Chapter 2: Two different worlds

That night, as I got home, it was obvious to anyone who cared to look that I was not fine. My husband came back expecting food and gist — the usual — but instead he met a version of me he did not recognize.

"Mummy Ade, kí ló ṣẹlẹ? Kí ló ṣe ọ tó kàjọ?" (Mummy Ade, what happened? Why are you so moody?) He came and sat beside me on the bed, eyes searching my face.

"Hmmmmmm." I took a long, slow breath and stared blankly into the space in front of me.

"Ṣhey o báore tó wá lo ni? Àbí òun ní kò má wà mọ́n?" (Didn't you meet your friend, or did she say you shouldn't come again?)He pressed further, but nothing came out of my mouth.

After a moment he turned to my son.

"Ade, come here. What is happening to your mummy — did she fight somebody?"

But the little boy couldn't provide any real answer either.

"Ha — did you people went to that her friend's house. What did she do to your mummy?" My husband asked him again.

"She didn't do anything to my mummy o," my son said carefully, in that innocent way children explain things they don't fully understand. "We were only talking, playing and eating. She gave me and my brother plenty money — mummy collected it and kept it."

This answer only confused my husband more.

"Ó gbọ́. Kí wà ló ṣẹlẹ tó n fì n ronú?" (Is that so? Then why are you sitting here brooding?)He became a little impatient.

"Wò — when you are ready to talk, I am here." He said it quietly, then climbed to his side of the bed and lay down.

After a while, I began to sob. Soft, silent sobs — the kind I had already been crying since we got back from Salewa's house. My husband watched me from his side of the bed, completely at a loss. He tried everything he could think of to get words out of me, and when none of it worked, exhaustion took him and he slept.

But sleep did not come for me. Not for a long time. It was worry and heaviness that owned my night, turning everything over and over in my head. By the time sleep finally arrived, it was far too late.

---

When I woke up the next morning, I found that my husband had already bathed both children and made their breakfast — rice and beans. This was unlike him. Normally he would have been long gone to work by this hour. I checked the time. 7:00 AM.

"Should I help take the children to school?" he asked, voice gentle. "Ó dàbípẹ̀ (it looks like) you are tired."

"...Ok." That was all I gave him.

He was silent for a moment, then quietly hurried the children through their food and helped them finish dressing before heading out.

"I'm going o," he said at the door. "I've dropped your food money on the table — when you are ready, take it."

He left with the children.

Not a single 'okay' or 'thank you left' my lips.

---

After they were all gone, I sat alone with my thoughts — and the thoughts were not kind. I started picking through my life, searching for where I had gone wrong, where the others had gone right. I started asking questions I had no good answers to, and blaming myself for ending up where I was, with who I was with.

That was how I spent the whole week. I neglected my home. I neglected my stall. I just sat and brooded on every seed Omosalewa had sown inside me, watering them with my own tears until they grew into something I could no longer reason with.

The day I met Omosalewa was the day things began to shift in my home — and not in a good direction. I started seeing my husband differently. The same man who prostrated to greet my mother, who never missed a day of work, who made sure we always ate — I began to see him as the reason I was stuck. As an enemy dressed in familiar clothing. Some days I convinced myself he must have used something to tie me down, that maybe my eyes had been covered all this time, and maybe Omosalewa was the person God had finally sent to remove the veil.

For days I cried the way I cried the morning my mother died. Everyone around me could see something was deeply wrong.

---

For a full week I did not step outside. My stall remained locked. I mourned something I couldn't even properly name.

Then slowly, the way a wound begins to close on its own, I started to come back to myself. And when I did, the first thing I wanted to do was reach out to Salewa.

"Hello" — I sent her a WhatsApp message.

No reply.

Minutes passed. Then an hour. I told myself she was ignoring me — that maybe, having seen the reality of my life up close, she had quietly decided I no longer belonged in her world. I dropped my phone, went outside and opened my stall for the first time in a week. I dusted every surface, arranged my goods, and sat back down in my usual spot.

