Owambe Heartbreak

The invitation arrived on a Tuesday, in a gold envelope that smelled of cheap perfume and expensive cruelty.

Simisola Bakare turned it over in her hands at the cutting table of her shop in Bodija, Ibadan. Around her, six tailors bent over machines that hummed like a swarm of bees. Bolts of lace and Ankara and aso-oke leaned against the walls in rainbows. The radio played Sunny Ade, low.

"Madam Simi," called Yetunde, her apprentice. "Who is the card from?"

"Nobody."

"It has a ribbon."

"Everything has a ribbon, Yetunde. Even disasters."

She opened it. The gold lettering swam. Dapo and Kemi, together with their families, joyfully invite you to the traditional marriage ceremony. Saturday, the fourteenth. Ibadan. Aso-ebi: royal blue and silver.

Dapo. Her Dapo. The man who had slid a ring on her finger fourteen months ago on the rooftop of a restaurant, with the whole of Ibadan glowing orange below them. The man who had cried when she said yes.

And Kemi. Her cousin Kemi, who had held her hand in the car after the engagement and said, I am so happy for you, Simi, I could burst.