“School’s been overwhelming,” I started, then hesitated. “And I guess… adjusting to life here is harder than I thought.”
“What kind of adjustment?” She leaned forward slightly, her curvy frame filling out the oversized sweater she wore. “Academic stuff or personal stuff?”
“Both.” I picked at my meat, not quite ready to meet her eyes. But there was something about the way she asked that felt genuine, not like the polite interest most people showed.
“The academics I can imagine. What programme are you in again?”
“Masters in Philosophy at MRU. You?”
“Early Childhood Education diploma at MRC, completely different worlds.” She laughed, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Though I bet we both know what it’s like to have parents asking when we’re coming home with degrees and husbands.”
There it was, the opening I both wanted and dreaded. I took another spoonful to buy time and studied her expression, and honestly, it was open. She was waiting but not pushing, not prying, not trying to pull anything out of me. She was just genuinely there. So I gathered myself together.
“Sometimes I think I’m living two different lives,” I admitted quietly. “The me here… and the me my parents expect me to be back home.”
She nodded slowly, understanding flickering across her features. “That’s heavy, babe. What kind of expectations are we talking about?”
I hesitated. We had only hung out once before this, at that club Roxies, where I’d been too shy to even utter a word. But sitting here with her, something in me wanted to trust her anyway. Still, how much could I really share?
“You know how Nigerian parents can be about… relationships and marriages, and about the right kind of person too…” I ventured, testing the waters.
“Ah.” The corner of her mouth pulled up in a way that made me know that she knew exactly what I was talking about. “The ‘when are you bringing home a nice boy’ lecture, abi?”
“Something like that, o.” I took another spoonful in a bid to conceal the fact that my nerves were getting jittery, but the way she said it, like she understood from personal experience, made me bolder.
She set down her spoon and looked at me, like she was weighing something important in her head. The fluorescent light caught the gold undertones in her skin, and I noticed how her hands moved restlessly, like she was nervous about something.
“Can I be honest with you about something?” she asked finally. “Something I don’t really talk about much?”
My heart sped up. “Of course.”
She inhaled deeply. “I have a son.”
“A son?”
“Yes, his name is Dami, and he’s four years old.”
“And where is he?”
“Back home with my mum in Lagos.” Her fingers traced the rim of her bowl, and I could see the slight tremor in her hand. “I’m working two jobs here, saving every dollar to bring him over. And you know the immigration process for dependents is… expensive. Really expensive.”
“Oh, Funmi…” I reached across the small table, covering her restless hand with mine. Her skin was warm and soft, callused at the fingertips in a way that spoke of constant work.
“When I got pregnant in my early twenties, I couldn’t tell my parents who the father was because…” She laughed, but I didn’t sense any humour in it. “Because sometimes love doesn’t actually fit into the neat little boxes our families build for us.”
I squeezed her hand gently, not trusting myself to speak yet.
“It caused… problems, really big ones. My parents had so many questions I couldn’t answer without making things worse, so when I got the opportunity to study here in Canada…” Her voice cracked slightly. “I had to leave him with my mum and come build something here first, something stable enough for both of us.”
“Do you regret it?” I asked quietly. “The choice that caused all the problems?”
Funmi was quiet for a long moment, staring into her bowl like it held the answers to my questions. Then she shook her head firmly.
“I regret the timing. I regret not being stronger when I was younger. But Dami? Never. He’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”
She looked up at me then, and I could see tears threatening to fall at the corners of her eyes.
“Listen, Kelechi, our parents love us the way they know how. But sometimes their love comes with conditions that aren’t fair to who we really are. I mean, you can’t spend your whole life performing a version of yourself that makes other people comfortable.”
