Love was a living thing, and I think the most precious part about this gift was that the flowers were alive, so you were not just given something pretty, there was nurturing to be done. Arike used to put something in the water first, a powder she pulled out from somewhere. I never noticed what it was or where she put it, but the flowers did not die when she was here, and even when I stopped making time to stop by the air conditioned florist to buy them, there were still flowers in the vase.

Coming down to the second floor of my own house had become tedious. There were too many things to walk through - the foggy memory of a failed marriage plastered on the wall as framed photos of what was a husband, a wife and a son, now a man, a woman and a boy from a separated home. There was a couch, once holding three, until the third stopped showing up so it hardly held two and now no one sat on it, and the last thing – the flowers. The flowers had died, they had undergone a rugged metabolism from what may have been white or what may have been red; the problem was that I didn’t know. They were dead now.

Arike did not like to text, according to her the lack of tone in the digital boxes took away the intimacy of communication, so when she texted, I did not know what to think of it. How did it read? Was this the sort of dinner where the man performed a tear or two and recited a speech about realizing his errors and it ended with a husband and a wife? Or was this the one where he is handed even more divorce documents and they parted as man and woman? It was difficult to tell, but my heart no longer felt like a brick sitting in my chest at the thought of the first.

Perhaps I’ll bring flowers, the biggest roses she had ever seen. We’ll roll our shoulders to the Fuji that played in the Buka’s we drove by just like before, and if she ever decided to hold my hand again I’ll remember to notice. I’ll look into my lover’s eyes and regardless of how long I stare I would never look away again.

Dinner was for 6 pm on Saturday. I hadn’t left the house for the past two weeks except to pick up the occasional Glovo deliveries. For the first time in two months I felt something real, not just the dread, not just the floating on this long nihilistic river.

Ever since Arike moved, days did not come with anything other than hunger and shit, and time was just a cosmic indicator that I was alone. I did not wake up to Timi asking to play his tiring 4-year-old version of football, and Arike did not ask what I would like for dinner. In the morning, I sat on my bed and listened to Lagos start. Eventually the Danfos would stop passing by and the Akara woman would tie her money in her rapper and go. Then In the evening I will sit on my bed and listen to Lagos stop.

I did not sit on my bed today, I needed to shave and get flowers. I woke up to a sound in my chest, my heart was beating again. My lover had asked to see me, and I don’t know if she truly wants me back, but I took a shower to the song of the thought, and went to buy some flowers

People fall in love for many reasons but most of mine lingered on the surface. It was always in the way the light hit their eyes, the curve in their lips. The way God had spaced their nose to sit beneath their eyes, bring everything together in such a wholesome manner. Arike was beautiful. I stopped the first time I saw her, a notable pause, an unnatural reaction like in a cartoon. I used to see everything in her eyes, I wonder why I ever stopped looking at them.

“Tunde”

She said my name the same way she had for the past few months. Always with an audible gasp, followed by a “Tun” that rose into a “DE”. I had always perceived it as a nag but now it just sounded like exhaustion.

“Why did you bring these?”

“It just…”

“Why are you bringing them now?”

She said back, cutting into me

“Please just put them away and sit down”

When Arike and Timi moved out of the house I realized something, silence sang a song. It was a sinister unchanging note, heading in no direction. I had formed a faux reality for myself, telling me lies. Tall tales of a mended marriage, of dead flowers blossoming into a vibrant rose. The silences had once again taken it’s viola and drums and planted it’s orchestra in my chest

“Arike I just wanted to..”

“Please Tunde”

She was sharp this time

“Put it away.”

I could hear the tone in the text now, but I wonder why I had perceived anything else.

“Hey we need to talk, dinner on Friday”

Living things do not come back to life when they die. I sat down, slowing like I did every other evening on the edge of the bed. I search her eyes for anything that could indicate her interest in being my wife again but there was nothing there. They were cold. Distant.

“The neighbors called Tunde”

“So mummy Tobi still has time to gossip”

“She said you look like you’re not showering, and you’re not leaving the house and every single time she sees you, you are a picking up a disturbing amount of fast food bags from a dispatch”

“Chicken republic is convenient”

“What is going on Tunde?”

Maybe she would understand. She would have understood before, without a single thought. I would say I had fallen into chronic clinical depression and then listen to her heart pick up an audible pace. She’ll call a doctor friend from her human physiology days, and then make a meal after. She would have done anything to make it go away. I watched someone love me with every part of themselves, and I put them in a box and walked away.

“I got depressed”

“Well Tunde I’m sorry to hear that but you need to work on it, we still have to take care of Timi.”

She didn’t look at me when she spoke, didn’t seem to care about the depression either. When had my wife become so cold?

“What happened Arike?”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Please”

The patriarchy had taught me a finite number of things, but of the biggest ones was that I shouldn’t cry, but here I was river in eyes, heart in hand. She finally looked at me. I hope she saw it, how broken I was, all the pieces of me shattered across the linen tablecloth.

“Tunde, please don’t do this.”

“Arike please.”

I sat with the silence for a minute that was far too long, and she sat with me. Perhaps she heard the song as well.

“The flowers were dead Tunde.”

She finally broke.

“For three weeks, and it seemed ridiculous, I know. I asked myself these questions, but you didn’t notice, and maybe if it was just me I would have stayed but Timi wasn’t getting any of you either, and I was tired Tunde”

“The flowers in the vase”

“Yes”

She said followed by a heavy breathe

“I said to myself - this time I wouldn’t change the flowers, this time I’ll wait and see if he’ll notice, but

you never did Tunde”

She looked away this time, a certain heaviness in her eyes

“you never did, and it’s not even about the stupid flowers. You weren’t coming home, you weren’t showing up for Timi. I was all alone in my own home and even your useless secretary was getting more attention from you than me”

Loving was an active thing, it was flowers every two weeks, being at the nursery school recital, noticing the new blow out. I stopped loving Arike a long time ago. I always loved her, but she had become a constant thing. It didn’t matter what I did outside, my two legs and I would roam all the streets of Lagos and at the end of it all there was a duplex along the road with dodo and spicy stew.

“I should have never stopped looking at you Arike”

I extended a hand, and she pulled back. Many things had broken me about the divorce, but to watch my wife recoil from my touch like I was something poisonous cut deep. I had become something sinister to my lover, a fearful thing, the ghost of an antecedent love sitting before her.

“Arike...”

“Tunde I just want us to work out an arrangement for Timi.”

“Is there nothing left for us Arike?”

“Please Arike”

“You let it die Tunde”

I looked at my lover and she wasn’t there. I had run a knife through her heart and let all the love bleed out. The heaviness in her eyes had turned to tears. Why had I done this to my wife? Why did I not see when her eyes began to die? Why did I forget that love required loving?