Emeka was one of those boys who travelled out of the country to South Africa and made it big. But you should know that before he travelled out, Emeka used to live next door. We lived in the type of neighbourhood where each house shared a fence with the next house on all cardinal points. We shared more than fences though, we shared a steady flow of each neighbour’s current state of affairs. So when Emeka’s mother caught Emeka’s father sleeping with the house help, we knew or the day Ifeoma’s mother found out Ifeoma was pregnant and almost beat her to stupor, we heard or even the day Jerry the banker who lived behind us was mistakenly visited by two of his ‘fiancées’, we ate popcorn as we listened to the fight.

Emeka was also my first love. I was the one who used to buy bread every morning for tea so I always saw him fetching water from Papa Ada’s borehole or buying something too. I always imagined that he also loved me because when it was his turn to buy something and I was behind him, he would always say ‘serve her first’ to the aunty that owned the shop and then give me his signature one sided smile. I told my sister about our little morning ritual later, it was a bad idea because she now started nudging me anytime we saw him on the road (especially on our way back from school) and she also started calling him ‘Serve her first’.

The day Emeka travelled to South Africa, I peeped from the hole in our gate to catch a glimpse of him entering his father’s car to go to the airport. I did not cry because I had already cried two weeks earlier when I overheard his father make loud phone calls to ask different people if they knew where to get a good box or ‘those heavy sweaters they wear outside the country’ because ‘you know Emeka my son is traveling out next two weeks’. This happened right when things were beginning to look good between Emeka and I, I mean, he had started to tell me hi and ask about my sister whenever I saw him in the morning and he had begun to stare when he saw my sister and I pass, although he looked more at my sister and I just thought he had crossed eyes. I did not also cry because I knew Emeka would come back for me.

I was not at home the day Emeka came home five years later. I was in my first year in a University which was three hours away from home and so I heard the news from my brother over the phone that night. He had come home in a really big way with a very expensive car and lots of presents and he was already making plans to demolish his father’s house and build a better one fit for his class. So me being somebody’s future wife came home to meet my soon- to-be-husband. As I got down from the Keke, the first person I saw was one white girl going into Emeka’s house. In my mind I just thought ‘Ha! White people have started visiting Emeka’. We have finally made it in this life. It was not until I got into my house and saw a wedding card and a bottle of wine on top of the table that I finally received sense.

I didn’t cry. I had already cried when he left; I cannot waste tears twice. Moreover, I had other ‘future husbands’. What is South Africa? I had two future husbands in Malaysia and one’s name was even Emeka. Probably, that white mammy water has even tied him with foreign juju. I cannot come and carry another person’s problem on my head. So that evening I respectfully went to greet Emeka and he said, ‘Look at how big you have grown, this girl. If I knew you would have turned out this beautiful, I wouldn’t have been eyeing your sister those days!’ Can you imagine?

Anyway, I went back to school the next evening and came back a month later for the wedding which was the next day. I wasn’t going to miss what people were calling the wedding of the century especially when I knew the groom really well. There were rumours that iPhones were the wedding souvenirs and top artists were coming. I had just dropped my bag and was opening pots in the kitchen when I heard gunshots fired. I didn’t make anything of it because the local vigilante sometimes fired shots to ‘remind’ the local thieves that they still had guns so I put food for myself so that if it was thieves, and they entered my house and killed me, I’ll have a full stomach and enough energy to justify myself before God.

An hour later, my father came home and said Emeka had been shot in his new Range Rover by some men wearing suits. He was in critical condition at the hospital and even if he survived, it was unlikely he would walk again because the culprits had scattered bullets on his legs.

Emeka died that night. Some people said he was shot by close friends that he sold drugs with in South Africa and then finally ran off with all their money. Some people said the assassins were sent by a Nigerian girl who gave him everything she owned in South Africa and he left her when he finally made it to marry a white girl. Some said his uncles were behind it, they never wanted to see the boy prosper in the first place. The funeral held the next week, it did not require much planning as everything bought for the wedding was used.

It’s funny how life is; we all put so much effort into something we cannot even control. Things change every second; plans are scattered; promises are broken; people die. Nobody ever figured out who killed Emeka and nobody’s mind could ever imagine that somewhere in a quiet corner, my sister, the prayer coordinator of the neighbourhood parish who did not even look at boys, watched as a boy who made covenant with her before he left, someone whose baby she carried as he travelled out, someone who she almost died for during an abortion, someone she faithfully waited for, came back and acted as if she was just someone he used to know. He promised her he would walk for only her or not walk at all, live for only her or not live at all. She just wanted to help him keep his promise.