UPWARD MOVEMENT

‘Oh my’, I sighed.

‘What?’ Bidemi asked. She repeated the question twice but gave up when she did not get any answer.

It had become a routine. I mean the sighs. The reason for them was what I could not place. All I know was that for sure, I yearned for fulfillment and that with every passing day this fulfillment seems to elude me.

My phone began to ring. At first I did not recognize its ‘omoge mi’ ringtone but Bidemi’s continued stare made me eventually pick the phone. I picked up the phone but not the call. The caller ID told me that it was Nkechi on the line. I did not feel like talking to her. I could tell how the conversation will go. Nkechi was a success story; married to a loving, caring and rich man who had a fantastic consulting outfit and adored her, Nkechi had two kids, a girl and a boy, just as she always dreamed of in school. Picking up her call was a reminder of how hard it has been it has been for me since I lost my job two years back. It would also remind me of Shadrack’s disappearance and the consequential loss of my five months pregnancy the year before. In totality, it reminded me of how much of a failure I had been.

‘You should have picked the call, Asia’, Bidemi said, breaking into my thoughts. It seems to be her forte these days but I was grateful. Bidemi would never express her opinion in a condescending manner or chide me for being out of a job at my age. Even throughout Shadrack’s episode, she would never condemn. This is in spite of the fact that she never liked Shadrack all trough the period we dated.

‘There is something that is just not set about him, Asia, he is just not that set’. She would say.

Bidemi grew up with us. I mean in my family home. Her mother was my mother’s little sister. Her dad, she never knew, he never saw her. He was on training when she was born. He died in a plane crash on his way back. When her mum remarried after her sixth birthday, she decided to leave her with my mum who did not mind as I being the last was already in my third year in a secondary boarding school.

‘She is calling again pick up the call. You may never know’, Bidemi added again

 I called her my shadow when she was like this. Good thing was that at times like this she was mostly right, sorry, always right. As she was with Shadrack so she was with Nkechi. I was right too. I mean my intuition about the reason for Nkechi’s call was right. She was calling to invite me to her daughter’s birthday in the coming week- end. She had planned to do a joint celebration with her tenth year wedding anniversary.

I had my reservations as I dressed up for the party that Saturday but Bidemi did not give me any room to exercise them. She practically dressed me up   and walked me to the party. It was not until I had gotten into the compound that she returned home.

Nkechi’s party changed my world. It was at the party that I met Bode who was looking for an on-the-ground partner to run his carpentry/furniture business. At first I thought it was not feminine but the thought of learning something masculine intrigued me. By the next week, work started as Bode was in a hurry to travel back to his Brazil base.

I was on the job when Nosa walked in to request for the furnishing of his company. From taking measurements and trying to meet specifications to a few lunch dates, we went further to becoming man and wife.

***************************

Finally I found fulfillment so we named our baby Oghogho.

I thank God for his faithfulness and for those who coped with me in my time of depression, particularly Bidemi.