Love Happens Eventually

First Published in Great Britain in 2020 by

LOVE AFRICA PRESS

103 Reaver House, 12 East Street, Epsom KT17 1HX

www.loveafricapress.com

Text copyright © Olufunmilola Adeniran, 2020

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

The right of Olufunmilola Adeniran to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 9781005852856

Blurb

Nifemi Ajayi is single, not searching and not expecting to ever get married. When her younger sister trips at a family wedding event, a visit to the hospital puts her in the sights of Dr Esosa Aghomo. There is instant chemistry. Esosa ticks every box on her checklist and there’s no reason not to invite him to her grandmother's 60th birthday celebration.

Then her uncle, Toba, shows up at the party, tall, handsome and grown out of his teenage awkwardness. He is much cooler than Nifemi remembers and is sporting a sexy new girlfriend who is the cynosure of every eye present.

A death in the family and a will reading reveals a big family secret and the truth about Toba’s parentage. This raises many questions for Nifemi, topmost of which is how to handle an uncle who is no longer exactly an uncle. Even more when she finds she can’t trust Esosa.

Love Happens, Eventually is full of musings about life, love and the usual Nigerian life drama as seen from the eyes of a single girl from a huge Yoruba family whose least favorite question is when she is getting married.

Acknowledgments

I want to express my gratitude to God for his grace in my life and for his words of wisdom. He gave me the talent, and sent people my way to help translate this beautiful story from just an idea in my head, to a book I can share with the world.

I'm grateful to my family and friends who have in one way or the other supported me and encouraged me to be the author I have become.

Akinpelumi, you are more than my confidant, you're my best friend and the father of my children. You are my rock. You encourage me to go for what I want every day that we share together and you don't complain too much when at 2am I'm up in bed disturbing your sleep with the light from my laptop. I'm more than eternally grateful to have you in my life and I can't stress it enough, I love being married to you.

Special thanks go to Kitan, my number one beta reader for this particular work; to Zee, for her invaluable advice in the editorial process and for pushing to get the best out of me. Also, Kiru my hero, coming across your books opened my eyes in ways I cannot begin to explain. I'm grateful to you. Thank you for taking a chance on me.

Seun, Goke, Olayemi, Bro Dan, you believed in me when I was still writing in the closet. I appreciate you because you gave me courage to share my work with the world.

To every Nigerian who reads this book and laughs with understanding at our little quirks as a nation, thank you. It was what I observed in our society that helped make this dream of mine a reality.

Thank you, all.

Chapter One

I hate babies!

Okay, I know that doesn’t sound right, or maternal, or like something a woman should say out loud or even think about. And I’m an African woman, for that matter. But I don’t care, and I don’t apologize for it.

My mother says I’m supposed to love babies. I’m supposed to know how to calm them, burp them, back them, sing, and do all that fancy stuff women like to do when they hold babies. But I don’t. Apparently, something went wrong somehow and somewhere with me, sometime between my childhood when I loved playing with dolls and my adulthood. Something that never got fixed, that I don’t know how to fix … nor do I want to fix, to be perfectly honest.

I never know what to do with babies. So you can’t blame me when Aunty Norma hands me her fifth child and I hold him—or her, or it? Whatever! —at arm’s length and stare like it’s an alien from outer space.

The squirmy thing curves into a huge C-shape, and I am anything but awed.

Aunty Norma. I clear my throat to hide uneasiness. How much time are you going to take doing what you’re doing?

I have my uses, and they are plenty, and they are great … but they don’t involve handling babies, or pretending to like them.

Abeg hold pikin, I dey come, she says.

My heart, instead of melting, begins to throttle. My palms sweat, my arms ache, and I grimace. I really don’t know what to do with the baby.

Everyone I know loves to carry them, feed them, and kiss their soft baby cheeks while murmuring a lot of gibberish that adults love to mutter when they hold babies. I’m sorry. I’m just not made that way.

There are babies all around me. Friends, family, heck, two of my sisters have babies. But my interaction ends on the naming day when I drop off a gift, peek in the crib, and wave at the little tots. I usually do not carry them, and no, I never want to.

The baby gurgles, and I bite my lower lip. It has curly black hair slathered in copious amounts of fragrant oil, and a little pink bow by the side. It’s a girl. I still keep her at arm’s length as we both examine each other and admit one salient truth: we don’t like each other.

