Tomorrow Is Too Far
The story opens with the narrator recalling the last summer she spent in Nigeria before her parents’ divorce and her mother’s promise never to return. She remembers Grandmama’s sprawling yard—mango, cashew, guava, and avocado trees tangled together, a moist, leaf‑covered ground, buzzing yellow‑bellied bees, and the ritual of climbing trees to collect fruit. Grandmama lets the brother, Nonso, climb the coconut trees while the narrator watches, then teaches him how to knock down coconuts, insisting girls never pluck them. She explains the hierarchy of the family: Nonso, as her son’s only son, will carry on the Nnabuisi name, while Dozie, her daughter’s son, is merely a “nwadiana.” The narrator also notes the snake called echi eteka, “Tomorrow Is Too Far,” whose bite kills in ten minutes. She recalls a summer of lice, growing hatred for Nonso, and a budding affection for cousin Dozie.
The narrative then shifts to the day Nonso dies. It is August, between rainy season and harmattan. The weather oscillates between drizzle and bright sun. Grandmama screams at Nonso’s limp body, demanding who will now carry the family name. A neighbor from across the road obtains the American phone number from the traumatized narrator and calls the mother in the U.S. The neighbor tries to comfort the narrator, but she inches toward the phone. The mother, sounding fearful, repeatedly asks if the narrator is “all right,” then sobs, promises to arrange for Nonso’s body to be flown home, and recounts her own unsettling laugh. Grandmama insists Nonso’s spirit must stay in Nigeria, arguing that flying his body would be wrong. The narrator watches Grandmama roll on the floor, conflicted between wanting comfort and rejecting it.
Eighteen years later, the narrator arrives back at the yard. The trees remain intertwined; the house, garden, and water tank appear smaller; Grandmama’s grave is tiny, covered with a thin cement slab, and she imagines it becoming overrun with weeds. At the airport, cousin Dozie greets her cautiously, hugs, and they travel together to Grandmama’s house. Dozie’s demeanor is subdued, his forehead lined with gentle sorrow. As the narrator touches the trunk of an avocado tree, Dozie begins to speak, admitting he never expected her to return because she hated Grandmama. The word “hate” hangs between them. The narrator reflects on a phone call from Dozie eighteen years earlier, when he told her Grandmama had died, but instead of answering, she presses her palms into the rough bark, feeling the pain soothe her.
Later, the narrator recounts Nonso’s cold Virginia funeral, describing her mother in faded black, her father in a dashiki, their detached behavior, and the refusal to discuss Nonso’s death. Three months after the funeral, her mother brings up the divorce and, pressing, asks how Nonso died. The narrator, reluctantly, fabricates a story: Grandmama had frightened Nonso with the echi eteka snake while he was on the highest avocado branch, causing him to slip and fall, after which Grandmama shouted at his broken body until he died. She notes that her mother screamed, blamed the narrator’s mother for the accident, and that her father later warned her to “be careful what you say.” The narrator reflects that even at ten she realized that some people could “take up too much space” and that she and Dozie had, in secret, wanted Nonso harmed to free that space. Dozie remained silent while drawing a picture of her with star‑shaped eyes.
The chapter ends with the narrator standing alone under the avocado tree, watching ants crawl up the trunk, feeling a crushing mixture of hate, loss, and yearning, unable to voice the pain that has lingered since that summer.