I walked into the living room that evening and noticed the table already laid out.
Two bowls of stew sat steaming, and beside them was a plate of bread cut into rough, crooked slices, as if done in a hurry. The room itself was cramped and lit by a single bulb that flickered every few minutes. Each time it dimmed, the shadows on the wall stretched long, reaching across the room.
The stew gave off a strong scent when I leaned closer. The bite of pepper stung my nose, and a smoky taste seemed to stick at the back of my throat. I took the seat at the far end of the table and kept my eyes on Nia's mother, who bent toward her daughter with a spoon in hand.
I pushed my spoon into the stew, and it dragged slowly through it.
When I looked up again, my eyes returned to the pair in front of me. Nia's mother lifted her own spoon, and it came up shining with oil, a chunk of meat hanging against the edge as though it might slip back into the bowl.
She did not blow on it or test the heat with her lips. She opened her mouth wide, slid the whole dripping mound in, and chewed.
I caught the damp sound of teeth crushing food, followed by the sticky click of her tongue shifting it from cheek to cheek, pressing it against the inside of her mouth before starting again.
A thin line of red oil leaked down the corner of her mouth.
Then she brought the spoon back, bringing it all out. Strands of spit stretched from the metal to her mouth, a clump of half-mashed yam sticking to the curve.
Unbothered, she held it out to Nia.
Her hand was steady as she brought the spoon close. The scene alone made me swallow hard.
I had seen her do this before. Too many times.
The first time, I nearly gagged. I told her outright it was wrong, disgusting even. She looked me square in the face and said they shared a bond I could never understand. "She eats what I eat. Always. From the beginning, she would not swallow unless I tasted first."
Over the years, I stopped questioning it, but I never got used to it. I had thought it was just a passing stage, a mother holding on longer than she should. But even now, with Nia nearly grown, I had never once seen her lift food to her mouth by herself.
Nia leaned forward, her lips brushing the metal, taking the half-chewed mess into her mouth without hesitation, her eyes on me the whole time.
I cleared my throat and shifted in my chair. "She's old enough to eat by herself, you know."
Her mother's smile stiffened, its shape without warmth. Her eyes stayed flat as she said, "She cannot." Her hand trembled slightly as she said it, though her voice did not.
"She cannot," she repeated, quieter this time, as if it was not a refusal but a fact.
"It's not right," I pushed. "She's grown."
Nia's eyes lit for a moment, then she lowered her gaze. "It suffocates me," she muttered, barely above a whisper. I was not sure who she was speaking to.
The bulb blinked, and for a moment the room went dark. A shiver ran over my skin. I reached for a piece of yam, breaking it into smaller pieces, if only to keep my hands busy. Without thinking, I tested it against my tongue first. "The food is good," I forced a smile.
Nia pushed her chair back just an inch, enough for the legs to scrape against the floor.
Her mother watched her without a word for a long moment, then placed the spoon back in the bowl. The oil shifted across the surface in slow, glimmering ripples.
Then she scooped another heavy portion, raised it halfway, and stopped. She did not bring it to her lips this time, nor chew it first.
Instead, she set the spoon back into the food, the handle leaning toward Nia.
"Then eat," she said softly, but the words landed hard, and the room went still.
Nia sat rigid, staring at the spoon, staring at the space between us as if something there might strike her. Her hands remained on her lap. Her chest rose and fell quickly. I could see the fight in her eyes, the urge to move, to prove herself, clashing against her mother's command. I wanted to help her.
But she would not look at me long enough to let me.
Slowly, she looked at her mother, then at me, and back at the bowl, but did not reach for it.
I pressed my tongue hard against the back of my teeth, feeling the tight air in the tiny room coil around me. I could hold it no longer. This was not how it was supposed to be.
I parted my lips to speak, but then a knock rattled against the door.
It was a single hollow thud.
It came at the wrong time.
Or maybe at the exact right one.
It shattered the quiet, and for a moment it felt like a rush of air into a sealed room. Then it came again, sharper this time.
I rose from the table, my knees brushing the wood as I pushed the chair back.
When I pulled the door open, the light from outside bled into the dim house, and someone stood framed against it.
—What the mother tasted, the child must take, and in that taking, the child was kept.