While I am good at hiding my feelings, my rival is not. She turns down the corners of her mouth, and her eyes glaze over.

"No!" I murmur as the face crumples into descending protest. Don’t even … don’t cry.

She opens her mouth, whimpers for a moment, and the sound fades into oblivion. I’m not deceived; there is more where that came from.

Aunty Norma, I yell and look at her. Come and take your baby!

Aunty Norma, who is winding a tough-looking piece of damask gele with all the strength she can muster around my sister’s head, ignores me.

My younger sister, Olamide, squeezes her eyes shut and mutters under her breath at the same time. Ewo oooooooo …

I hear it, but Aunty Norma can’t, or chooses not to. She places a foot on the wooden frame of the bed right beside Olamide’s thighs and pulls both ends of the papery fabric hard. I wince right along with my sister and hunch my shoulders. She has a brand-new head of braids underneath that gele, and I can feel the hurt all over my own scalp.

"Aunty Norma! Ye pa! Yeeee!"

Olamide’s cry coincides with the baby’s next sound.

It’s loud. I am embarrassed to say that as sophisticated as Olamide can sometimes be, pain brings out the villager in her.

"Wetin? Abeg, no fall my hand. Make your gele collapse in front of our in-laws hen?" Aunty Norma says as she winds one arm of the gele towards the back of Olamide’s head.

The baby is howling, Olamide is yelling, and I am panicking.

Haba, it’s too tight nau!

Olamide, hold still o.

Aunty Norma, it’s paining me nau!

"Iyawo, endure. You think say na only teeth dem dey use do oge?"

Enitan, my youngest sister, giggles from the other end of the bedroom where Aramide—Olamide’s twin—is busy fixing her own gele. Interestingly, it’s a much quieter affair.

The baby is screaming, and I’m lowering and raising my hands with her still in them while looking around the room for possible help.

Kenny, a cousin from my dad’s side of the family, is painting brows into her brow-less face in front of a mirror. Imisi, another cousin, is stuffing herself into her lace skirt and blouse, wondering where all the space in it went to. Aramide is now helping Enitan. No one is taking this baby from me.

It’s like this dress has shrunk! Imisi announces.

When I tell you that you are getting rounder, you tell me the scales have not shifted ground since the last time you stood on them, Aunty Norma says with a hiss.

But they haven’t! Imisi wails. I still wore this dress last month with no issues.

Be asking me how the washing machine shrunk your dress, Aunty Norma says, tone unkind.

Kenny snorts. I’ve been telling you to join the keto diet since, and you keep posting me.

Go away. Imisi eyes her above Enitan’s head. I don’t know what you’re doing keto for.

I’m doing it to be healthy.

You are thin and healthy enough.

Health is not measured in the size of one’s body! Kenny says. My new ketofied body is blazing!

Imisi clicks her tongue. Health is not measured in the size of one’s body! So leave me, madam keto.

The baby decides to take her scream a notch higher, and so does my panic. Aunty Norma!

"Femi, find a way to keep that baby quiet nau, Aramide snaps from the other end of the room. Everyone else is busy."

I toss her a venomous look and swing the baby from side to side. I’m two years older. A ringed finger and a pair of cute children don’t give her the right to talk to me anyhow. These days, Aramide seems to think they do.

Aunty Norma turns to me. "Femi, na like that dem they hold pikin?"

"Oya, come and carry your baby," I say in my defence.

"Yee! Aunty Norma, this thing is giving me headache already!"

"To do oge requires pain and sacrifice. You look nice. Wait, let me show you mirror."

Aunty Norma! I call out as she dashes to the corner of the room, yanks the mirror out from in front of Kenny, and hurries back to Olamide.

Kenny turns around, angry.

"Wetin? Na you dey wan come see? Your name na iyawo? She hisses. Abegi!"

The baby’s eyes are squeezed shut, and its mouth has formed a round O. She is howling in cycles of high and low sounds so I swing faster, feeling a bit like Alice in Wonderland. Don’t turn into a Cheshire cat, don’t turn into a Cheshire cat, I murmur.

There is mucus all over her nostrils and tears all over her face. I’m thinking of dropping her on the bed.

"Femi, put Jolomi on your shoulder nau!" Aramide shouts.

I toss her another venomous stare that doesn’t sink past the skin of her face. With all this mucus?

