Changes by Ama Ata Aidoo

Ogyaanowa. According to both mothers, all the children were fine, and Ogyaanowa was at Oko’s mother’s.
    â€˜Permanently?’
    â€˜Oh no, only until the end of August. Then she’ll come back to me for the re-opening of school.’
    â€˜How old is she?’
    â€˜Six. She is in Primary One this year.’
    â€˜Already? But of course, she was born about the time I had my last born, no?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Time does fly.’
    â€˜It does.’
    The sadness that had descended on them was not proving easy to get rid of. They even went back to what they should have tried to find out from one another when they first met at the hotel: what they were doing here at the Hotel Twentieth Century. Esi told Opokuya about the friend she was supposed to be meeting from abroad, and Opokuya told Esi about the arrangement for Kubi to collect her from the hotel.
    â€˜So you and your husband have taken to dropping into the Twentieth Century for drinks?’ Esi made a great attempt to tease Opokuya.
    Opokuya went on to tell Esi about the trip she was planning to her mother’s.
    â€˜Homesick?’ Esi asked, trying hard to keep her teasing tone.
    â€˜Yes.’ Opokuya answered, too enthusiastically, and fell into Esi’s trap.
    â€˜Oh Opoku, shame on you. At your age!’
    â€˜Now you stop it. I miss my mother. You know I haven’t seen her for a long time.’
    â€˜I didn’t know.’
    â€˜And I miss the feeling of being special with someone.’
    â€˜You are very special with Kubi.’
    â€˜Esi, you were very special with Oko.’
    Esi did not know how to answer that. In the silence that followed, each woman was thinking that clearly the best husband always seems to be the one some other woman is living with! The sadness returned, heavier than before.
    One reason why Esi was almost tongue-tied was that she was too aware that Opokuya was her last hope of gaining understanding or at least some sympathy for her point of view. So far, nobody to whom she had tried to state her case had been remotely sympathetic. Like her mother and her grandmother. She had driven home one Sunday morning to discuss the whole business with them. They had found it very hard to listen to her at all. Although they had tried. When Nana’s patience had been stretched beyond endurance, she had asked Esi to tell her truthfully whether the problem was that her husband beat her.
    â€˜No, Nana.’
    â€˜So, does your husband smell? His body? His mouth?’
    Esi couldn’t help laughing. ‘No, Nana. In fact, for a man, he is veryclean, very orderly.’
    â€˜So then … Listen, does he deny you money, expecting you to use your earnings to keep the house, feed him and clothe him too?’
    â€˜Nana, we are not rich. But money is not a big problem.’
    â€˜What is the problem?’ both her grandmother and her mother really screamed this time: the former with her walking stick raised as though to strike her, and the latter bursting into tears.
    Esi had to tell the truth. Her husband wanted too much of her and her time. No, it was not another woman. In fact, she thought she might have welcomed that even more.
    â€˜Are you mad?’ The older women looked at Esi and she looked at them. How could she tell them she did not want Oko? Where was she going to get a man like him again? At the end of the discussion, her grandmother had told her the matter sounded too much for her ears: she didn’t want to hear any more of it. At least not for some time. The declaration was accompanied by a proper palm-rubbing gesture. Finally, as Esi got into her car to drive back to Accra, and almost for a farewell, her mother had called her a fool. She had driven to Accra feeling like one.
    As for Oko’s people, there never was a question of Esi talking to them. She was convinced they hated her. She knew that for some time his aunts had been trying to get him a woman,