They didn’t leave for a honeymoon because it was peak holiday season. They both couldn’t afford to take time off work. I was glad they weren’t going away. Going away would have meant Nyewayo would have moved in to keep an eye on Nene and me. Pope wasn’t convinced I could take care of both of us.

Peak season meant Naadu was busy with her business as well. She shuttled between Accra and Ada. I was overjoyed on weekends when she couldn’t come over and Pope couldn’t leave. I heard him talking a number of times about getting another chef. I hoped it was just talk.

She slept in Pope’s room when she came for the weekends. He packed Mama’s stuff out into the storeroom. He took down her pictures from the living room. Each time he left for work I put them back up. After a while he stopped taking them down. She was his new wife but no one said she had to be comfortable in my house or that I had to like her.

Aseye dubbed it ‘The war against Naadu’ and gave me a point for maintaining the pictures.

When Naadu came over she cooked for us. I didn’t know whom she wanted to impress. She was a mediocre cook. My dad had been a banker whose first love was cooking. Now he was a fully-fledged chef. I didn’t even pretend to eat her food like he, Nene and Mantse did. The first time she made boiled yam with garden egg stew. I don’t know if she forgot there was koobi in the stew and added way too much salt. I spat it out after taking the first bite.

Pope said it wasn’t that bad and that I was to finish my food. I think he chooses to forget I’ve finished SHS. I’m not a child anymore. No one can tell me what to do. I got up from the table and emptied my plate into the bin. Pope flashed me a warning look. I ignored him. Did he think I was two?

“This isn’t even fit for a dog.”

Pope was about to get up but Naadu shook her head. I walked out on them.

I called Aseye and updated her.

Score 2: 0.

***

“My mother always pounded cassava and plantain for our fufu. She said only lazy women go in for this Neat fufu stuff.”

That wasn’t actually true. The statement was true alright but it hadn’t been Mama who had said it. It had been Nyewayo who had said it to Mama when she found a box of Neat fufu flour in our kitchen cupboard. Mama had thrown the box away when Nyewayo left. All the fufu we had subsequently eaten had been the pounded type.

“I’m sure you’ll like it once you try it. It tastes just like pounded fufu and takes a fraction of the time to prepare.”

I left her in the kitchen with her fufu flour. It didn’t taste half as bad as I thought it would but my point had been made. Score 3: 0. Team Buerki was in the lead.

***

Naadu was trying too hard to win me over. She tried to bribe me with gifts. She bought me clothes, shoes, jewellery, handbags—I accepted them all. Of course I wasn’t stupid and I would need new outfits for the university, but I continued waging my war against her.

One night I snuck out of the house to the nursery she had started in town. I dropped pieces of minced meat and chicken stock into the soil around the seedlings. I left the gates wide open. The next morning she was in tears as she told Pope what the stray dogs in the neighbourhood had done to the garden. They had dug out all the plants and shredded them into pieces. She swore that she had closed the gate behind her. Pope kept insisting that she must have forgotten to shut it properly which only made her angrier. They had their first fight that morning.

Aseye gave me ten extra points for innovation and creativity. The score was now 13: 0.