In a rickety danfo, you will tell your daughter, you met her father.  Her dimpled cheeks will be pulled in a grin and with her father’s brazenness, she will tell you how that meeting must have been horrible.  “Nobody would want to meet their spouse that way.  I mean I wouldn’t—when I’m old enough, ” a sheepish, teenage chuckle, “not now.”

“I sure never wanted to meet Daddy that way.” You will raise a shoulder, smiling, as you recall that Monday morning in Lagos, Africa.  You will remember how both your parents and your HR officer had been wearing you off more than the perpetual Lagos traffic did, and how that morning, you had snapped from the burden of them all. Shaking your head and remembering the scowl on your face, the edge in your voice, you will tell your daughter how ridiculous you sounded when the bus conductor paired you, your husband and another, over a torn five hundred naira note.

“Oga, you can’t eat your cake and have it.” You will gesture, pointing a finger at your daughter as you did the conductor. Baking in the kitchen, you will smile at the sovereignty of God. “But your dad stood looking. Quiet.” You will tell your daughter how he had offered to forego the change after the third person had bought a drink, but recomposing yourself, you had said in pristine English, “No, you have it.”

“Where are you headed? We could pay with the money.” Your husband had replied, his brows raised in a subtle tease.

On that trip, you will tell her, you had discovered that he was a developer as you were and that he loved Jesus as you did.  You will recall how you both forged an alliance strong as a rod months after. How you admired his wits, integrity and his kind heart. Grinning as an infatuated teen, you will talk of your endless cheesy calls.

Someday, you will tell your daughter of how her father’s vows to you at the altar had been like music from a Nightingale, and how heaven tasted the day after. Someday, you will say to her, “Love is sometimes found in unexpected places and real love is always worth the wait.”