Yes. Aramide doesn’t care much about the looks I give her. So she can stop crying.

Dance and sing for her, Enitan advises. Turn her onto her back and hold her close.

But she’s all sticky! I moan.

"Sisi Eko, as if you no go born pikin one day. Wait jo, I dey come." Aunty Norma displays the mirror to Olamide who checks out her head from all angles. The gele is actually beautiful.

My mum, God bless her soul, barges in at that moment.

Olamide, your husband’s people are here already. She takes one look at me and her mouth drops open. Femi! What are you doing?

It won’t stop yelling! I say while swinging Jolomi.

She runs to me and scoops Jolomi out of my hands.

"Is that how to carry a baby, ehen? Jolomi darling, Jolomi sweetie, don’t mind Aunty Femi. Cradling the baby, she dances from one foot to the other and rocks her. I watch, totally divorced from the actions. Femi, pass me the wipes, please. Let me clean her face."

Wipes? I can do that. I can handle non-living things.

I reach across the bed for a ‘Winnie-the-pooh’ rubber envelope and pull a piece out. The baby has quietened now and is cooing in my mother’s arms. My mother’s face is full of love and delight, emotions that never fail to run from me when I hold a baby. I shudder, because she looks like she doesn’t mind having another one at sixty-three.

She collects the wipe from me with a brief glance and reserves her comment. I can hear it however. I know she will say it when time and opportunity bring us both together alone.

Let’s hurry up! she says out loud. Daddy and Aunty Ladepe are the only ones out there welcoming guests. They need to feel like we have family.

I smile. I like Aunty Ladepe. She is my grandfather’s youngest wife, and she doesn’t act like the world needs to respect her because she married the great Chief Awotunde of Ibadan land.

Aunty Norma steps back, looks at Olamide, and starts shaking her shoulders from side to side. "Iyawo olele, Iyawo asiko, Iyawo tuntun, Omidan, Omogee, Arewa titi lai lai. Aramide, oya come and finish her makeup."

Olamide turns to us, wincing. What do you think? Is it fine?

Aramide smiles at her twin. It’s perfect.

"Is this gele not too tight, Norma?" my mum asks. The baby is clinging to her chest, looks content and is—annoyingly—quiet.

"No naaau, mummy. Aunty Norma steps up to adjust it. It has to grip well so it doesn’t fall off."

It’s tight! Olamide allows a frown to cross her face. I’m going to remove it as soon as possible.

Not before you welcome your in-laws, my mother replies.

Not before I collect my money from them, Aunty Norma shouts in her naturally loud voice. "Dem go see today, today."

She bends down and proceeds to shake her huge, round buttocks in my direction in one of the famed Ibo dance styles. I roll my eyes. I have not told anyone in the family that I do not plan to wear gele at my own wedding engagement, if ever I have any.

My wedding will be at night, on a beach, with just twenty people. I will be in a white Grecian dress, with my hair down one side of my face and a flower clip holding the other side above my ear. This idea is one my mum will fight, and I’m ready.

That brief moment of thought makes me realise that I want a wedding. My three younger sisters are in various stages of marriage, and I’m nowhere near starting the journey.

Despite complaints, Olamide looks pretty in the well-made, burnt orange head gear. The champagne coloured lace skirt and blouse is Aso Ebi from Enitan’s wedding two years ago, but it doesn’t matter because this is just the family introduction. All we need is for her to look pretty for show today. Besides, no one else is wearing theirs.

"Oya, oya o! my mother cajoles. Our guests are waiting."

I hear Imisi fussing harder than ever over her clothes and Enitan pointing her to me.

Femi may have one of her numerous Ankara dresses from when she was a size up.

Yep, I was a size or two up about a year ago. My sisters had hounded me about looking young and ‘snaggable’ so it wouldn’t hurt my chances at marriage. So I did everything I could to drop the extra weight.

Let’s go ooo! Ara, stay with Ola. It’s not time for her to come out yet, my mother shouts.

"Femi, won’t you tie gele?" Aunty Norma asks from behind her.

I’m the first one out of the room. Tie gele ke, and have Aunty Norma cutting off the blood supply to my head ’til I faint?

I run smack into one of Aramide’s four-year-old twins in the corridor. The boy slams me in the shin with the toe of his boot, and I howl in pain. ‘Terrible,’ as I call him, runs into the bedroom, excited about being chased by his twin sister and the younger two of the rest of Aunty Norma’s children.

