We were in Ibadan already when I got a call from Jasper asking if I was fine. To be honest, I kinda thought Jasper was going to reduce the affection he had for me when he started dating Toyin, but he didn't.
"So how is it going? Are you there yet?"
"No. But we are in Ibadan already. When I get to my destination, I will let you know."
"Okay."
"Thank you, Jasper."
"Don't mention it, newbie."
I frowned. "Newbie? Really? Since when did that start? I'm old now!"
"But you are the last one among us."
Jeremy looked at me and I smiled. "How is Toyin?"
"Snoring away. She's been sleeping lately."
"Maybe she is pregnant," I joked.
"Actually we just had sex."
I shook my head and closed my eyes as I pictured them in bed together.
"I can hear you, Jasper! Toyin shouted. "You really don't have shame. "
Jasper snorted. "I just wanted to let her know I'm happy to have you."
I could hear them kissing and childishly arguing in the background. "Guys, hold on. Jasper is really surprising me with the way he speaks these days. Limit the way you talk to me. We are buddies, I get it, but just to remind you, if you had forgotten, Toyin is my best friend and I can tell her to break up with you if you don't watch your mouth."
"Okay, I get it. I just wanted to joke around. By the way, how is that boyfriend of yours?"
"Hot one," Toyin said.
"I'm the hot one here, babe."
"Oh, sure you are."
"Jeremy is fine."
"Just don't have sex, okay?"
"Come on, Jasper! It's her life. You can't tell her what to do or what not to do!"
"I'm trying to protect her, Toyin. It's high time I saw this Jeremy guy, Tosin. We want to ee Jeremy."
"Trying to protect her, huh? Why are you talking to her like a strict father?"
"Because she wouldn't tell us anything about her family or background, so let me fit in the father role in her life."
"You are unbelievable!" Toyin said and then I heard the door slam shut.
"She is mad at you," I said.
"Yeap. She took this seriously. I wasn't expecting that."
"Go apologise, Jasper," I said.
"I will. But I'm serious about you showing me the man you are dating. You guys are on a trip to Ibadan for a reason I didn't know because you didn't tell me. Are you going shopping or he has tricked you into following so he could kidnap you?"
I laughed. "No, he didn't trick me. I have something important to do. And please, you can gladly take the father role in my life because you are acting it out well."
"Right. Now, daughter, be safe. I have some apologies to make."
"Sure," I said and hung up.
"So... I hate your friends. Especially Jasper." Jeremy grinned.
I smiled. The phone had been on speaker all along. "They are amazing people. Just wait till you meet them. They are super crazy to meet you. You're gonna have to meet them soon."
"Sure. I can't wait. I want to see Jasper."
For the next few minutes, we said nothing while I gazed at him. Checking out his features and loving them. Looking at him made me realise how passionately I wanted to be with him. Now and forever. With a family too.
Suddenly, something occurred to me. I was a gangster! A street fighter and a murderer. How could I do all these when I wanted a family too? Have babies? Make time for my man? How was that going to be possible? Maybe it could be possible if I kept it a secret? Or fake my death, disappear and make a new life? Or if my husband was also a gangster?
But is that the right thing to do when raising kids? Jesus, it didn't occur to me that Jeremy might want a kid or not.
"Jeremy?"
"Yes?"
"Do you like babies?"
"Sure."
"Would you like to have the one you fathered yourself?"
"Sure, why not? They are so adorable. Why are you asking by the way?"
"Nothing."
"Wait, you are pregnant? Truly honey, I wore protection..."
"Oh, shut up, you don't have to tell me."
"So why did you ask if I love babies?"
"I just wanted to know."
"You know I love you, right?"
"I know you do, Jeremy. And I'm glad for it all. For being there. For making me acceptable. For consoling me when I lost my uncle."
"It's fine, you are my girlfriend and I will do anything for you." He stretched out his hand to stroke my face.
"Jeremy?" I called out, a bit scared. I wanted to tell him everything about me. About being a gangster. Tell him the whole story and see his reaction. If he reacted worse than I expected, I would say it was a prank. If he reacted fairly, I would completely show the sincerity in my eyes, face and voice. "I want to tell you something."
"What? You sound odd. What do you have to tell me? Is it a joke as usual?"
"Actually, it's something quite shocking."
____________________
The car screeched to a halt suddenly and Jeremy gripped the steering wheel to prevent hitting his head on it. I was terrified.
"Tell me you are joking."
"I'm not."
