Echioma’s name means Good Tomorrow. However, nothing in her life had been good. Even Amanze who now slept beside her on the bed, curled up like a baby and snoring like a Gorilla, added to her misery. Echioma looked around her bedroom and tried to take it all in; the huge mirror with gold rims, the plush red velvet sofas that complemented the silver lined curtains, the gold plated chandelier, the big master bed with white silk sheets. Indeed, Amanze had an exquisite taste. She should feel lucky, shouldn’t she? But luck comes in different shades and hers was grey with sorrow. To understand why Echioma feels this way, we need to go some years back to the time Echioma made bad decisions where she had better choices.

Born to a village palm wine tapper and a trader of tomatoes, Echioma was the fifth but only child of her parents. Rumours had it that her mother’s chi ate her children. Others felt that her children were Ogbanje and they suggested she found where he buried his iyi uwa, his charm or scar the fourth child to prevent it from coming again. Maybe Echioma stayed because the mother did the latter. Echioma’s skin was as clear as day, as light as the sun, and as smooth as milk.

“Her name will be Echioma”, her father said in between sobs and her mother couldn’t agree less as she took her last breath. The first.

As the girl grew in beauty and grace, Echioma was the dream of every man and the envy of every woman, married or not. At the age of thirteen, Echioma’s first suitor came with fresh palm wine. Her father chased the young man with his cutlass he used on his palm trees to tap his palm wine. Echioma sat, cross legged on their verandah, and watched as her father rained insults on the young man and warned him to go and look for his mates to marry. Echioma, then, understood her importance and beauty and pride began to grow taller than the girl. The second.

At the age of fifteen, Echioma had grown taller and had developed past her age. Her breasts stood firm against her blouse and her hips and buttocks looked round and soft. She strutted like the queen she was and whoever was not her friend struggled to be one. You see, our heroine was intelligent and bested her mates in school. But she gave her father a near heart attack when she said she will drop out and travel to Abuja to get a better life. In truth, Echioma had met a man and had fallen in love. He lived in Abuja and she was ready to defy her father just to be with him. The third.

The man’s name was Afam and he was an Abuja big boy. What luck she had to have run into him that faithful day while coming back from school! After meeting in secret so many times, he finally lured the young girl to come with him to Abuja. Echioma, for the very first time in her life, entered a plane. She saw roads in Abuja that were devoid of gallops, endless long roads that made the car run smoothly it felt like she had not even left the plane. For the first time in her life, Echioma saw houses she was sure that if she stretched, she wouldn’t be able to touch the roofs. Unlike her father’s house which she had used to measure her height. Echioma took all these in and swore that nothing would make her leave this life other than death. The fourth.

The man took her virginity. In truth, she gave it willingly. Who wouldn’t when surrounded with so much money and glamour?. Every night, she would spread her straight long legs apart and let Afam in, whether she was sore or not. In turn, he would pat her cheeks and drop some money beside her bed. She never complained. However Echioma, who had never been beaten before, saw the fists of Afam the day he suggested she “go out and make money” and she refused.

“You will meet those men and you will make me some money!”, he screamed at her.

Echioma could leave if she wanted to. She had some money stacked up. But whenever she remembered her father and the house she was taller than, she stood rooted in that big house in Abuja and did as Afam commanded. The fifth.

Echioma met Amanze in one of her moneymaking trips. Out of all the men she had met that day, he was the only one who was nice to her. He didn’t even touch her but he gave her the fixed amount of money for the night. Echioma would always feel that the reason she agreed to marry him was because he was just nice. He took care of her like she was a baby and slept with her like she was a virgin. He gave her everything she asked for and never argued or got angry in those many moments she had her fits.

So when Echioma packed a duffel bag and silently slipped out of the huge mansion her and Amanze shared as husband and wife for two years, she inwardly questioned herself why she was leaving him and going back to Afam. Was it her chi? Or was the rope that tied her to the first man she loved too strong for her to cut off?She had no time to think it through. All she saw was being in Afam’s arms again. This would be Echioma’s sixth and final mistake.

Although she is remembered, she is never truly missed. Not by Amanze who now has a wife and two kids, and not by her father who died of heart ache beside his wife’s grave the day Echioma left home.