No running in the house! I hear Aramide caution from inside the room.

Leave them. When I remove one slipper from my feet now, Aunty Norma says. "If I catch una—"

The children scream and run back outside, shoving past my mother and me. They’re ecstatic. There is food, and music, and all the cousins they don’t see often to play with. I’ve been at that age before, where the worries of the adults meant nothing, and family gatherings were just opportunities to run round and play to my heart’s content. Now I’m older, there’s a lot to stress me out at parties and less time to play around.

A robust figure bursts into the carpeted hallway decked in Gupion lace and lots of gold jewellery.

"Iyawo mi, she rushes at me, and all of a sudden I’m swathed in scratchy lace, thick perfume, and hard as nails bangles. Oba ni fe e, nitoto. Finally, the Lord be praised."

It’s Mama Bimpe, my father’s older stepsister. She holds me at arm’s length and examines me. "Arewa, all our prayers have been answered! Someone has come to take you away from this household. Oluwa modupe! The devil will know shame all the days of his life. Only sounds of praise and rejoicing shall be known in this household. Forward ever, backward never. The crowning beauty of …"

I’m more than mortified as my mother tries to get a word in.

I’ve been saying it. Such a beautiful girl, and not married yet, she continues, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Eh, I’ve been wondering if the men were all blind, or if it was you hiding from them. Thank God one of them has decided to show face and hide all our nakedness. Where is your gele?"

Welcome, Mama Bimpe, my mother butts in from behind me. "Your iyawo is inside the room."

"Ehen … she frowns. Is it not Nifemi that is getting married?"

No, it’s Olamide.

Ah, sorry my child, the Lord will provide the big bone of your own bones in time. She pushes me aside and rushes into the room past my mother. "Iyawo mi …" she starts the tirade all over again.

I lean against the wall and put my leg down. I’m not sure if it’s pain from the shin slam or the sting of her well-meaning prayer. I’m hurting, however, and I can’t exactly tell where from. So when Imisi asks to get something else to wear, I’m more than happy to take her to my room and lose myself in something I have some form of actual control over.

Everything is a blur from then on as events unfold rapidly. Korede, the groom, sits in our living room with his family. His father, Chief Okanlanwon, is a mild-mannered man in a simple beige lace outfit. His mother, the more extroverted parent, is dressed in a dark brown and gold Ankara. She has a domineering personality that keeps every member of the groom’s party of ten somewhat in check.

The ceremony begins with an opening prayer. Mama Bimpe stands to speak for our family as the ‘Alaga Ijoko.’ We introduce one another, and there is a little joke about coming back for me when I stand to introduce myself. The joke is thanks to my mother. She can’t resist mentioning that I’m single and searching. I see the groom’s uncle checking me out after then, and I avoid all eye contact with him.

We serve them amala with ewedu as well as white rice with fish, goat meat, and peppered snails. They would like to see their bride come out before they touch any part of the meal. Imisi comes out first, and the spokeswoman for the groom’s family refuses her.

This is not our wife. She waves both hands at Aunty Norma. Our wife is the most beautiful girl in the compound today.

Imisi goes in, and Jumoke replaces her, covered in a lace headscarf. Thirteen years old and already as tall as a lamp post, Aunty Norma’s first daughter is a budding beauty. She is not the one the visiting family has spoken for, however.

Our wife has a slim shape and wide hips, good for birthing sons. She is not too tall, not too short, not too dark, and not too fair. She is Agbani Darego.

There is laughter. I laugh, as well, a hollow sound that’s in between being happy and being upset. I’m wondering which other young girl aside Jumoke will be brought in my stead if I decide to get married since my sisters had decided to skip to the next stage of life before me. Imisi is in a relationship. Perhaps Jumoke will marry before me.

Jumoke married. It is a thought, brief and scary.

Olamide comes out covered in bridal lace. She holds the lace with both hands and steps gingerly towards her in-laws who all give a shout of delight when she arrives. Her smile is enchanting, and Korede is all smiles at the sight of her. I’m happy he loves her. It’s the most important thing. The mood in the house thereafter is light and easy, an atmosphere that comes with acceptance. Our family has agreed to give my sister away to the visitors.

I sit with our grandpa in