Chapter Twelve: Answered Prayers
738 Words
Three months later. Jabi Lake, Abuja.
The lake glistened under the soft gold of a July morning. Adanna stood barefoot at the edge of the dock, her sketchpad resting on her knee, her pencil moving without thinking.
It was a new design—part residential, part retreat—something inspired by silence, healing, and stillness.
Just behind her, under a canopy of white linen and woven mats, Toba was reading.
His surgery had gone well. The growth was benign. He still had to take things slow, and he hated every second of being told to rest. But he was healing. Bit by bit.
And Adanna had changed too.
She wasn’t chasing anymore.
Not love. Not approval. Not perfection.
She moved with calm purpose now. With peace. With God.
---
Later that afternoon, they stopped by Mama’s house in Kado for lunch. Mama made ogbono soup with pounded yam, humming as she worked, and Toba helped slice onions in the kitchen like he’d always belonged there.
Mama had warmed up to him quickly after his return.
“Any man that can eat bitterleaf and still laugh afterward is a man you don’t let go,” she’d once whispered to Adanna.
They laughed over lunch, and afterward, Adanna helped her mom sort tomatoes in the backyard while Toba went to take a call.
“He’s serious about you,” Mama said, not looking up from the basket.
Adanna nodded. “I know.”
“More serious than the others.”
“He’s different, Mama.”
Mama gave a quiet smile. “God writes love stories in unexpected fonts. But the ink is always bold when it’s real.”
---
That evening, Adanna and Toba sat by the rooftop garden of the co-working space. The city stretched before them—Abuja glowing softly, the distant sound of horns and evening prayers weaving together like music.
“I have something for you,” he said, reaching into his satchel.
She raised an eyebrow.
“Before you panic,” he added, chuckling, “it’s not a ring.”
She laughed. “Thank God. I didn’t do my nails.”
He handed her a small hardcover notebook.
She flipped it open.
Her eyes welled up instantly.
Inside were sketches—his sketches—of buildings inspired by her. The curved outline of her face in an archway. The braided texture of her hair forming the facade of a studio. Quotes from her journal woven into structural notes.
The final page held a sketch of a house.
Small. Elegant. Wrapped in greenery.
And beneath it, the words: “Adanna’s Home.”
She looked up, stunned.
“I want to build this with you,” he said quietly. “Not just the house. The life. The work. The faith. I don’t want to keep designing around you—I want to design with you.”
Her voice cracked. “Even if I snore?”
“Especially if you snore,” he said, pulling her close.
They sat there, forehead to forehead, as the city carried on below.
Not everything was perfect. They still had fears. Still had things to figure out.
But this?
This was solid ground.
---
One Year Later
They stood hand in hand under the vaulted ceiling of All Saints Church, Guzape. The building was one of the first collaborative projects they’d worked on—Adanna reimagined the layout, and Toba handled the lighting design.
It was their wedding day.
Adanna wore ivory lace with simple gold detailing, her natural hair styled in a low twist bun. Toba looked at her like the answer to every prayer he’d whispered in the dark.
As the officiating pastor prayed over them, tears slid down Adanna’s cheeks.
Not because of fear.
But because she finally knew what grace looked like in human form.
---
That night, alone in their quiet home—yes, the same one from the sketchbook—Adanna sat at her desk, opened her journal one last time, and wrote:
> “I was raised in rooms with cracked ceilings and leaking dreams. But God rebuilt me. Patiently. With love, laughter, and lessons.
He gave me heartbreak, then healing.
Emptiness, then vision.
And when I was no longer searching, He gave me Toba.
This is no fairytale.
But it is holy.
And it is home.”
She closed the journal.
And just like that, a chapter ended.
But a new story had begun.
- Writer
