The day started like a dream.
Not the kind of dream where you are falling from a great height and wake up before you hit the ground. The good kind. The kind where everything feels right, even when nothing makes sense.
After Inemesit rushed downstairs to get ready, I stood in my room for a long moment, staring at nothing. My mind was a battlefield — old desires fighting new resolutions, the man I used to be wrestling with the man I was trying to become.
But I had made a decision.
Today, there would be no games. No performance. No “return match.”
Today, I would treat Inemesit like a person. Like a woman. Like someone who deserved more than a sweaty afternoon and a whispered “Oga, we just dey start.”
She was ready in thirty minutes.
When she came back upstairs, I almost didn’t recognize her.
The blue gown was gone. In its place was a beautiful floral dress — yellow and white, with thin straps and a hem that stopped just above her knees. She had done something to her hair. It fell in soft curls around her shoulders, framing her face like a painting.
She was wearing light makeup. Just enough to highlight her eyes, her cheekbones, the curve of her lips.
And on her feet? Simple white sandals that made her look like she was going to church — or perhaps a date.
A date.
The word hung in my mind, strange and new.
“Oga,” she said, her voice shy — actually shy, which was something I had never heard from her before, “is this okay?”
I stared at her for a moment too long.
“Inemesit,” I said, “you look…”
I searched for the right word.
“…beautiful.”
Her cheeks flushed. The smirk did not appear. Instead, she looked down at her sandals, then back up at me, and smiled — a small, uncertain smile.
“Thank you, Oga.”
“Stop calling me Oga,” I said.
She blinked.
“Then what should I call you?”
“Emmanuel. Just Emmanuel. For today, you are not my house help. You are just Inemesit. And I am just Emmanuel. Two people going out to enjoy themselves.”
She nodded slowly, as if she was trying to memorize the idea.
“Okay… Emmanuel.”
The name sounded different in her mouth. Softer. More personal.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We took my car — a black Toyota Camry that my wife had chosen because it looked “professional.” I opened the passenger door for Inemesit, and she hesitated for a moment, as if she was not sure she was allowed to sit there.
“Get in,” I said gently.
She climbed in, and I closed the door behind her.
As I walked around to the driver’s side, I caught my reflection in the window. I was smiling. Genuinely smiling. Not the tight, desperate smile of a man who was trying to convince himself he was happy. A real one.
First stop: the Palms Shopping Mall in Lekki.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had smiled like that.
I had not planned this. I had simply driven, and my car had somehow found its way there, as if even the vehicle knew what Inemesit deserved.
We walked through the air-conditioned halls, past the boutiques and the perfume shops and the loud teenagers taking pictures of themselves. Inemesit walked beside me, her eyes wide, drinking everything in like a woman who had been thirsty for a long time.
“Have you ever been here before?” I asked.
“No,” she said quietly. “I have passed by it many times. But I have never been inside.”
“Well,” I said, “now you have.”
I took her to a women’s boutique — the kind of place my wife usually shopped at, the kind where a single dress cost more than some people’s monthly rent.
The salesgirl greeted us with a professional smile. “Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, ma. How can I help you?”
“She needs some new clothes,” I said. “Whatever she wants.”
Inemesit turned to me, her eyes wide with disbelief.
“Oga — I mean, Emmanuel — this is too much. I cannot —”
“Yes, you can,” I said. “Today is a special day. And you deserve nice things.”
She looked at me for a long moment. Then she turned to the salesgirl, and together they disappeared into the racks of clothes.
I sat on a leather chair near the entrance and watched.
She tried on a green dress first. Then a blue one. Then a red one that made her look like she belonged on a magazine cover. Each time she came out of the fitting room, she would look at me with that uncertain smile, asking with her eyes if it was okay.
Each time, I nodded.
By the time we left the boutique, I had bought her four dresses, two pairs of shoes, a handbag, and a small gold necklace that caught the light when she moved.
She carried the bags like they were made of glass, afraid to drop them, afraid to wake up and find out it was all a dream.
Next stop: a quiet restaurant in Lekki.
Not one of those loud places with blaring music and waiters who danced while taking your order. A quiet one. The kind with soft lighting and private booths and a menu written in cursive on brown paper.
We sat across from each other in a booth near the window. Outside, the sun was beginning its slow descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink.
Inemesit looked at the menu like it was written in a foreign language.
“What is this?” she whispered, pointing at something called “Coq au Vin.”
“Chicken,” I said. “French chicken.”
“French chicken?” She laughed — a real laugh, not the performance. “Oga — Emmanuel — the chickens in my village would be very offended if they knew there was such a thing as French chicken.”
I laughed too.
We ordered. She chose something simpler — grilled fish with rice and plantains — while I went for the pepper steak. When the food arrived, she closed her eyes for a moment and said a quiet prayer before eating. Her lips moved silently, and I found myself watching her, fascinated by this small, private act of faith.
“Inemesit,” I said after we had eaten for a while, “can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” she said.
“What did you want to be? Before… everything?”
She put down her fork. Wiped her mouth with a napkin. Looked out the window for a moment, watching the cars pass.
“I wanted to be a businesswoman,” she said. “I wanted to own my own company. Something big. Something that would make my parents proud.”
She smiled — a distant smile, like she was looking at a photograph of someone she used to know.
“I had it all planned out. Graduate, get a good job, save money, start small. But life…”
She shrugged.
“Life had other plans.”
“It’s not too late,” I said.
She looked at me.
“You really believe that?”
“I have to,” I said. “Because if I don’t, then what is the point of all this? The struggling? The waking up every morning? There has to be a reason. There has to be hope.”
She stared at me for a long moment. Then she reached across the table and touched my hand.
“You are a good man, Emmanuel,” she said. “I hope you know that.”
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