Blindfolds

7

She was awoken to the chirping of birds and of course the snores from her cousin; Blessing. She flickered her eyelids open to see her cousin's face almost close to hers. Dinma groaned and pushed her face farther from hers as gently as she could. Blessing moved a fraction away, snoring loudly as she did but didn't wake up.

Dinma smacked her lips in frustration and sat up on the bed. The day had finally come; the day the will was to be read.

Dinma had come home the day before. And throughout the trip to her grandmother's house,
She had been nervous. She was excited to see her parents, but equally nervous because she would be meeting all her relatives; the judgementals, the gossips, the annoying. She just didn't think she was ready to meet them.

The flight home had been smooth. Her parents had suggested that she took a plane rather than spend 8-12 hours on a bus. And all through the flight, she had tried listening to some classicals; a song genre that she detested, so as to calm her nerves. And even when she had sat at the passenger seat of the car her parents had sent her through a driver, all her nerves were on edge.

And just like she had anticipated, her nosy aunties had asked why she didn't bring home a man. Not like she had any reason to give but she had simply told them to wait on God much to her mum's amusement.

From their room, she could hear the whirring sound from the generator plant, and of course the choas from her aunties in the kitchen. They were cooking, she could tell from the smell of fried chicken, and jollof rice that wafted into her nostrils. One would think that they were throwing a very large party which was unlike families she sees in television shows that are anticipating a will reading. Nobody throws a party for a will reading, well except hers.

The door to the room flung open, and there standing in front of the opened door was her auntie Cecilia.

"Don't you know you are women, you two should be downstairs. Now!"

"Good morning ma." Dinma greeted as courteous as she would, because God forbid it should be said that Chidinma Jacob was rude, her mother would kill her.

"Ehen nwam, tell that girl to wake up." Gesturing to Blessing, then under her breath she muttered but Dinma could still hear "This is why you both are still unmarried." She left, not bothering to shut the door.

Dinma made a face at that, then she tapped her sleeping cousin.

"Bee... Blessing... Wake up."

Her cousin groaned "What..."

"Aunty CeCe wants us downstairs."

"Ah ah, but Sharon, Chisom, and Ijeoma should be there na." She whined.

Of course they should. They were Dinma's oldest female cousins. The most preferred female cousins. They were always actively involved in everything, people Blessing would term 'oversabi'.

"Just come downstairs, you know how she can be."

And the rest of the morning was the most stressful for Dinma. Running errands, helping with the kids (her second cousins); making sure none of the eight kids got in the way of the arrangements. At some point she wondered why her cousins had to bring their kids, it wasn't like they were old enough to understand what a will was. To her, it was absolutely not necessary.

By 2pm, everyone had rounded up with preparations. Dinma had got out of her spice stenched clothes, and while she admired herself in her yellow dress, her phone rang.

She gave the phone a quick glance, then picked it from the dressing table. It wasn't a saved contact. She furrowed her brows at this and swiped to the call icon.