bandit husband

Mariam Jaybo came back from tracking down her husband.

She’d heard rumors about a second wife and he’d been a long time away so she bustled off to Senegal. In the name of respect or desperation I’m not sure.

She came back with jewelry and rice and the news that he didn’t have a second wife- according to his word. Mariam played with the new jewelry, chunky and crinkly gold on her wrists and dangling to her shoulders from her ear lobes.

“Someone must have been really sick to give this to a healer as payment” Mariam Ba observes.

Any thoughts of Jobe being a bandit and bad news are whisked away with the 6000 ougiya that he gave Mariam. I want to demand that Jobe be a better husband and come get to know little Faty and buy Bebe a pen for school. But I don’t. His job is crummy. His love is not enough so does it matter if it exists?

But I think of that light purple holey lingerie that Mariam Jaybo owns and my stomach hurts. Not fair, not fair, not fair my heart hums. For him to go away and not call and not send money and perhaps get married. I want to spit with indignation. But Mariam Jaybo doesn't have the room to make demands. What right do I have to voice emotions that no one has the power to express?