone, she said everything was fine. “We will hear the patter of little feet soon,” her mother said, and she said “ Ise! ” to show that she seconded the blessing. And she did: she had taken to closing her eyes while Tobechi was on top of her, willing herself to become pregnant, because if that did not shake her out of her dismay at least it would give her something to care about. Tobechi had brought her contraception pills because he wanted a year of just the both of them, to catch up, to enjoy each other, but she flushed one pill down the toilet each day and wondered how he could not see the grayness that clouded her days, the hard things that had slipped in between them. On Monday of last week, though, he had noticed the change in her.
    “You’re bright today, Kam,” he said as he hugged her that evening. He sounded happy that she was bright. She was boththrilled and sorry, for having this knowledge she could not share with him, for suddenly believing again in ways that had nothing to do with him. She could not tell him how Tracy had come upstairs to the kitchen and how surprised she had been because she had given up wondering what kind of mother this was.
    “Hi, Kamara,” Tracy had said, coming toward her. “I’m Tracy.” Her voice was deep and her womanly body was fluid and her sweater and hands were paint-stained.
    “Oh, hello,” Kamara said, smiling. “Nice to finally meet you, Tracy.”
    Kamara held out a hand but Tracy came close and touched her chin. “Did you ever wear braces?”
    “Braces?”
    “Yes.”
    “No, no.”
    “You have the most beautiful teeth.”
    Tracy’s hand was still on her chin, slightly tilting her head up, and Kamara felt, first, like an adored little girl, and then like a bride. She smiled again. She was extremely aware of her body, of Tracy’s eyes, of the space between them being so small, so very small.
    “Have you ever been an artist’s model?” Tracy asked.
    “No … no.”
    Josh came into the kitchen and rushed to Tracy, his face lit up. “Mommy!” Tracy hugged him and kissed him and ruffled his hair. “Have you finished your work, Mommy?” He clung to her hand.
    “Not yet, honey.” She seemed to be familiar with the kitchen. Kamara had expected that she would not know where the glasses were kept or how to operate the water filter. “I’m stuck, so I thought I’d come upstairs for a little while.” She wassmoothing Josh’s hair. She turned to Kamara. “It’s stuck right here in my throat, you know?”
    “Yes,”