RED RIVER

I looked up at the sky that sad day as the heavens cried. Its tears fell on my face as they made their way to the red soil. My heart was broken. The rain mixed with the soil created a red river that flowed through the streets as I stood and watched the car drive away. I couldn’t run anymore. He was gone and I couldn’t yell his name anymore. I was out of breath. I had never seen rain fall like it did that day. I used to say that something good happens when it rains. I didn’t feel that way that day. No one would know I was crying. The rain masked my tears.

“Let him go” said a familiar voice from behind me.  I turned briefly to acknowledge the voice but I quickly looked to the car that started to look like a speck in the distance.

“Lolo, you have done enough. How long can you keep chasing someone that doesn’t want to be caught”

The voice came from Edi, my only sister. She always knew how to say the right thing at the right moment. A gift she inherited from my father and his father before him.

I now turned to her and nodded my head. I looked at her face through the rain. She looks like our mom.  I now realized it was pouring hard and the lower part of my skirt had disappeared into the red river. Edi put her left hand around my shoulder as I lifted my skirt.

“Now look at my dress, mud all over it! You will pay for the dry cleaning” Edi said with a smirk. I smiled but my spirit ached. We turned and made our way through the river back to my father’s compound.

Kola was going to marry me. He in an unceremonious manner came to my house to tell me he was no longer proceeding with the traditional rites for our wedding.

Simple and short.

Only I wish it were that simple and I wish his ending of the relationship were that short.

“I don’t know what happened, I am just not feeling it anymore” he told me in the living room. He is lucky my father was out on an errand. He might not have made it out alive.

“Huh? What do you mean “You are no longer feeling it”?  I replied doing the air quotes with my index and middle fingers. 

A round trip to Nigeria plus transportation expenses to my village cost me the equivalent of a month’s paycheck. The caterers had been booked and I had my custom made traditional wedding gown tucked away in a garment bag in my closet. That gown had seen two continents on its way to my village. I was ready to go viral on all social media platforms with a perfectly crafted hashtag for the occasion.  The families had been informed. Invitations had been sent and RSVPs received. As far as I was concerned, I was getting married and a “not feeling it “excuse was not going to do.

He took a step back and exhaled. He put his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat. I knew this was not good. You see, Kola and I had been together for three years. I have known him since I was six years old. I know this man. I know what follows an exhale is not good.

“Lolo, you…you have changed” he said looking straight at me. “You are no longer the Lolo I grew up with, you’re different”.

I couldn’t speak. I felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the small living room. All I could hear were children playing games in the street, the ruffling of palm trees and the chirping of birds. It was a weird eerie feeling. Normally I would have a quick and scathing response but this time, I had nothing.

I have never heard Kola talk like this. This was serious and I was confused. What had changed? I quickly searched my brain, going over every moment, every conversation, every gesture that could have altered how he felt about me over the past years. Nothing. I couldn’t think of anything other than happiness. Or what I perceived to be shared happiness between us. Obviously I was happy, he wasn’t.

“What has changed? What are you talking about?” I said, not recognizing my own voice. I was scared.

This time as he responded, he looked away. It’s was as though he didn’t want to see how the truth will affect me. He stared at the small foot stool near the chair my father sits in.

“In the past year, I have seen a Lolo I don’t recognize. Too loud and opinionated. And you don’t let me do anything for you neither do you seek my advice like before. You used to pass everything by me now I don’t feel like you need me ….”

I blanked out. For two years out of three that I have been with Kola, I had been unemployed. I graduated from college with the optimism of any newly minted graduate. I was going to get a job. I was going to make my family proud. That didn’t happen. Kola went from childhood friend to shoulder to cry on. And more. He supported me emotionally. He heard about every failed interview and every rejection letter. As weeks turned into months and months into years, he became my rock. In his eyes, I saw a light that fueled by desire to keep looking.

A year ago, I received an offer to work as an assistant editor for a small newspaper. My hairdresser does hair for the editor in chief and she casually told her she knew someone “who could write well”. Within a week, I was hired to take on the position that had been made vacant after the previous editor decided not to return from maternity leave. From valley to mountain top, I was employed. Once I had signed my paper work accepting the offer, I called Kola on the phone to share the awesome news. There was a weird silence on the other end. I was expecting his reaction to match mine. He congratulated me and told me we would celebrate later. He later told me that he had a rough day at the office. But the light that was once present in his eyes each time I looked into them was gone.

As the months went by, the light in his eyes was replaced with disdain. Disdain every time I talked about how my day went and projects I was working on. Disdain and mild irritation each time I offered to pay for dinner. Even though we were engaged and he told me he loved me, he seemed distant. And cold.

“What happened to the light in your eyes, my love? Where did it go? What changed?” I thought.

I looked at him.

You see. I didn’t change. I blossomed. I was no longer “Poor Lolo, are you still looking for a job?”. No longer the girl who soiled his crisp shirts with my tears because my sample writings had been rejected by another newspaper. Lolo can actually pay for her own gas. Lolo goes to work and actually enjoys it. What Kola calls loud is just my excitement amplified. What happened is Kola wanted an insecure little girl that needs him. A sad girl that finds her happiness in what he can do for her. He misses giving me pocket money to take the bus home. He asked me why I didn’t tell him I was getting a bank account when I pulled out my debit card at dinner.  The nerve.

“Kola” I whispered “were you happy for me when I told you I got my job?” 

He exhaled again.

I shook my head.

“I never thought you were going to actually get the job. I was surprised” he said still looking at the foot stool. “I thought that since we were engaged, you would just be ok with being married and being my wife. I never thought a journalism degree would get you anywhere.”

Well there you have it. Kola never wanted my potential. He wanted my dependence. So long as I was latching onto his opinions and spending my days crying and fighting anxiety in his apartment while he worked, I was perfect for him.

The sound of thunder cut through the silence. It was going to rain. The living room was dark and the kids outside were running to take cover from the rain that was coming.

“I have to go” Kola said as he walked towards the door. “The rain is coming and I have to make it back to my village”.

“What about us, Kola?  How can you say this? Do you not care about what I want?”

“What you want and what we want are two different things now. I am not feeling what we had anymore”.

Kola is not feeling the new Lolo. The Lolo that has a voice and a purpose. Got it. But how can this just end? Three years?  How can you come this far only to quit?  Literally, we are the middle of my village, three days out from the wedding. My heart is breaking.

He walked out the door into the rain. I called for him.  Slow steps turned to quick ones.  I lifted my skirt as the rain embraced me. He was in his car, the window down. I yelled his name.

“I will call you, I will reimburse you for everything… you can keep the ring. I just…I just can’t do this with you” he said as the window rolled up and the driver drove out the driveway. He didn’t even look at me. Yet I followed. I yelled his name. I ran as far as I could before I stopped in the middle of the red river and watched his car disappear.

Edi heard me yelling his name from her room, looked out the window as I ran after his car. She already knew what had happened. She was never really a fan.

As we turned to walk back to the house on that sad day, I grieved the loss of my relationship. I knew there was no coming back from that. What was said was said. You can’t change people or what they truly want. I certainly wasn’t going to change who I am. Who says to the rose in the garden “go back and become a seed?”.   Nobody.

I looked to the sky and I whispered a silent prayer to God. Please let this red river take this sadness in my soul along with it.