Simi my love

Chapter 15 : Family Business

hapter 15: The Family Business

Three years after Ire was born, Damilola made an unexpected business decision.

He called a family meeting—actual chairs, actual agenda, actual formality—in the

compound's community center.

"I've been thinking," he announced, "about stepping back from the company."

The silence was deafening.

"Step back? Damilola, you built that company," his father said.

"I did. And I've been running it for fifteen years. But I've been thinking about what actually

makes me happy."

He looked at Simi, who had no idea this was coming.

"What makes me happy is my family. My wife, my children, this compound. I've realized

that I've been chasing work while the most important things were happening at home." He

paused. "So I want to transition my responsibilities to someone else. Someone talented

and capable."

"Who?" Chief Mrs. Adeyemi demanded.

"Simi."

Simi literally stood up from her chair. "Absolutely not."

"Hear me out—"

"No. Damilola, I'm a writer and a mother and I'm barely keeping my head above water as it

is. I cannot run your company."

"Not alone. You'd have the entire management team. Christina would still be there. We'd

hire more staff. But I think you could do it."

Simi felt panic rising in her chest. "I have three children under five. I have novels to write. I

have a life. I cannot run a company."

"Then we hire someone who can, and you consult. You make the big decisions, oversee

strategy, but the day-to-day is handled by someone else."

It was, objectively, a terrible time for Simi to take on more responsibility. But it was also an

opportunity she'd never imagined possible.

She told him she'd think about it.

She thought about it for two weeks. She talked to her mother, who said, "You can do

anything you want to do, baby." She talked to Mama Kemi, who said, "If the man believe in

you, you should believe in yourself." She talked to her publisher, who said, "We can work

around your schedule, whatever it needs to be."

And she talked to Damilola, at 2 AM, after everyone was asleep.

"If I do this, there will be times when I have to choose work over writing. Times when the

kids won't see me because I'm in meetings."

"I know."

"And you'll have to step up at home even more. Because I can't do both perfectly."

"Nobody does both perfectly. They just do both the best they can."

"What if I fail?"

"You won't. But if you do, we'll figure it out together."

She took the position.

Her first day as Chief Marketing Officer of Adeyemi Holdings was chaotic. The staff didn't

know what to do with her. She was pregnant with Damilola's fourth child (a decision they'd

made on a particularly romantic Saturday evening without thinking it through properly).

She had a toddler at home and two kids in school. She was trying to run a marketing

department and a company while processing the emotional reality of Damilola stepping

back.

"This is insane," she told him at lunch on day two.

"Probably."

"I can't do this."

"You can. You're already doing it."

By month two, she'd fired two incompetent employees, hired three new ones, and

restructured the entire marketing department's approach to digital presence. By month

three, the company's engagement numbers were up 40%.

By month four, her fourth child—a beautiful daughter they named Zainab, after her best

friend, after all—had arrived.

Simi took four weeks off, then went back to work with a nursing bra and the confidence of

a woman who had conquered multiple difficult things.

Damilola did the majority of childcare while still handling some consulting work. Simi's

mother stayed for six months, then left reluctantly ("I'm not leaving you alone with four

children," she'd said, then left anyway because Simi was "competent and ridiculous").

The compound, somehow, adjusted to this new reality. Ayaan was five now, in his first

year of proper school. Amara was four, in preschool. Ire was two and a half, in daycare.

Baby Zainab was an infant, with a rotating cast of caregivers keeping her alive and loved.

It was madness. Beautiful, organized madness.

Simi's fifth novel came out to critical acclaim that year. Her first as Chief Marketing Officer

was also her most successful, because she was writing about a woman trying to balance

everything and falling slightly short and being okay with that.

Critics called it "honest" and "refreshingly unglamorous."

What they didn't know was that it was exactly what was happening in her life in real-time.

At a book signing that year, a woman asked her: "How do you do it all?"

Simi considered the question carefully before answering: "I don't do it all. I do what

matters, and I let someone else do the rest. And I have a partner who sees my ambitions

and chooses to support them, even when it's inconvenient."

She looked at Damilola, who was sitting in the back with baby Zainab, amusing himself by

pretending the baby was signing books with her mother.

"The secret is that there is no secret. You just show up, and you try, and you accept that

you're going to be messy and imperfect, and you do it anyway."

The woman bought three copies of the book.

That evening, as they drove home through Lagos traffic with four sleeping children in

various car seats, Simi rested her head on Damilola's shoulder.

"Thank you," she said.

"For what?"

"For letting me be complicated. For not needing me to choose between ambition and

family."

"You were never going to choose," he said. "You were going to do both, even if it killed

you. I'm just here to make sure it doesn't."

She fell asleep listening to his heartbeat, listening to the sound of traffic and children breathing and the life they'd built together.

It wasn't a perfect life. But it was theirs. And that was better than perfect