How to make your father unhappy

This is how to make your father unhappy.

Ogonna,

I am writing to you with a fluttery feeling in my chest. The kind people feel when they’re in love. 

I am writing to tell you that you were wrong, but then again, how right could a 16-year-old be?

I remember you telling Daddy that you would never get married. The conversation leading up to this always happened the same way:

Daddy would call you aside about your decision not to help mummy in the kitchen the day before. Your face would scrunch up in preparation for the scolding you knew was coming. He would talk about your brilliance and good grades. How he knew you would end up a great, successful woman. But in the end, ‘you must still cook for your husband o.’

The exasperation always hit you then. The utter helplessness against a method of thinking that existed before you and you never understood but was being imposed on you. Why did you have to cook for your husband? Couldn’t there be a hired chef? Why should both you and your husband go to work and you have to be the one to cook afterwards? Weren’t the men supposed to be stronger? What if you weren’t hungry? Why did your father think everything you might amount to in life would be annulled if you did not know how to cook? Why would you want to marry a man who only valued food instead of your big brains? ‘Tufia, God forbid’, you would think and shudder inside you.

But to your father, you would maintain a quiet scowl until he was done talking. Then you would calmly say, ‘But Daddy, I did not tell you I’m going to get married nau, right? All this one you’re saying is for people who want to get married. I’m not getting married.’

Then mummy would come out from where she had been eavesdropping with half-anger that made her want to randomly slap you across the face and half-helplessness that made her want to shake you silly–both actions designed to make those thoughts fly out of your head. She settled instead for that all-too-familiar wailing that Igbo mothers must have been taught in their private club. That kind designed to guilt trip the child, from Emeka to Ezinne, into obedience. 

They forgot the kind of child they gave birth to. A hard-headed, stubborn child. The one who would refuse to give in when her older brother bullied her. Instead she would shout about knowing her rights while quoting the Nigerian Constitution taught in Government class the previous term.

Daddy would shake his head and wonder if he did wrong by exposing you to many books as a child and allowing you to read all you could. Maybe the books were a form of neo-colonialism he had no power over. He always started his talk with the prefix ‘In the traditional Igbo setting…’ or ‘In our land…’ and they always flew past your head.

It happened over and again until you went to school, graduated and moved out of their house. You were happy to be free of the shackles, envisioning a life of freedom and take-outs. Then one day, the price of fuel increased and you realised the frequent takeouts weren’t feasible daily. 

You would come across a ’living alone’ vlog on YouTube. The kind you had gotten to love since you started living alone. You’d see that the girls always made their meals and it looked so good. You learned it was healthier and words like ‘meal prep’ and ‘vacuum sealer’ became a staple in your kitchen’s Oxford. 

On the day you made that stew, it was such a disappointment that you swore it would never happen again. You saved every recipe from Instagram to YouTube and when you tried it again, it was so good that you could not wait to visit home that weekend and cook for your family.

They were, of course, a good mix of shocked and surprised. ‘Ogonna likes to cook now?‘ They would praise your cooking because it was indeed good. But also because your kitchen conquest came with novel ideas like garden egg sauce and carrot stew and tortilla wraps and banana pancakes. With garlic-fried eggs and less Maggi seasoning but more garlic, ginger and other natural seasonings. They did not have to know that the Daniel Fast at church (that almost killed you) was the necessity behind your inventions. 

Ogonna, do you know what is the funniest thing that happened to you? It is that you fell in love, slowly, like you always imagined when you began to think about love. You fell in love and when you think about this man it is many thoughts. Including how you would make chicken for him in so many ways because he loves chicken. You have started to save recipes and you imagine cooking together. Maybe consummating your love on the kitchen table severally—eating one meal before another. And hopefully, you washed your hands after touching that red pepper. But even if you did not, you’re with a man who would make you laugh at the most silly and serious things alike.

That Sunday when he first visited your family to let them know his intentions for you, you got angry at mummy because when you stepped out of the kitchen for a minute, she came in and mixed the tomato paste with the steamed fresh tomatoes instead of frying the paste first–tampering with your recipe that involved frying the tomato paste first to remove the sourness. You hoped to God it would come out as you wanted so he would not notice the difference in taste. It was the first time he would eat your food and it had to be perfect. 

Daddy did not tell you this and that was why you fought and rebelled. He did not tell you that there is duty borne out of love and it is the kind that makes you want to give your best without coercion. That it takes a strong man to make a woman soft, given and submitted to him. That if a woman did not like to cook despite her love, there was nothing wrong with that either–for people express love in different ways and what is crucial is a mutual understanding that is not imported from the androgynous ‘society’ that has not one face and voice but many faces and voices projected from their unique experiences to deafen and sometimes defeat you. 

So, listen. Not to them but to the one who loves you. It is two against the world now. And now daddy knows, that cooking was never the problem. 

— Ogonna from the future.