The Love We Were Forbidden to Keep

The first time Adewale saw Amara, she was standing at the river with a broken clay pot in her hands. It was just before sunrise. Mist floated above the water, turning the river silver beneath the pale morning sky. The village was still quiet. The farmers had not yet taken their tools to the fields, and the women who came every morning to fetch water had not yet filled the riverbank with their voices. Adewale should not have been there. His father had sent him to inspect the fishing traps before the morning market opened. Instead, he had stopped beneath the old iroko tree when he heard someone crying. Not loudly. The kind of crying someone does when they are determined that nobody should hear. He followed the sound. And there she was. Amara. He did not know her name then. She wore a simple indigo wrapper, and several strands of beads rested around her wrist. Her hair was tied back, but loose strands had escaped and framed her face. She stared at the broken pot as though it had betrayed her. Adewale cleared his throat. She looked up. For several seconds, neither of them spoke. Then she quickly wiped her face. "You saw nothing." Adewale almost smiled. "I saw a broken pot." "Then you saw nothing important." He looked at the pieces scattered around her feet. "That depends. Was the pot important?" She hesitated. "It belonged to my mother." His expression changed. "I'm sorry." Amara looked away. "My father will be angry." "Then perhaps we can repair it." She laughed quietly. "It is clay, not a fishing net." "I know." "You don't look like someone who repairs pots." "And you don't look like someone who cries over them." Her eyes immediately narrowed. "I wasn't crying." Adewale realized he had made a mistake. "Of course." She picked up one of the broken pieces. "Who are you?" Before he could answer, a voice came from the distant path. "Amara!" Her entire expression changed. Fear. She gathered the pieces of the pot hurriedly. "I have to go." "Wait." She stopped. Adewale pointed toward the broken clay. "You cannot carry all of that." "I have no choice." He took the pieces from her. She stared at him. "Give them back." "No." "You don't know me." "Neither do you know me." "Exactly." Adewale handed the pieces back. "But now we have met." For the first time, she smiled. It lasted only a moment. Then she turned and disappeared along the river path. Adewale watched until she was gone. He did not know that she was the daughter of the man his father had spent years refusing to forgive. He did not know that their families had buried an old disagreement beneath generations of silence. And he certainly did not know that, before the year was over, the same river where they had first met would become the place where they would have to choose between the lives their families had planned for them and the future they wanted for themselves.