Zikora is a short story by the renowned author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, about a young woman who faced having to birth her child without a father. Her experience got her to know why her mother was the way she was.
Zikora is a Nigerian Immigrant to the United States. Her parents, especially her mother, wanted her to study outside Nigeria. So, after her secondary school in Nigeria, she wrote her SATs and got to the US. Her mother had always been a strict disciplinarian who owned two schools. Zikora was a child when her father moved out of the house to his second’s wife’s house. He gave the excuse that her step brother was losing it at school and he needed to be around his son to calm him down, insisting that girls could not easily go wrong like boys.
She worked in a law firm, while he was also doing the same, but at another firm. They met at a book launch of a woman Zikora worked with. Kwame swept her feet with his charming kindness and with the fact that he was still in touch with his childhood innocence. They had this fun way of putting ‘nutty’ in almost every conversation. She was older than him, but Kwame was 'the one' and she loved him so much.
Coming from a strict Ghanaian family, his parents dreamt for him. His African American mother arranged violin lessons for him and his brother. They were the kind of kids who had reading lists during the summer holidays. Kwame’s parents were elites and accepting her was easy because Zikora had graduated from Georgetown and came from affluence. She could see that his family was proud of him. She noticed this with pleasure when she was invited to his mother’s family reunion, one summer.
They talked about their projected life together. But funnily, they never spoke about marriage like they knew they would end up together. Zikora was so excited she spoke over the phone to her cousin, Mmiliaku, boasting callously about waiting to find the right man. Zikora felt she had found the right guy. Mmiliaku was finding it hard in her home. Emmanuel, her husband still rapes her, keeps her home from work, because he could afford for her to stay home, no visit from anyone; even her best friends. Emmanuel believes married women shouldn’t be friends with single ones. Kwame resented that idea. It pleased Zikora to know that Kwame was different.
On the day they broke up, they attended one of his law firm’s gala, and they ended up in her apartment. So, she told Kwame that she was late and she was never late. He was still confused, but she might be pregnant. She told him she had stopped using those birth control pills because they made her fat. Kwame was shocked. But he came inside her even after she stopped the pills, what else did he expect? Some of his only words were, ’There was a miscommunication’, ‘I think I should leave. Is that okay?’
She expected something very different from the response she got from Kwame that night. They were so close that he leaves his clothes in her closet, she expected the conversation to be lively, everything better than it was then. But he was killing her and doing it courteously.
Her months of pregnancy were strange, she had all the signs of a girl, but he turned out a boy. When he came out, he had black curly hair sticking to his head. Her boss at work who embraced women's freedom would make it seem like she was burdened, but Zikora would shove it off like it was nothing. Outside, she seemed to be rocking her pregnancy, but internally she was bleeding while hoping Kwame would at least reply to her text sensibly.
She finally had him with only her mother being there with her as family. She kept hoping that he would eventually respond, but he finally blocked her number.
She loved her baby boy, so much that she didn’t want him going through the pains of circumcision.
Zikora worried about a lot of things and had to go through it alone. She worried her tear would open, that her son was not feeding well, especially when he found it hard to properly latch. But she began to understand her mother’s pain and how she always tried to be strong.
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