“I know, but think about your life. This Lagos will not pity you. Love cannot pay rent.”
The words hit Kemi because they were partly true. Love could not pay rent. Love could not fix a leaking roof. Love could not stop hunger from making your hands shake.
But Kemi remembered her mother’s warning.
“My daughter, if hunger is pushing you, don’t let desperation push you into shame.”
So Kemi held her nylon bag tightly and said, “Thank you. But I don’t want another man. I want my husband.”
Sola sighed. “Don’t be proud.”
“It is not pride,” Kemi said softly. “It is love.”
She walked away with tears burning behind her eyes, not because she wanted the contractor, but because she knew she had just rejected an easier door.
The landlord did not wait two weeks.
On Monday morning, he returned with two men built like walls. They dragged Kemi and Tunde’s things into the compound: their mattress, buckets, cooking pot, and two small bags of clothes.
Neighbors came out to watch.
One woman shook her head and said loudly, “A woman will marry love and forget survival.”
Kemi’s face burned.
Tunde carried their mattress on his head without speaking. His jaw was tight, his eyes fixed straight ahead. He looked like a man swallowing fire.
They found shelter in an unfinished building behind a mechanic yard. At night, mosquitoes sang around their ears. When rain fell, water entered through the open spaces where windows should have been. Their clothes smelled of engine oil. Their stomachs learned to accept less.
Kemi tried to be strong, but some nights, when she thought Tunde was asleep, she cried silently.
Not because she hated him.
Because she was tired.
One evening, after they had eaten plain rice with salt water and a little palm oil, Kemi asked carefully, “Tunde, do you have family? Anybody at all?”
Tunde stared into the darkness.
“I have,” he said.
“Then why don’t you go to them?”
He was silent for too long.
“Some doors are not safe,” he finally said.
Something in his voice warned her not to ask more.
So she did not.
Things grew worse. Kemi’s sewing machine, her only real hope, was damaged when rain entered the unfinished building. Repairing it would cost money they did not have. Tunde’s small jobs became fewer. Each morning he left early; each night he returned dusty and quiet.
“How was today?” Kemi would ask.
“I tried,” he would say.
That was all.
Rumors followed them. Some people said Tunde was cursed. Others said he was lazy and hiding behind good manners. A church woman pulled Kemi aside one Sunday and whispered, “My sister, prayer needs wisdom too. If your husband is not ready, separate for a while. God understands.”
That night, Kemi faced Tunde with tired honesty.
“I am not asking for a mansion. I am not asking for a big car. But we cannot continue sleeping in a place where rain enters our mouths.”
Tunde looked at her for a long time.
“Kemi,” he said quietly, “if you want to go, go.”
The words wounded her more than hunger.
“Is that what you want?”
“No,” he said. “But I will not hold you hostage. I will not use love to imprison you.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks.
“So what do you want?”
His voice dropped.
“I want to know if you love me when I have nothing.”
Kemi stared at him. It was a strange thing for a struggling man to ask. But she was too tired to analyze it. She answered from the only honest place left in her.
“I love you. But love should not kill us.”
Tunde nodded slowly, as if her answer had entered somewhere deep.
The next week, Kemi made a decision that changed everything.
She sold her only gold earring, the one her late mother had given her, to repair her sewing machine and buy food.
When she handed the money to Tunde, she did not say, “See what I sacrificed.”
She only said, “Let us stand again.”
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