Chapter 7 - EKONG| When Love Is A Silent Song

Then came the third time. Ekong woke to find them tangled together—arms, legs, breath. Too close. Far too close. And worse, Ade’s eyes opened at the exact same time.

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Welcome back, dear faithful, and thank you for being here again.

This chapter has challenged me more than any chapter. There were intermittent blocks, and the fact that I don’t feel too confident about it. Yet, I am posting it because it is part of the challenge that started this series—I want to get over my perfectionism when it comes to first drafts and just write.

Anyway, if you missed Chapter Six, you can catch up here.

Otherwise, dive in.

And as always, feel free to leave thoughts, comments, critiques, or questions.

I’m writing this in real time, and your presence means the world.

Let’s keep going.

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There are many things about adulthood that no one prepares you for, one of them is becoming a parent—or in Ekong’s case, becoming a father. He had known all his life that one day, he would want to start a family. That conviction, like water settling under a moonlight, became clearer for him when he met Eleanor. All those years they dated in college, Ekong knew he wanted her to be the mother of his children. He could tell she wanted the same, too.

But wanting, yearning, and dreaming are different from having. Having is weight. It is breath held still. It is reality folding in on itself, pressing its weight against your chest. There is something about reality, its tangibility, that makes you shudder. It presses against the skin. It startles, not because it is unfamiliar, but because it is finally here. And nothing shakes the soul like the arrival of what once felt distant.

Ekong had been feeling the same way about becoming a father for a while.

It started a few days after the news about the pregnancy. The wanting, yearning, dreaming of having a baby, of becoming a father, is now a reality—taking physical form in the little bump forming on Eleanor’s belly—and he is troubled by it. It started as some sort of unsettling. Like how you know and feel something is wrong, but you don’t know what it is exactly. It clings to you: this unshakable feeling of dread. You walk around, a ghost of yourself, lost in thoughts, staring keenly into nothingness, a slow loss of appetite. Deep sighs intermittently.

At night, as Eleanor’s soft snores echoed through their bedroom and the night got darker outside, Ekong’s eyes bore through the hardwalls of his ceiling. It wasn’t the idea of having a baby. He knew he loved his unborn child so much. So, it wasn’t the child that was the problem, but the idea of becoming a father.

Is there a way to do this right? A manual to fatherhood?

Would he be able to do this?

Ekong came from a loving family. His father—God rest his soul—was not without faults, as no human is. But he was there. He provided. He listened. He loved in ways that lingered. He shaped Ekong, at least in part, into the man he is now.

And maybe that’s another layer of the anxiety—this looming shadow of a good father.

His father left behind big shoes. Ekong fears he may never grow into them. Ekong feared inadequacy. The kind that crept into your parenting and left scars you didn’t notice until they were too deep.

But since he started talking to Ade, something has changed. He feels like he has his friend back, like a piece of himself he didn’t know was missing has quietly returned.

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The month Ade stayed with Ekong for the entire school holiday break was one of the best months of Ekong’s life. That month, he felt warm hands of friendship, like he had never before. And when he said that, he meant it both metaphorically and literally. Yes.

That month, they spent more time together with no school restrictions. Or Ade leaving early to go home. This time, home was the same place for both of them. Even if just for a month. Ekong taught Ade how to play games on PS2 and successfully got him to love Mortal Kombat just as he did. They played the game every hour of the day, especially when they were not running errands for Mama Imeh or forced outside by Papa Idoreyin to get some air and sun.

On most days, while they walked around to act out Papa Idoreyin’s orders, they would play tag.

‘You are it!’ Ade would scream, tapping Ekong’s shoulders and start running.

Ekong chased after him, both of them laughing. Ade was good at it, surprisingly fast, even if his run looked a little funny—funny enough to make Ekong double over with laughter. When they’d finally had enough, they’d collapse on the football field near the house, panting and drenched in sweat.

‘You know you're a good runner, right?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Yes, you do. You are always modest. Why didn’t you ever join the school’s running team?’

‘I tried.’

‘And…’

‘They said no. They didn’t want someone like-

‘Well, their loss,’ Ekong cut in, not wanting to hear the end of that sentence.

And then there were the nights.

The first time Ekong woke up to find Ade’s arms wrapped around him like a mother hen protecting her chicks from an eagle overhead—deep in slumber, his sleeping face, the most peaceful he had ever seen Ade—he didn’t think much of it. People toss and turn in their sleep, and when they do, something like that happens, he reasoned. He’d gently peeled the arm away and gone to the bathroom. When he returned, he faced the other way and went back to sleep.

But the second time, before Ekong could shift away, something stopped him. He lay there a moment longer, confused by a strange cocktail of comfort and uncertainty. He leaned into it and closed his eyes, Ade’s heavy breath circling his neck. They were best friends…even brothers, after all.

Then came the third time. Ekong woke to find them tangled together—arms, legs, breath. Too close. Far too close. And worse, Ade’s eyes opened at the exact same time.

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Ade’s return to Ekong’s life has reopened a door he thought he had long sealed. A door behind which memories had been locked, buried beneath years of deliberate forgetting. He had filled his life with new friendships, built a home with Eleanor, and carved out routines meant to keep the past where it belonged—in the past. But now, all their chats and calls, the harmless teasing, the shared laughter over old jokes and childhood pranks, have begun to stir something in him. Banished emotions, like quiet ghosts, are creeping back in. Not forcefully. No. Gently, insistently. And with each conversation, each memory resurfacing, Ekong feels the foundations of his carefully arranged present begin to shift.

Yet for some reason, none of them have been able to talk about that day. The day things fell apart. The day Ade’s actions gave weight, shape and meaning to a feeling that had always hovered unspoken between them. The day Ade tried to…

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A loud retching pulls Ekong from his thoughts. He jerks up and, without a minute to think, runs to the bathroom. He knows what is happening and what he has to do. This has been his routine lately. It has become a part of him, engraved in the deeper parts of his brain. He always knows what to do when he hears Eleanor throw up. He gets up and goes to the bathroom, not barging in, just being close enough in case she needs him.

On some days, she is easily irritable and wants no physical contact. On other days, she lets him. And when he enters, he holds Eleanor’s hair up, while rubbing her back in soft circular motion. After everything is out, Ekong would help her get up, rinse her mouth and wipe her face gently with a damp cloth.

‘I’m so sorry you are going through this,’ he would say.

‘It is not your fault,’ Eleanor would reply, with kindness in her eyes.

Eleanor is not having the best first pregnancy. The morning sickness is the worst. Lurching in at unexpected times, whether she’s brushing her teeth or eating. Her body no longer feels like her own. It’s a vessel, expanding and aching, pulling her in directions she never thought possible.

Looking down at his wife, holding her hair back so it doesn’t fall into the toilet bowl as she throws up again, Ekong feels a heaviness settle in his chest. Watching Eleanor endure all of this just to bring their first child into the world, to give the joy they have been clawing at for years, he knows one thing with sharp clarity: she deserves better. She deserves his full attention, his unwavering presence. Even if he is uncertain of how to be a father.

He cannot afford a distraction.

Not now.

Thank you for reading this chapter!

Chapter 8 drops next week.

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