The Lord’s Will (Part 3)

Hello Friends,

Here's the concluding part of our inspiring story. (See Parts 1 & 2 of the story here and here).
Thanks for following....

The heat of the afternoon sun seared Kemi’s eyebrows and she felt the discomfort of blackened, sticky sweat forming all over her body. She winced, grunted and cussed inaudibly and clumsily adjusted her fake Gucci handbag as she waited with other commuters in a long queue at Oshodi ‘Under Bridge’ for the next BRT Buses that was taking forever to arrive. 

She itched and impatiently glanced at her wristwatch.  But Kemi was not a box of firecrackers waiting to explode; her mind was a vast blue ocean of the unknown.  Inside her, a turmoil of emotions surged and raged. All at once, she felt joy and anger, love and hate, hope and regret.

But her muddled mind had nothing to do with the ill-mannered ticket girls that would hiss and throw her N1000 note back at her for not having the right change for the journey; or the annoying cluster of local market women with chattered loudly and cackled endlessly.   

No, Kemi was angry with someone else. Yes, she was sure of it, she was angry with Femi. Or maybe, more correctly, she was angry with herself for letting her chance slip when she had the chance seven years ago. But then maybe, maybe now, she could make amends. Maybe there will be hope after the regret; a faint ray of hope, no matter how small it might look now. But hope, all the same.  

Finally, the loud engine sounds of a BRT bus laboriously slowing to a halt interrupted Kemi’s reverie. She finally found a nice ticket girl, paid for one and hopped into the bus. She made for the back of the bus and sat at the extreme end where she could stare out of the window, shut herself from the world and indulge in a nostalgic trip down bitter-sweet memories. She rummaged through her bag, fetched an earpiece and plugged the speakers into her ear. Then she scrolled through the music list on her budget smart phone and played Rosanne Cash’s ‘I Still Miss Someone.’

At my door the leaves are falling
A cold wild wind has come
Sweethearts walk by together
And I still miss someone

I go out on a party
And look for a little fun
But I find a darkened corner
because I still miss someone

Oh, no I never got over those blues eyes
I see them everywhere
I miss those arms that held me
When all the love was there

I wonder if he's sorry
For leavin' what we'd begun
There's someone for me somewhere
And I still miss someone

But the song, rather than heal her, damaged Kemi. The lyrics overwhelmed her; every word, every verse broke her and her eyes welled with tears and sadness. She dabbed her moistened eyes with her handkerchief let a tear or two trickle down her soggy face. 

She could barely make out faces or voices now; every figure in the bus was blurred, every sound muffled. She rested her crossed arms on top of the seat in front of her, buried her face in its cushion and let her mind wander free like a caged eagle newly released into freedom. Her memories flitted and floated to seven years ago when she was just 23, young, innocent and prim; and Femi was 28, energetic, enthusiastic, green but promising. 

Kemi had reconnected with Femi after a casual Facebook chat with a friend.

“Bae, you still remember Femi? When did you hear from him last?” the friend typed.  

“Oh, Femi? Lost contact with him a long while ago after I closed my account and opened a new one. Funny you still remember though…  I haven’t heard from him since then. Six or seven years now, I think” Kemi replied, trying to conceal the sense of nostalgia her friend’s words evoked in her. 

“Chatted with him just yesterday. Femi, ever still his smart, chatty self!”

Kemi’s heart missed a heartbeat, then two. And her hands became unsteadied on the computer keyboard. 

“But I’ve searched for Femi Adewunmi several times on Facebook and never found him. I thought he had closed his Facebook account…” She managed to type with her now wobbly fingers. 

“That’s because he has Anglicized his name on social media. You should search for ‘Phemmy,’ not ‘Femi.’”

“Anglicized?”

“Yeah, maybe that’s because he just returned from the UK. You know, he’s now a ‘T-O-K-U-N-B-O’ and you won’t believe it, he’s also so well to do now.”

Kemi died inside. Femi was now a ‘Tokunbo?’ So Femi had been ‘The Tokunbo,’ her own ‘Tokunbo;’ the guy that was supposed to come from overseas and become her husband. So ‘the Lord’s will’ had also been her own will and yet she couldn’t see it? 

Besides, he’s now also ‘well to do;’ the exact words Prophet Samson had used seven years ago… He had misled her… or not? How can someone be so wrong and right at the same time? 

“Hello…. Helllo… Are you still there?” her friend typed in the message box.

But Kemi’s whole body was now shaking with emotions and her eyes were clouding with tears. She hurriedly left the computer and slumped on her bed and shed a good cry.

……………………………………

Two days later, Kemi type ‘Phemmy’ in the Facebook search box and sent him a friend request. Then she checked every other hour to see if he had responded. By the third day, Femi had seen Kemi’s friend request and accepted it. That morning, he was online and she was online too, so they chatted. 

They were both overjoyed to reconnect with each other. They bantered and had small talks about the past and the present. Then they exchanged numbers and he invited her over to his place the next Saturday.

That Saturday, Kemi arrived at Femi’s home at exactly 9am as they’d agreed. “You shut yourself against the world,” Kemi accused Femi tongue-in-cheek after she was seated on a sofa in his decently furnished apartment in a high-brow neighbourhood in Ikeja, uptown Lagos. 

“No; I should say that of you instead. As for me, I simply evolved and moved on,” Femi answered, pouring himself a glass from the wine bottle he had reserved for the visit. He filled Kemi’s glass cup too. 

Kemi stole occasional gazes at him each time his attention was momentarily consumed by the football match on his wall-mounted 40 inches LCD tv.  He was plump now and round-faced and spoke and laughed in slow, measured notes like rich African folks often do. 

“So you’ve been to the UK recently. You are a ‘Tokunbo,’ eh? You are a big boy now, see,” Kemi said and giggled pretentiously, every word piercing her insides with pain and regret. 

“’Tokunbo’? Oh, you mean ‘been to overseas’? That’s the common slang peeps here use. Me, big boy? Please don’t flatter me. My company just sent me on a professional course training. Then I worked for a year in the UK headquarters and was transferred back to Nigeria after then to head the corporate communications department,” Femi recounted modestly. 

Kemi adjusted clumsily on her seat. She grew ever so uneasy. It was like his story was taunting her. “What company is that?” she asked, now only half interested in the topic. She had still not touched her glass of wine. 

“Aircom. It is an international telecom company that has just invested in Nigeria,” Femi said. His phone rang and he spoke with the caller for some time. Then he went into the kitchen to check on a something he was barbecuing in the microwave oven. 

The phone backlight was still on. Kemi finally had the chance to look closely at his iPhone 5 lying on the centre table, as she had been itching to all morning. When she looked, she saw he had put the picture of a beautiful, young African woman as his screensaver. Kemi’s heart deflated. 

When Femi returned to the sitting room, Kemi’s demeanour had become sombre. “The lady on your phone, she’s your friend, eh?” her voice trembled a little. 

“Err…, Yes…” Femi said and hesitated. He too was getting uneasy at Kemi’s sudden switch mood and conversation.

“A friend like me?” Kemi’s voice was wistfully sharp, like he was reprimanding him for betraying her.

Femi said nothing. But Kemi knew him well enough to pry out what was hidden underneath those eyes. She looked at him intently and knew his answer was ‘No.’ 

Her whole body shook now with emotions and her eyes clouded with tears. She hurriedly left the house and flagged down a taxi before Femi could stop her. When she got home, she slumped on her couch and shed a good cry.