To be loved, Nnamdi Udoka

Part 1

The maidens of the market don't say anything.
They'd shuffle around in their see through attempts at looking busy whenever he came to her booth to visit.
And when he was gone, their eyes would tug her hand and say
"Eno you no go marry Ntekim? That na fiiine man o. E come get money too. You no go hurry go marry Ntekim?"

And when she would ride Ikpe's bicycle back from the market Ntekim would wave to her from the little pammy bar so she'd stop.
The young men would whisper   over frothing kegs while their backs were turned.
"I tell you Eno will accept his proposal. Lucky girl",
One young man to the others.
"Who wouldn't? I know I would"
Another young man's whispered rejoinder.
And a round of drawled laughter would fill the bar.

In the evening when she'd go purchase some kerosene for the lamp, she'd spot him, like he was wont to do, prancing the bad roads of the village in his new 504.
His friends would lean out the car windows with those looks that told everyone they were friends with Ntekim.
"Use this lamp."
Ikpe said after selling her the kerosene.
"Your's is too old you should throw it away. You can give mine back if you ever accept his proposal.
I hear he has electricity in his house."

Sometimes Emeno would pick a quarrel with her over anything. Her tantrums would be airborne for hours at a time.
"That one wants your man," Her grandma would tell her while she fed the day old chicks Ikpe had gotten her the other day.
"By God if your parents were still alive, you'd be married to Ntekim already.

The only family she had now was Grandma. People had watched her suffer these past few years at the death of her parents and watched her grow under the weight of their absence. Everyone thought she deserved some happiness in her life and Ntekim was Happiness itself, if you asked them.
She thought she'd visit her parent's graves to cry a little.
She knew where her heart pointed. That single constant feature in her life who held on to her when the storm threatened to gorge itself on her.
That epitome of unselfishness who had never asked anything back for all the support he nudged her way.

Her parents' graves were unusually tidy today. Someone had weeded the place.
Two flowers sat gaily on each memorial stone. She knew who sent them, even before she sniffed them. And when the sweet fragrance of the flowers, tinged with the slight but noticeable smell of kerosene from the hands that had laid them on the stones wafted to her, she knelt in the grass and let the tears follow.
"Why wouldn't you say something?" she sniffed.
This waiting was pain. Maybe he didn't know it.
Maybe he didn't know it at all.