Jide had texted Yetunde twice since they left Lagos but she did not reply. He told himself she was simply busy, because anything else was too unsettling to sit with in a moving car. So when his phone finally rang as they came into Shagamu, he answered on the first ring, relief plain in it before he’d even said a word.

Elizabeth sat in the back, in a pink hoodie wearing shorts and sneakers that looked new, her braids pulled into something effortless that somehow still looked expensive, dark against skin that caught every bit of light coming through the window. Before they picked her this morning, Taiwo had leaned over and murmured, low enough that only Jide could hear, “I see why you liked this one, sha. She’s fine.”

“Fine isn’t enough,” Jide murmured back, though even as he said it, he understood exactly what Taiwo meant, and also understood why Yetunde might feel small standing anywhere near a woman built like this by every worldly measure. He wished, not for the first time, that Yetunde could see herself the way he saw her. She wasn’t even trying, and she was still that fine. He didn’t want to imagine what she’d look like if she ever actually tried.

“Hey,” he said into the phone. He’d meant to say ‘babe’. It caught somewhere before it came out, Elizabeth two feet behind him in the back seat, and a year of habit not quite dead enough yet for the word to feel simple.

“I love you,” Yetunde said. “I’m sorry about earlier. I might have overreacted. How is the journey?”

He meant to say it back. What came out instead was, “It’s fine, babe.”

She caught it instantly. “You’re with her right now, aren’t you. That’s why you won’t say it back.”

“No, no. We’re all on the road together, but that’s not—”

“It’s fine, Jide. You’re just trying to keep things from being awkward.” Something in her voice had already smoothed over, practical now instead of hurt. “Call me when you get to the hotel.”

“I will. Me and Taiwo are sharing a room.”

“Ah. To ease my mind right? You don’t have to share a room with another man to earn my trust. Or don’t you trust yourself?”

“Why are you taking it there? It’s not that. We just have a lot to catch up on, that’s all.”

“Okay. No problem.” She paused. “Call me when you arrive, Jide.”

The call ended, and from the back seat Elizabeth made a sound, small and irritated, unmistakably aimed at what she’d just overheard. Jide didn’t look back. Taiwo laughed under his breath and kept driving.

They were entering Ibadan properly when Taiwo said, “Share the address, we are going straight there.”

“No,” Elizabeth said quickly. “Let’s go to the hotel first.”

“No problem,” Taiwo said, easy, already reaching for the indicator.

“What do you mean by the hotel first?” Jide turned in his seat. “Like we’re going to the same hotel? We’re dropping you at your family house, and then Taiwo and I will go settle in our hotel. Don’t you have things to prepare? The burial is tomorrow.”

“I can’t face it yet.”

“There comes a time you have to face it, Elizabeth. It’s fine, I’m here, we’ll go together.”

“No.”

“Then I’m not taking you to my hotel. That’s not happening. Tell us where to drop you, and we’ll come back for you once you’re ready.”

“Can we not do this in front of him?” Elizabeth glanced toward the front seat. “Sorry, Taiwo. No offence.”

“None taken,” Taiwo said, eyes carefully on the road. “This one’s between the two of you.”

“There is no between the two of us,” Jide said. “That’s the whole point, Elizabeth.”

“Anything can change.”

“Nothing is changing. You saw my girlfriend this morning. That ship has sailed. Don’t make this more embarrassing than it already is. You’re a beautiful woman, you made a mistake, it opened my eyes to what our relationship actually was, and I’ve moved on. You should too.”

“My life is with you, Jide.”

“Now I know for a fact I’ve made a mistake coming here at all.”

“I’m sorry,” Taiwo cut in, “but this is genuinely uncomfortable for me. Can we have this conversation somewhere private, after I’ve dropped both of you?”

“There’s no private conversation left to have,” Jide said. “We’ve had it. All of it.”

“We haven’t,” Elizabeth said.

“There is nothing else to say. We are here to pay our last respects to a great man. Please don’t ruin this. Let us focus on the burial.”

“The burial isn’t happening.”

Taiwo hit the brakes lightly, more from surprise than the road. “Ah. Ah! What is going on? We’ve just entered Ibadan and now there’s no burial?”

“I’m sorry to drag you into this, Taiwo,” Elizabeth said. “You weren’t even supposed to be part of this trip. I’d already booked the train. Jide’s the one who insisted on bringing you.”

“What do you mean the burial isn’t happening,” Jide said. “They already postponed this thing once. You’re telling me it’s cancelled again?”

“It’s not cancelled.” Elizabeth looked down at her hands. “My father isn’t dead, Jide.”

The car went quiet.

“I was bringing you to see him,” she said, “because I know you have a soft spot for him. I thought he could talk some sense into you.”

“Are you mad?”

“Madly in love with you, actually.”

Taiwo burst out laughing, one hand coming off the wheel to cover his mouth, but Jide, furious as he was, rolled his eyes at him for finding this funny.

“This is my fault,” Jide said finally, mostly to himself. He turned back to Elizabeth. “Is your father actually at home right now?”

“I think so.”

“Give Taiwo the address, or we are turning back to Lagos.”

“Please,” Elizabeth said quickly, “don’t tell him I said he’d died. He’ll disown me.”

