Stay With Me

“But there are things even love can’t do…If the burden is too much and stays too long, even love bends, cracks, comes close to breaking, and sometimes does break. But even when it is in a thousand pieces around your feet, that doesn’t mean it’s no longer love.”

Like The Vulnerability Hope Amidst Tragedies, Akin’s deception of Yejide bends their love to breaking, but he maintains that his actions were motivated by love. The paradox that Akin reveals is that people can use positive emotions to commit, and later justify, terrible actions.

“Babangida referred to himself, and came to be referred to, not just as the head of state but as president, as if the coup counted as an election. On the whole, things appeared to go on as usual and, like the rest of the country, my husband and I went back to our routine.”

Just as Funmi’s marriage to Akin has destabilized Akin and Yejide’s home, Babangida’s regime destabilizes Nigeria, with political unrest mirroring their domestic troubles (See: Symbols & Motifs). However, because Funmi and Babangida are out of sight, the couple can deceive themselves regarding the severity of the disruption and accept the change as normal.

“That was not the point; the point was that when there was no identifiable lineage for a child, that child could be descended from anything—even dogs, witches, or strange tribes with bad blood. The third wife’s family obviously had bad blood since insanity occurred frequently in her family. But at least that was known bad blood—my (possible) bad blood was of unknown origin and that was worse, as evidenced by the way I was disgracing my father by fighting like a street dog.”

The traditional concept of bad blood fits into a recurring motif of signs and miracles (See: Symbols & Motifs), foreshadowing the genetic complications that Yejide will pass from her blood to her children as sickle cell disease. Yejide’s inability to conform to tradition also drives her desire for children who will connect her permanently to something known and acceptable.

“Women manufacture children and if you can’t, you are just a man.”

Moomi’s blunt disavowal of Yejide’s core identity represents both a repeated and tragic conflict of parental rejection for Yejide and irony since Akin’s impotence is why she has not conceived. Yejide carries the burden of his impotence without knowing it and suffers publicly for her husband’s inability to conform to traditional roles.

“I did not think of Akin and how he would have said I was going mad…I looked down at the bundle in my arms and saw the little face of my child, smelled the fresh scent of baby powder and believed.”

The subjective miracle of the goat’s transformation into a child foreshadows the subjective miracle of Yejide pseudocyesis. Her faith is so strong, and the social pressure to conform to tradition so great, that she wills herself to conceive, but in the end, her faith has limitations. This passage reflects the motif of miracles and signs in the novel (See: Symbols & Motifs).

“A man can have many wives or concubines; a child can only have one mother.”

Yejide’s faith in the inviolability of the mother-child bond is still untested and drives her desire for a child even more than the pressure to conform to traditional roles. After the death of two children, Yejide’s faith in the inviolability of the bond is broken, allowing her to view the bond of motherhood less as a face of sex and birth and more as a conscious choice that can be rejected.

“I did not want my child to live under a banner of resentment against its mother as I did. In case I died, I wanted love for who I had been to compel the people left behind to care for my child.”

After growing up in a dysfunctional polygamous home and being raised by resentful stepmothers after her mother’s death, Yejide fears loneliness and heartache for her children. To stem Funmi’s resentment and guard against karmic payback for evil, she sacrifices her convictions for the sake of her children.

“At the time, Nigeria was still in her honeymoon phase with Babangida and like most new brides she wasn’t asking probing questions yet.”

Use of the phrase “honeymoon phase” signals a parallel between the power dynamics of Yejide and Akin’s marital relationship and the political relationship between Nigerians and Babangida (See: Symbols & Motifs). Just as Nigerians fear questioning Babangida for fear of retribution, Yejide’s fear of losing Akin leads her to ignore the red flags in their relationship, exposing The Power of Self-Deception in relationships built on lies.

“Every time my father married a new wife, my father would tell his children that family was about having people who would look for you if you got kidnapped.”

Though her siblings never laughed at this statement, meant as a joke, Yejide recalls laughing every time despite knowing that it was a clever lie. To please her father, she deceived herself into believing that his actions were for her benefit and thus internalized the idea that polygamy would benefit her children despite knowing that she has never wanted to be a part of a polygamous union.

“It’s the truth—stretched, but still true. Besides, what would be left of love without truth stretched beyond its limits, without those better versions of ourselves we present as the only ones that exist?”

Akin covers for his brother-in-law, who lacks the strength to uphold Yorùbá tradition and dig his father-in-law’s grave, allowing him to save face before his wife. Akin, whose impotence drove him to deceive Yejide for years to preserve his own image of traditional “manhood,” shows sympathy toward his brother-in-law and himself, signaling that he has moved beyond his self-loathing and understands that though wrong, his actions were motivated by his love for Yejide and fear of losing her.

“To my amazement, I was never involved in an accident during my tummy-clutching moments. This reaffirmed my belief that bad luck would come knocking.”

After years of infertility and the tragedy of her pseudocyesis, Yejide shows anxiety when things go well. Rather than taking her pregnancy as a miracle as she had with her pseudocyesis, she sees signs of evil to come (See: Symbols & Motifs). Tragedy has already limited her capacity for hope.

