Preordained #ProjectNigeria

46- The Message

Maduka's POV~

The sound of someone knocking on the front door wakes us up. I disentangle my limbs from Nwanyieze's, slowly get up, and walk to the front door. Daa Ndidi greets me good afternoon cheerfully, and tells me that this is the third time today that she has come to knock on the door.

Nwanyieze and I had apparently taken a long nap.

"Aren't you hungry? It's 2 o'clock and I have ofe Owerre."

I thank her, and tell her that we will join her at her place for lunch shortly. Locking the door after she has left, I tiptoe back to the room, where Nwanyieze is still fast asleep. She isn't such a light sleeper, after all. I settle on the only chair in the room and begin replying messages: emails from my employees and business partners, whatsapp messages from Somto asking where I've been and why they haven't heard from me for some days, even a text message from Tasha. I promise Somto that I'll explain when I come to visit next week, but I know she will call back as soon as she sees my message. I leave the last one pending; I do not want any distractions from Tasha.

While I had cried my eyes out, Nwanyieze had said nothing. She'd just held me in silence. The breakdown was something I had been trying to avoid totally, thinking it would pass... But I was overwhelmed. Coming home, staying in the house my family had died in... And I had begun to dwell on what would have been. What if they hadn't died, and my sibling had been born? This visit would have been a regular, happy reunion. My father would have seen me, and smiled with pride. My mother would have-

"Maduka?"

She opens her eyes and squints at me, blinking the sleep out. I love her sleepy voice. It makes me want to lie back beside her and hear her talk right in my ear.

"Yes, baby girl?"

"Come back here."

She runs a hand over the sheet where I had been lying.

"Only for a minute, because I can't resist you and we have to shower and eat something."

Nwanyieze smiles. "You have 58 seconds now."

I chuckle and join her in bed, where she instantly wraps herself around me and sighs. "You feel so good."

"It only gets better."

"You and your pick up lines," she scoffs. But I can hear the smile in her voice.

"Why would I need pick up lines when you're right here already? I use lay back lines now."

"Jeez, you're so cheesy," we both say at the same time before bursting into a fit of laughter.

It is half an hour before I finally get out of bed to take a bath. The day is hot now, all traces of the cold morning are gone. Nwanyieze urges me to use the bathroom first, because she wants more time on the bed. I suppose she just wants to lie there and look at the clear blue sky through the window, as she usually did in my room back in Lagos. It is one of her habits, staring up at the sky and thinking thoughts that she claims are "nothing" whenever I ask her.

My stomach begins to growl while I brush my teeth, and the thought of Daa Ndidi's ofe Owerre makes me grin. I hurry into the shower, letting the cold water run down from my head to feet. It feels refreshing in this heat. Thankfully, Nwanyieze has placed all I need in convenient places. I chuckle at the memory of the amazement I had felt as a little boy whenever my mother allowed me to use the shower instead of a bucket and a bowl. I would stand under the cold water for a long time, laughing, until she would yell my name from the kitchen or come in and turn off the water by herself.