Stay with me CEO

bedside lamp. I would pinch his neck until he got up and went to the bathroom, responding to my good morning with a nod or a wave of the hand. He couldn't think straight in the early m

s. When I woke up, Akin was already home. It was he who informed me that Ibrahim Babangida was the new head of state. The strangest thing about the next few weeks was that Babangida began to refer to himself, and to identify himself, not just as head of state but as president, as if the coup were equivalent to an election. For the most part, things seemed to be business as usual, and like the rest of the country, my husband and I settled back into our usual routine. Most weekdays, Akin and I ate breakfast together, which usually consisted of boiled eggs, toast, and lots of coffee. We liked our coffee the same way, in red mugs that matched the little flowers on the placemat, without milk and with two sugar cubes each. As we ate, we talked about our plans for the day ahead. About calling someone to fix the leaking bathroom ceiling, about the men Babangida had appointed to the National Council of Ministers, about killing the neighbor's dog that howled all night, about whether the new margarine we were trying was too high in fat. We didn't talk about Funmi; we didn't mention her name, not even by mistake. After the meal, we took our dishes to the kitchen together and left them in the sink to be washed later. Then we would wash our hands, exchange a quick kiss, and return to the living room. In the living room, Akin would pick up his jacket, throw it over his shoulder, and leave for work. I would go upstairs to shower and then go to my living room. And so it went on, the days turning into weeks, the weeks into months, as if our marriage still included only the two of us. Then one day, after Akin had left for work, I went upstairs to take a shower and discovered that a section of the roof had collapsed. It had been raining that morning, and the pressure of the rainwater that had accumulated there must have finally ruptured the already soaked asbestos, bursting the center of the area that had been soaked in, so that the water was gushing into the bathtub. I tried to find a way to take a bath in that tub anyway, because I had never used any of the other bathrooms in the house since I got married. But it was still raining, and the ruptured asbestos was