"You know, you have been narrating this whole story as if you were narrating a movie you watched and I have been accepting it until you told me you were the girl and gangster. Tell me you are joking now! Is there a camera planted somewhere in the car?"
"No, Jeremy... "
Jeremy gazed to see the sincerity in my face. "I can't believe this!"
"It's the truth. Fix it together. The girl's story perfectly fits into what my background is like."
Jeremy looked around, hit the steering wheel and got out of the car.
Okay, he was so worked up now and now was the time to tell him it was a prank, right?
I sighed, breathed and got down with a fake smile to meet him. "Babe?"
"Don't you babe me! How bold of you to tell me this, Tosin! I always knew you were secretive! Weird! Picking up calls secretly and being nervous and all that! I should have known something wasn't right!"
"Babe..." I looked around at the people staring at us.
"You killed your uncle!" Jeremy said with a stern voice and I hoped no one heard us. "That's not acceptable! You are wicked and thoughtless! Why didn't you just tell your boss about your background, because none of this would have happened if you had."
"Jeremy?" He wasn't giving me the chance to talk. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around all these you have told me. First, get into the car and let's find your father. We will come back to your life story. It's getting late."
If I told you I wasn't shocked, it was a lie. I wasn't expecting such a reaction, I was expecting him to dump me right there or hear me say it was a prank and then say I play too many expensive jokes but what happened was otherwise.
Like what just happened? Did he love me that much? Or was he coming back to have a real talk with me?
When the GPS finally got us to our destination, I was in awe of what I saw.
"We are here," Jeremy said in a cold voice I didn't know he had and got down.
The silence that had accompanied us here in the car after our previous conversation had been suffocating that I had to turn on the music to a low volume which made the situation way more awkward. The first two songs that filled our ears were All The Single Ladies, followed by Send Me Away by Nasty C featuring Rowlene.
It wasn't funny. First, it made me imagine Jeremy was going to send me away so he could think things through thoroughly before he got back to me and if he didn't, I should consider myself a single lady.
Realising he wasn't coming to open the door for me, I helped myself out. I stared at the house in front of me and thought, finally, thank God. Before I left the hospital that day, I got the address from Sarah. She said that was where my father lived but hopefully he was still living there.
Sarah had given up the ghost that week on Friday and I was there watching her in pain as she died. But before she got my forgiveness, I had to forgive her willingly if I wanted to heal myself and considering the situation she was in, I wanted to give her what she wanted badly. We had buried her that same day, near her mother and where my uncle too was buried. The whole people I got were my cousins, my Mum Gideon, Jeremy and my besties.
Though Bisola wasn't getting herself much because of the truth she found out about Emma, she had decided to come along too. To be there for me. The death of those two did hit her badly. The only thing that hit her badly was that she was taken advantage of by Emma and fooled by Ellen and most of all, the people she thought were Joe's friends were the enemies that killed him. But as of last week, she got over it all. That was Bisola for you. Strong and enduring.
So now, facing my father's house with my hands in my pockets, I thought what kind of business must have transpired for Sarah to have had sex with a man that owned such a house like this. Well... Do you know how you watch movies of a poor child finding who her father is only to discover that her father is a wealthy person? Well, that was the opposite for me. He wasn't. He was living a comfortable life and that was enough too. Too much money, too many worries.
His house was well built and he owned a large farm. On the farm, cattle grazing and turkeys were moving around. One part of the farm was demarcated for a plantain plantation, and another one demarcated was for a fish pond.
"Let's go," Jeremy urged, walking first.
When we got to the front door, I knocked.
"Coming!" a loud man responded.
The door opened and a man in his fifties appeared. Dark, average height, clean beards, black eyes and handsome face. He was wearing nice jeans and a shirt.
"Hi, how may I help you?"
"Hi," I waved awkwardly.
"Can I help you? If it's my wife you are looking for, she has gone to work, you know she is a vet doctor?"
"No, we aren't here for her. Hi, I am Jeremy and this is Tosin," Jeremy said and they shook hands. "We are here to see you."
"Me? Come on in then. I'm James."
The inside was cool. The sitting room was set and cleaned. The dining table was dust-free and it smelled nice. Also, a german shepherd was lying on its stomach looking at us suspiciously. I saw a painting material on one side of the room and I knew I inherited my talent from my father. He was an artist too.
"That's a cute dog," I said.
"Yeah, thanks. That's Billy. It's a male." He stroked Billy's ear as he sat beside him. "So what can I do for you?"
"Umm," I adjusted my sitting position, "I'm Tosin Johnson and I don't know if you know Sarah Johnson."