But instead of going to YouTube the way I normally would, I found myself on Facebook. I started going through profiles one by one. I started with Salewa — but her page was locked tight, nothing visible to the public.

I moved on to Bisola, our third friend. Loud, sharp-tongued, always laughing too hard at her own jokes. Beautiful in her own way, though not like Salewa. Her parents were not wealthy either. I found her page easily enough — she had married, and from what her feed showed, she and her family were no longer in Nigeria.

I stared at the screen for a long time.

Salewa had been telling the truth. I had fallen behind. Everyone had moved, and I was still here — same street, same stall, same small life.

The depression came back like a wave I hadn't seen approaching.

---

Late that night, just as I was settling in to sleep, Salewa finally responded.

"What's up?"

Then a voice note followed — her voice, warm and unhurried, switching between Yoruba and English the way she always did.

"Sorry I couldn't respond on time — you know how it is for business people like us. We don't have time to be pressing phone anyhow unless it's money matter."

"How are you? How is your husband and children?"

"Ha, we are fine o. Thank God. How are you? How is Alhaji?" I replied.

"Fine. Thank God."

"Ok, I just wanted to greet you naa. Byebye."

"Haw, thank you jare. Greet your children for me o."

And that was that — until a loud voice right beside me snapped me back into the room.

"Mummy Ope!!"

I startled. My husband had apparently been calling me and I had heard nothing.

"Ha — tani o mba chat tí ọkàn rẹ ò fì sí ibíyìí?" (Who are you chatting with that took your mind completely away from here?) He asked.

"Kí ló fẹ́?" (What do you want?) I replied, soft but flat, in a way that said his question did not particularly concern me.

"I want us to talk."

"Ok." I kept scrolling.

"Drop the phone."

I ignored him.

"I said drop the phone — or don't you want us to talk?"

"Wò, Daddy Ope," I said, voice rising now, "if you have something to say, say it. And if you don't, please let me rest. It's not mouth alone they talk with — na ear dem use hear too. Abeg, don't disturb me." I snapped at him with a sharpness that surprised even me a little.

Silence settled between us.

Then, after a few minutes, he spoke again — slower this time, more careful.

"Wait. Ṣhey I offend you ni?"

I said nothing.

"Why have you been like this with me for a week now?" He paused. "You know I love you and I will do anything for you. Please — if I offended you and you don't want to tell me — Idobale mi re." (This is my plea.)

And then he prostrated. Right there on the floor of our small bedroom, this tall man folded himself down and pressed his forehead to the ground for me.

"Jọ̀ọ́, má bínú. Fòrijìmí, dákun." (Please don't be angry. Forgive me, please.)

Something cracked a little inside my chest.

"Hmm. Daddy Ope, dìde. Ò ṣẹ mí — dìde." (Stand up. You didn't offend me. Stand up.) I said it quietly.

"But you are not treating me well in this house," he said, still gentle, still on the floor. "I know I must have offended you somehow. Jẹ́bùrẹ́ — ìyá àwọn ọmọ mi." (I'm sorry — mother of my children.)

I shrugged, and said nothing more.

He eventually gave up, rose from the floor, and went to sleep without another word.

---

A week later, Salewa and I were already deep in conversation. She no longer left my messages waiting for long, and whenever she responded, it felt like she didn't want to let go of the call either. Something about the attention felt like sunshine after a long harmattan.

One evening, just as I was about to close my stall, a notification landed on my phone.

A credit alert.

Twenty thousand naira. From Salewa. The narration simply read: Gift.Gift.

My heart skipped. I stared at the screen, then I called her immediately. She picked up and within seconds switched it to a video call — and I was surprised, because Salewa was not usually one for video calls.

"Ore mi olowo!" (My rich friend!) I hailed, and she laughed that soft, measured laugh of hers.

"Ore mi odogwu!" I went again, and her smile widened.

