Read: Part One Michael did not look like her father. That would have been too easy. He did not arrive drunk for their first date. He did not slap her. He did not tell her that women were useless. He listened. He laughed. He noticed small things. He remembered what she liked. He admired her intelligence rather than feeling threatened by it. Most importantly, Michael made Apondi feel something she rarely let herself feel: wanted. She had spent most of her life being useful, but useful and wanted were not the same. Michael seemed to want her even when she produced nothing. For a woman whose entire identity had been built around performance, that feeling was intoxicating. She fell hard. Her siblings were less enthusiastic. Her older brother noticed things — the little jokes at her expense, Michael’s dislike of being contradicted, and how quickly his charm turned cold when he did not get his way. Her older sister noticed how he spoke about his previous girlfriends: apparently, e...
Apondi was born on a Friday. Her mother said that meant she was lucky. For years, Apondi wondered whether the luck had been delivered to the wrong child — because if any had visited their small village home, it had done so very quietly. Her father was a soldier. Or, more accurately, he had been one. He had seen combat earlier in life, before an injury ended his military career. He had come home honorably discharged, carrying a small pension, a soldier’s discipline, a body that had known violence, and perhaps wounds nobody in the village knew how to ask about. As the only son, he settled on his father’s land. He planted maize, grew sugarcane, drank, and terrorized his family. There were five children in the house — though everyone knew there were others scattered among different women; Apondi never quite knew how many. Her father was amorous when he wanted to be loved, authoritarian when he wanted to be obeyed, and terrifying when he had been drinking. Nobody challenged him. Once, the v...