“Struck for the first time by Judas’ downturned lips, I wondered if he already regretted what he was about to do.”

Suffering nightmares for his role in Funmi’s death, Akin returns to church, where the sermon about evil and stained-glass images of the Last Supper amplify his guilt. Despite his actions, like Judas, he deceives himself into going on as usual with only a faint tell regarding his inner torment, reflecting The Power of Self-Deception.

“A mother must be vigilant. She must be able and willing to wake up ten times during the night to feed her baby. After her intermittent vigil, she must see everything clearly the next morning so that she can notice any changes in her baby. A mother is not permitted to have blurry vision.”

Here, Adébáyọ̀ exposes the impossibility of conforming to the traditional role of motherhood and the pressure such inhuman constructs carry for an already grieving mother. So limited is the role of mother that Yejide cannot be human and fill it; despite this problematic limitation, she castigates herself for Olamide’s death because she failed to meet the impossible expectations that might have prevented the death.

“He would never admit it, but I felt his tears that day, they plastered my dress to my belly and validated my grief.”

Here, Adébáyọ̀ exposes the ways in which The Pressures and Limitations of Tradition limit Akin’s ability to express his grief. Since crying is considered womanly and Yejide is pregnant again, Akin and Yejide cannot process or validate their grief with others. This moment, brushed aside as shameful, is the only moment they share in grief.

“I knew I was the one who would do all those things. Nobody else was going to do them. There are things scientific tests cannot show, things like the fact that paternity is more than sperm donation. I knew Sesan was my son.”

Akin’s character transformation begins when he acknowledges that the limitations that the traditional definition of paternity have placed on him cannot bar him from the conscious choice to be a father to his children. Successful parenting provides Akin with a path toward overcoming the pressures placed on him due to his inability to impregnate Yejide.

“Hope has always been my opium, the thing I couldn’t wean myself off. No matter how bad things got, I found a way to believe that even defeat was a sign that I was bound to win.”

Akin reveals his tragic flaw, proving that despite his convictions, hope is not enough to overcome or compensate for the betrayals he has forced Yejide to suffer. Akin learns that without deliberate action to sustain it, hope is a limited gambit with no more power than an unspoken wish, reflecting The Vulnerability of Hope Amidst Tragedies.

“I’d believed her once, I’d accepted—like the tortoise and his wife—that there was no way to be in the world without offspring. I had thought that having children that called me Baba would change the very shape of my world, would cleanse me, even wipe away the memory of pushing Funmi down the stairs.”

Akin realizes that having children does not erase his impotence or undo his actions. To put that pressure on children is selfish, and losing this selfish hope forces Akin to reconsider his views on traditional roles. These insights eventually enable him to expand his idea of what being a man and father is.

“Whenever I woke up from nightmares about Funmi, I couldn’t help but wonder if the dreams were an omen about Rotimi’s fate, if three children equaled an adult on the universe’s scales of justice.”

Acknowledging his fundamental role in the tragedies around him, Akin sees his children’s deaths as signs that he has failed to uphold tradition and his humanity. Despite the hope that he can overcome his flaws, tragedies limit his ability to turn his hope into actions that repair the damage he has done.

“But the biggest lies are often the ones we tell ourselves. I bit my tongue because I did not want to ask questions. I did not ask questions because I did not want to know the answers. It was convenient to believe my husband was trustworthy; sometimes faith is easier than doubt.”

This passage reflects The Power of Self-Deception. Though Yejide has often felt like an innocent bystander in Akin’s scheming, she acknowledges her own role in maintaining Akin’s lies and feels ashamed.

“I assumed the military knew that it had become unpopular and would head back to the barracks before the year ran out. If someone had told me that morning that Nigeria would spend six more years under military dictatorship, I would have laughed.”

Here, Adébáyọ̀ exposes the role of self-deception through the public lens of Babangida’s presidency. Despite all the evidence that Babangida was consolidating power, people like Akin played along, following the debates and voting, because they wanted to maintain faith and believe in the possibility of civilian rule.

“It would take a while for me to realize that each of my children had given me as much as they took.”

Until she can remove herself from her grief and find her own agency and identity, Yejide can only see the pain her experiences have caused. However, in abandoning Rotimi and rejecting the tradition of motherly suffering, Yejide gains a new perspective beyond the tragedies of her children’s deaths. This is a turning point for her, rekindling her hope.

“Only enough to think there is still a chance that the three of us will become a happy family. I should know better—do know better—but with you, I can never let go of hope.”

Due to his growth and experience as Rotimi’s caregiver, Akin has tempered his hope with action and dispensed with self-deception. Though he still relies on hope, his active invitation for reunion and the ways in which he has supported Yejide’s memory of Rotimi show that this time, with work, things might be different.

“I understand how a word others use every day can become something whispered in the dark to soothe a wound that just won’t heal.”

Yejide bonds with Rotimi over their special parent-child bond and their shared experience of being without a mother. Though she understands that their relationship will entail setbacks, hearing the word “Moomi” rekindles the hope and agency she lost, absolving her of the self-loathing that she has felt for failing to fulfill the role of mother.