When April's first rain drummed on rusty roofs of Ajegunle, it had the sound of hope beating on the night.
Chiamaka is watching as the road gets muddy, outside her mother's small provisions shop. Children across the street shouted and danced under the rain and dirty water was splashed on their legs by the buses. Her smile was a weak smile but she was thinking elsewhere.
“Chioma,” her mother said from within the shop, putting Peak tins of milk on a shelf. Has Emeka phoned again?
Chiamaka shook her head. “Not since yesterday.”
Her mother made a low noise. “Hmm.”
The one noise meant many things.
Emeka had earlier departed Lagos for Port Harcourt, having secured a job contract with an oil servicing company, eight months ago. Before he left, he stood outside this very same shop, with the yellow light of a weak streetlight and had his hands tightly clenched on Chiamaka’s hands.
He had said that he would return before Christmas. “If so, let's make our introduction right.”
She recalled her laughter as she was nervous. “Talking about marriage as if it was simple."
"For me and you?” was his question. “Very easy.”
However, it was Christmas and it had passed. Then New Year. Then Valentine’s Day. Again, each month another excuse came.
Work is stressful.
We are still waiting for the payment from them.
Transport is expensive.
Initially the promises were still warm. Later on they were starting to become weary.
It rained that night as Chiamaka's phone rang.
It was him.
She ran out of the house right away.
“Hello?”
Through the crackling line came Emeka's voice, weak.The voice that came from the crackling line was Emeka's but weak. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
There was silence.
"You are on a bad mood with me."
"I did not mean that!"
“Don't be concerned about saying it.”
They were silent again, and it was even more so.
At last she asked, “When will you be back?”
“I’m trying.”
“That's all you ever say.”
“Because it’s true.”
She leaned against the wall of the shop. On the other side of the road, an old man was trying to push his wheel barrow in the water.
“My cousins said hello to you yesterday,” she whispered. “So people think that you left.”
“I didn’t disappear.”
“Then come home.”
He sighed deeply. “Chioma, I don't think that's working out as well as I had hoped.”
“What things?”
“The job… everything.”
“It's never clear in your explanation.”
“i did not want to bother you.”
“Do you think it's better to be silent?”
The sound of her voice increased in volume. A woman coming by looked at her curiously.
Emeka fell silent once again.
Then he softly said, “I made you a promise.”
“Yes.”
“And believe me, I mean it.”
Suddenly the line was cut off.
Chiamaka gazed in at the dark screen of her cell. Her slippers were wet with rain water that fell from the edge of the roof.
She was watched closely by her mother, but she didn't say anything in the shop.
After the rains, Lagos experienced a flashback to its hotter days after two weeks. The roads were boiling under danfo exhaust and generators snarled like angry beasts during the night.
One Saturday afternoon, Chiamaka was sitting outside hair braiding a little girl, when a black Toyota pulled into the shop.
Her hands froze.
Emeka made his way out carefully.
He looked thinner. His beard was scruffy and his once glaring face tired. However, his heart melted right away at the sight of her.
“Chioma.”
The little girl stood up and ran as soon as she felt the tension of adults.
Chiamaka crossed her arms. “Oh, I did recall this street.”
Emeka smiled weakly. “I deserve that.”
When her mother came to the door. She was taken aback by a moment of surprise before regaining her composure.
“Welcome,” she said quietly.
“Thank you, Mama.”
Then there was a few seconds of awkwardness in which nothing happened.
Then her mother said to her. “There is cold water in here.”
Emeka nodded in appreciation and went in the shop.
Chiamaka joined him later that evening to a small football field behind the street where boys would play football at night. There was yellowish orange flattering sunset in the sky and a nearby barbed salon blasting Afrobeats.
There they were sitting on a broken concrete bench.
"You have changed your appearance,” she said.
“So do you.”
She ignored that.
“What really happened in Port Harcourt?”
Emeka rubbed his palms together slowly.
He said that the company ceased to pay us after three months. There were many who quit their jobs, I worked because they continued to promise me that things would get better.”
"Why didn't you say so?"
“I was ashamed.”
She frowned. “Ashamed of what?”
“Of failing.”
A troop of boys was running by shouting noises playing a ball.
Emeka explained that, "Whenever I tried to return home, I felt I was coming back empty-handed."
“Instead you didn't go so you continued to make promises?”
“Well, I thought I would 'do the first thing right'.”
Chiamaka turned her face away from the field, which was so dusty.
“What was the worst thing?” she quietly asked.
“What?”
“The waiting.”
Her voice faltered a bit.
I would defend you every month, I would say that you will come back soon, I didn't believe it after some time.
Emeka bowed his head.
“I’m sorry.”
They both didn't talk for a long time.
They could smell the roasted corn as it neared from the roadside because of the evening breeze.
Finally, Emeka pulled out a blank envelope from his little bag.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“My appointment letter.”
She blinked. “Appointment?”
I found another job here in Lagos, three days ago.
Her eyes dilated a bit.
He confessed that he had to come close to missing the event. I think that's what I said, since I thought perhaps you were tired of me.
"Perhaps I was trying to be…"
At that, he laughed quietly, and his first since he was there.
Then she said delicately, "So... you promise me again?
This time she looked at Emeka straight into his eyes.
“No,” he said tenderly. “So I returned to the other way.”
They heard the sound of the football pitch around them. After making a goal, someone screamed. The generator began to hum in the vicinity.
However, Chiamaka felt strangely calm all of a sudden.
Not because there were no more problems.
Not because the future was no longer a possibility.
But, for the first time in many months, someone had ceased to talk of tomorrow and had come to speak of today.