"Ha, o shock mi o — emi nìkan, twenty thousand naira gift?" I said, hand on my chest.

"Mò fẹ́ kí o lọ jẹ gbádùn," (I want you to go and really enjoy yourself,) she said, settling back comfortably. "Kò kan jàyé orí ẹ. Má worry — tí o bá tó ṣetan pé ìyà yẹn ti sú ẹ, wá rìn súnmọ́ wa dáadáa, a lè bá ẹ gbó nyà nù." (You deserve to enjoy your life. Don't worry — once you are tired of that your suffering, come and roll with us properly and we will show you the way.)

I felt a sharp pang in my chest, but I let it pass.

"Ore, ìyà yìí ti sú mi o," I confessed. "Ìgbà wo ni mo rí ẹnìkan tó fi owó ránṣẹ sí mi rí, láti ìgbà tí mo ti kó ara mọ́ ọkọ mi yẹn?" (When last did I ever see someone send money to me, ever since I got tied down with this my husband?)

She kissed her teeth softly.

"See yourself. At your age — this your young age — you are supposed to be on the road and men should be taking care of you. Instead you look older than me in the face. Oga o." She shook her head slowly. "Anyway, I won't be the one to spell everything out for you. Once you are ready, you will come to me. Just make sure you enjoy yourself with that money today o — don't let me hear that you used my gift to cook food for that your husband, else we will fight." She said it like she was joking. But her eyes were not joking.

"Ehn, cook ke?" I laughed. "I'm on holiday today o. Can I at least buy food for my children from it?"

"Of course — you can't punish innocent children," she replied warmly.

I thanked her and hailed her one final time before the call ended.

---

That night, the moment I locked my stall, I bundled my children onto a bike and we headed straight to a nearby amala spot. I ordered wraps of amala with ewedu, gbegiri, and plenty of assorted meat. We sat and ate like people who had something to celebrate, and in a small way, I felt like I did.

We were unwrapping the very last ball of amala when the door opened and my husband walked in.

"Ẹ kú ilé o." (Well done at home.) He greeted.

"E káàbọ̀." (Welcome.) I replied quickly, my mouth still full of the sweetness of the food. My children were equally deep in their own plates, heads down, completely devoted to the meal.

He sat. He watched us. He said nothing for a while.

After we finished, I cleaned up the table and took the children to have their bath. It was nearly fifty minutes later that he called from the room.

"Where's my food?"

"I didn't cook o," I respond, my voice easy and unbothered.

He appeared in the doorway. The look on his face was something between confusion and disbelief — like a man who had heard something in a language he was certain he spoke fluently but suddenly could not understand.

This was the first time, in all the years we had been married, that I had not cooked for him.

"That food you saw us eating — someone paid for it," I added, not looking up from what I was doing. "The food money you dropped on the shelf this morning is still there. You can take it and buy bread or something."

He stood there.

He didn't shout. He didn't ask who paid for it. He didn't ask anything at all.

He just looked at me — really looked at me — with an expression I had never seen on his face before in all our years together.

And something about that silence, about the particular way he turned and walked back into the room without a single word, made the amala in my stomach feel heavier than it should have.

I told myself it was nothing.

But that night, long after the children were asleep and the house had gone completely quiet, I reached for my phone to send Salewa a goodnight message — and I noticed something I had missed earlier when we were on the video call.

In the background of her room, just barely visible over her left shoulder before she had shifted the camera — I replayed the call in my head. The way she had angled the phone almost immediately after picking up. The way she had laughed just a little too quickly at everything I said, like someone performing ease rather than feeling it. The way she had ended the call the moment I started asking about her husband.

GiftGift, the alert had said.

Twenty thousand naira.

From a woman who claimed to be a busy businesswoman with no time to press her phone — who had found time to suddenly send me some money without asking.

I set my phone down on the bed slowly.

Somewhere across town, Omosalewa — the woman who had looked at my life and called it stupidity — was living a secret of her own.

And somehow, I still can't wrap my head around what's going on.