My dad cocked his eyebrows hearing the name then nodded. "What about her?"
"I'm surprised you remember her. Well, She's dead."
"What? Jesus!" He ran his head through his hair, stood up and started pacing. "I need a drink. Do you mind?."
"Yes," Jeremy replied.
My dad left and I felt I was the only one in the room. Jeremy wouldn't even glance at me to pass a message. Not even to say I took after my dad in a way.
"I'm so shocked," my dad said when he returned. He served us chilled stout in a tray and opened it for us while he had his in the bottle.
He gulped down some and asked. "What killed her?"
"Hiv. Stage three of Hiv."
"Oh my God. Sweet Jesus. I can't believe she got that. I can't believe she continued. I'm sorry, who are you to her?"
And for the first time since we got here, Jeremy looked into my eyes before I spoke. "I am her daughter."
"I'm sorry you went through that. Was she married?"
"No. Who was she to you?"
"It was supposed to be a one-night stand. But I grew feelings for her. Funny how I was the one who wanted more than the sex. I...hmm... I tried taking her to places to talk, you know... Just talk, not sex but she thought it was for sex all the time. So I told her how I felt and she turned me down. Warned me to stop following her or she was going to report me stalking her. I did stop following her because for her it was all business. And then one month later, she showed up at my house and said she was pregnant."
I snorted and took my drink.
"I didn't believe her. After a month? And I knew what she was into, so that didn't make me believe her. Truly I remember I didn't use protection because we were carried away but what if a man had also laid with her without protection too? Anyway, we carried out a test after the baby was born and it confirmed I was the father. During the time the baby was in her belly, she was staying here in my house.
"I was there for her and the baby. Some months after the baby was born, she left me without the baby. I thought she was going to change her mind because of how she was interacting with me freely plus I thought she was gradually having feelings for me but it was all a pretence. She left me without having a chance with the baby. So I guessed she raised the child on her own."
So he didn't just want to be a sugar daddy, he wanted more from Sarah.
"Hitherto, I haven't heard from her or anyone until you two showed up," he sighed. "May her soul rest in peace. Who are you two to her?"
"I am her daughter and she hated me."
My dad choked on his drink. "You don't mean it." He stood up.
"I am her only child. She dumped me in the orphanage. A lot of things happened." I stood up and wanted to say everything. Like I wanted to report it all to my father.
My dad came over, looking at me. "I'm sorry. You mean you are my daughter?” My dad came closer again, tears already in his eyes. “Mind if I touch you?"
I was coming close to tears. "Go on."
He suddenly gave me a heartfelt hug and started shedding tears. "I'm sorry. You don't know how much I really loved you when I first saw you as a baby. When you were born. I had always thought of how you were and all that."
I hugged him back tightly as if I didn't want to let him go. I had missed hugging someone to call my father. We cried together for a while and we were just there hugging each other.
"What do you mean she hated you?"
"And she didn't raise me on her own. She gave me up for adoption."
"What?"
And that was how I began narrating from the beginning to the family I grew up with and the suffering and their deaths. But I didn't tell him what I had become now though. When I was done, Linda Gabriel and her three kids_two girls and a boy_who were paying rapt attention to my sad life story came to hug me. I couldn't cry. There was none left for now. Or maybe it was best I saved it when it was just Jeremy and me.
Mrs Linda and her kid had joined in the discussion when they had entered and they were so sweet to me.
"It's nice to see you, Tosin. My husband told me about you and your mum. He was always wondering how you were. Until I assured him you were perhaps doing fine."
"Fortunately, I was at first, but unfortunately I faced a lot. It became hard."
My dad pulled me for a hug and said, "I am here now. Let's make up for it."
I bobbed my head with a smile. I loved him already.
"It's late already. You two will have to sleep soon but have dinner first," Linda said.
"Thanks, ma," Jeremy said. He hadn't been saying anything. Just staring and hearing us all talk as I got to know about my dad.
"Who are you to Tosin?" my dad asked Jeremy.
"He's my boyfriend. Twenty-six and a fashion designer," I said snappily.
"Nice." The boy said. He was a teenager and his name was Jide. The other girls' names were Olivia, who was the eldest, and then Cynthia who was the youngest.
We had dinner and prayed before going to bed. I was surprised they were so religious, which wasn't a bad thing. Maybe things would have been different if I had been brought up in this family but then, I wouldn't have met Mum, Bayo, Busola, my besties, Jasper and most importantly Jeremy.