The Debt Bride

Chapter 19 - The Almost

It started with rain.

Lagos rain was not gentle. It did not ease in politely or give warning. It arrived the way all serious things arrived in this city. Suddenly and completely and with the full intention of being noticed.

It came on a Tuesday evening while Adaeze was in the garden.

She had been sitting under the flame tree reading when the first drop hit her book. She looked up. The sky had turned the particular dark green grey that meant business. Then it opened.

She ran for the veranda.

She made it halfway before the rain caught her properly. By the time she reached the cover of the veranda she was thoroughly wet. Hair. Clothes. Everything.

She stood dripping and laughing at herself because there was nothing else to do.

"You were outside when it started."

She turned.

Emeka was standing in the veranda doorway. He had been home early again. She had noticed he was coming home earlier more often now and had decided not to examine that too carefully.

He looked at her soaked state with an expression she was learning to read. The slight shift around his eyes that meant he was amused but had decided not to show it fully.

"The sky changed very fast," she said with dignity.

"It always does in Lagos."

"I have lived in Nigeria my whole life Emeka."

"And yet."

She laughed. Wrung water from the end of her hair. He disappeared inside and came back thirty seconds later with a towel. Held it out.

She took it.

"Thank you," she said.

She was drying her hair when she noticed he had not gone back inside. He was standing at the edge of the veranda watching the rain fall on the garden. His hands in his pockets. His face doing the thing it did sometimes when he thought nobody was looking. Open. Unguarded. Almost young.

She watched him watch the rain.

"Do you like rain," she said.

"My grandfather did," he said. "He used to say rain was God rinsing the world clean." A pause. "I used to think that was an old man talking. Now I think he was right about most things."

She stood beside him at the edge of the veranda.

The rain was heavy and warm and it filled the garden with sound. The flame tree bent slightly in the wind. The orange flowers that had not yet fallen were being washed clean exactly like his grandfather had said.

They stood side by side and watched it together.

Close. The veranda was narrow where they stood.

"Emeka," she said quietly.

"Hmm."

"Are you happy."

The same question everyone kept asking her. She had turned it around without fully planning to.

He was quiet for a long time.

The rain filled the silence.

"I am something," he said finally. "I am not sure I have the right word for it yet."

She turned to look at him.

He turned to look at her at the same moment.

Up close in the grey rainy light with water still dripping from her hair onto the veranda floor. His dark eyes finding hers with that direct unguarded quality that only appeared when the walls came down completely.

The space between them was very small.

She was aware of it the way you became aware of a flame. Not touching it. Just knowing it was there. Knowing exactly how close you were standing to something that could change everything.

His eyes dropped. Just briefly. To her mouth.

Came back up.

The rain fell.

Neither of them moved.

Then Mrs Fashola's voice from inside the house announcing dinner with the particular cheerful authority that brooked no argument from anyone.

The moment broke like glass.

Emeka looked back at the rain.

Cleared his throat once.

"Dinner," he said.

"Yes," she said.

They went inside.

At the dinner table they were both very normal. Very composed. Very much two people who had not just stood on a veranda in the rain with their faces six inches apart and the whole world holding its breath.

Adaeze ate her food.

She was not thinking about it.

She was absolutely not thinking about it.

Under the table her hand was pressed flat against her knee to keep it from shaking slightly.

She was not thinking about it at all.