Nnedi stood in the shadows, in an alley off her church, St. Vincent de Paul , waiting for Chibuzor.

She hated waiting, but she could do it for him alone. She had waited for three years to be in his arms and now the time had come. He'd been in Canada for three years, finding greener pastures. And the plan was for her to meet him in Canada, but things didn't work out the way he'd planned it to be. He worked too hard, yet he wasn't seeing results. And when he saw that his friends who were wealthier than him were into drug trafficking, and he had no other choice than to join.

As soon as she saw a car driving toward the catholic church sign board her heart beat became sound and clear.

She screamed excitedly and ran toward him, then she fell on his body and hugged him so tight to herself. "Chibuzo, oh my love."

He hugged her too, and he kissed her simply on the cheeks.

"bros, you never pay me o." The taxi driver said.

Chibuzo turned to Nnedi and said calmly, "Do you have to a thousand five hundred with you?" She nodded and searched through the partitions of her bag, then she handed the money to the cab driver. When the taxi guy drove off, she held his box firmly and asked, "where are we lodging?"

He brought his head to the floor shyly. She suddenly understood what it meant.

"Let's go to my house." She said delightedly.

He walked gently behind her, she held the box and rolled it, leading the way to her house. When she got to her self contained apartment, she looked at his face and said, "This is where I live now."

She hasn't changed that much to him; Still chubby and in shape. Her complexion was darker than it seemed in all the pictures she sent to him.

He smiled lightly and sat on the soft mattress that sank him.

She kissed him on his lip and said, "I have tomatoes stew in the freezer. I don't know if you still love ice fish, I made it with ice fish." She said.

"Of course. We have the best fishes." He said.

She rushed to the kitchen, defrost the stew and after some moments, rice and stew was ready. As he ate the food, Nnedi looked at his box. "If this is the only luggage you came back with, that means you'd be going back to Canada, but you told me you won't be going back."

"I won't be going back." He retorted with fish in his mouth.

"Then why haven't you brought all your stuffs?"

"These are all my stuffs." He replied.

"This small box?" She asked with a surprise stare.

He drank water and after he bulged, he said to her, "I have a lot to tell you my baby." He said, "As I am here with you, I don't have a dime on me." He said with emotions in his tone.

Her heartbeat accelerated and a bead of sweat limned her upper lip as she stared at Chibuzor in wonderment.

"But each time we spoke, you said you were getting ready to work." She said, "You even said one time that as soon as you come home, we will be getting married, what then happened to your finances Chibu?"

"I was deported!"

"Chi'mo! Deported? What did you do?"

"You don't have to do anything to be deported, the whites hate us."

"But we still have black people over there who are doing well?"

"Yes, those are mostly American citizens." He said.

He began to cry softly and she held him to herself. "Chibu, Please don't cry. I am here for you my love."


"I wanted to come back home and marry you properly, buy you a car and build a house here, then go back and hustle for more money. But now see." He laid in her arms, tensed and still listening to every word of comfort he gave to her.

"Will you go to Umuaka to see your people?" She asked.

"Which people? My stepmother is the cause of all my problems. I can't step my legs into that witchcraft coffin called Umuaka." He shrugged.

"If your parents were alive, I know you would have loved to visit."

"She killed my parents! That witch!" He exclaimed.

"You need to shower." She said, and led him to the bathroom.

Chibuzor sank himself into the small bathtub, his body was slim and he could size in there comfortably, unlike Nnedi whose weighty body had made the bathtub sink in a bit.

They made love under the duvet. He missed her. They'd dated for seven years, and he'd worked so hard to marry her.

She'd stolen her elder brother's money and given to him to add up and travel to Canada, and until then, she'd been running away from her brother Ebuka.

He was the only man she loved, and each time any other man wanted her, she'd turn down their proposal. Wealthy men in their big cars asked for her hand in marriage, but she told them of Chibuzor, and how much she adored him.

https://africanfictions.com/short-story/to-love-and-to-cherish-chapter-2/