“Elizabeth,” Jide’s voice had gone flat again, the same tired finality from the airport call the night before. “Give Taiwo the address. It’s time we finished this, once and for all.”

Elizabeth looked out the window, and said, quietly enough that he almost missed it, “It’s time we started it again.”

———————————————————————————————————————

Jide had called briefly to say they’d arrived, that there was a whole story he needed to tell her properly, in person, not over the phone, and that it was the strangest thing that had happened to him in a long time. Yetunde had hung up, turning that over in her head, wondering what could possibly still be added to a trip that had already given her so much anxiety.

She was still turning it over when a customer came in with all four of her children trailing behind her.

“I need you to measure them again,” the woman said, without so much as a hello. “Their sizes have changed since last time. We’re sewing new outfits for Easter.”

Yetunde set her needle down carefully. “I sent you a message last month, ma. If you wanted Easter clothes, I asked you to book early so I could put you on the register.”

“I forgot. But it doesn’t matter. Is it not money I’m paying?”

“I appreciate the business, but I’ve stopped taking new orders for Easter. There isn’t time left.”

The woman’s face changed entirely. “What is wrong with you? What do you mean you’ve stopped taking orders?”

“I’m one person, ma. I only have two hands.”

The woman hissed, long and theatrical, gathering her children with one sweep of her arm. “This is why some of you small girls don’t last. A little bit of success, everybody now bringing their clothes to you, and suddenly you’re doing shakara. What kind of tailor refuses work?” She was gone before Yetunde could answer, the bell over the door still swinging behind her.

Yetunde sat down slowly. Her shoulders ached the way they did after a full day bent over the machine, yet she still had ten dresses standing between her and Easter, alongside everything else pulling at her attention. She wanted, more than anything, to give this season to Jide properly. Yet the more work she took, the more money she could save towards her new dream.

She remembered, then, the thing she kept coming back to whenever her plans felt tangled. ‘Be flexible’. That was the word God kept giving her, over and over, without ever quite explaining what it should look like in practice.

“Lord”, she prayed, “Lead me. Teach me how to be flexible and still show up for the people paying my rent. I don’t know how to do both without falling short.”

Her phone buzzed before she had even said ‘Amen’ properly. It was a message from Jide.

Hope you’re doing okay. Can’t wait to see you.

She typed back honestly. 

Yetunde: Not really. I’m frustrated. These customers keep bringing last minute jobs and I don’t know how to say no without losing them. My back is killing me.

Jide: I’ll book you a proper massage the moment I’m back in Lagos.

Yetunde: Thank you. But I still don’t know what to do about all this.

Jide: I know you’re trying to stay flexible. 

Jide: But I think it might actually be time to hire someone, Yetunde.

She sat with that for a moment. Maybe that was the answer, plain as that, and she hadn’t wanted to see it because hiring staff had always felt like admitting she was becoming successful.

She opened her IELTS results again, the ones sitting saved in her messages, and looked at the number for longer than she needed to. If she was honest with herself, the reason why she was reluctant to hire help was because of England. She had genuinely fallen for that country the six months she had spent there. And some part of her, the part she hadn’t said out loud even to Jide, wanted this whole business handed off or shut down entirely, so she could go and start over, get an education, and be with him, this man that she had fallen in love with. And now, she may be able to go back to school and develop herself, without half her mind still back here counting fabric.

Sade came in just then, dropping her bag by the door. “Why is your face like that? What are you thinking about so hard?”

Yetunde hesitated, then let it out. “Jide asked me to marry him this morning.”

Sade froze mid step. “Wait. Show me the ring.”

“There’s no ring. It just came out of him, in the middle of everything.”

“That means he’s actually planning to propose properly. He was testing the water first, to see if you’d say yes before he goes and buys anything.” Sade dropped into the chair across from her, fully invested now. “So what do you plan to say? Are you saying yes?”

“That’s where I want to end up, with him. I love him.” Yetunde pressed the fabric flat under her palm. “I just don’t know. There’s a lot of moving parts.”

“Please, when you get married, leave me this shop.”

“Ah ah, just because he asked me something.”

“That means you’re moving to England soon now.”

“It’s not that fast, Sade. There is a lot to process, there will be paperwork, there will be—”

“Please, I want your shop.” Sade wasn’t joking, not entirely. “I’m tired of hawking my plastics on the roadside and doing hair from that small canteen space. If you leave, dash me the rent for a few months at least, let me set something proper up, do braids in an actual shop with a mirror and a chair, not a bench under somebody’s zinc roof.”

“I’ve told you before, package yourself properly. Get on social media, post your styles, let people see your work before they need it. The customers who have paid me well, found me online. People who already know me in person, they only ever want to negotiate down.”

Sade laughed. 

“I’m only teaching you what I was taught.” Yetunde smiled despite the ache in her shoulders. “Position yourself well, Sade. It matters more than people think.”

“Wow.” Sade shook her head slowly, something almost wistful in it. “Feels like yesterday you joined us in this complex with nothing. Now you’re about to marry a man from the UK. I always said you were different. Maybe God will pity me too one day. I’m begging, even one Ota boy will do. ”

Yetunde laughed properly for the first time all day. “Jide is a Nigerian. Go back to your shop, Sade. Your customers will be looking for you.”