Tunde came home from Lagos on a Thursday without telling anybody, the bus from Ojota dropped him at Challenge at 8pm, and by the time he reached Bodija, the whole street had gone quiet except for the generators.
He had planned to surprise his mother. Maybe make her shout and slap his shoulder the way she did, Instead he pushed the gate softly and heard his father's voice coming from the back of the compound, low and urgent.
Baba Tunde never talked low, that man had one volume, and it was "market".
Tunde crept past the parked Corolla, the one with the cracked side mirror his father refused to fix, and stopped behind the kitchen wall.
"No, no, Alhaji, I said Friday," his father was saying, "Friday morning, the boy must not know."
Tunde's chest tightened....
"The car is clean, engine no dey worry anybody, you promised me one point eight million," A pause, "Ehn? Because the boy's visa interview is in three weeks, that is why, the embassy people want proof of funds, I no fit show them my face and say 'my son wants to travel.'"
Tunde's hand went to his mouth.
"Of course he thinks I don't support him, let him think it, he is angry now, but he will thank me later, please just bring the money Friday."
The call ended, Silence, then Tunde heard something he had never heard in twenty-six years, his father sighing, long and tired, like a man putting down a very heavy load.
He should have walked away. He knew that, but his feet didn't move, and a stone scraped under his shoe.
"Who is that?"
Tunde froze...
Baba Tunde stepped around the corner with a torchlight in one hand and a cutlass in the other, the cutlass he used for the plantain stems, when the light landed on Tunde's face, the old man's whole body changed, the cutlass dropped, his mouth opened and closed.
"Tunde? What are you doing here? Why you no call?"
"Daddy..."
"How long have you been standing there?"
Tunde swallowed, "Long enough."
His father looked away fast, the way people do when they've been caught naked, he picked up the cutlass and tried to laugh. "Ah, you know say your father dey talk too much on phone, Na small business matter. Nothing serious."
"Daddy, you are selling the car."
"Which car? Who said that?"
"I heard you."
"You weren't supposed to hear that," Baba Tunde said quietly, all the market had left his voice, "You weren't supposed to hear that at all."
The generator next door coughed and died, now there was only the sound of crickets....
"Why did not you tell me?" Tunde's voice cracked. "Three months ago I called you and begged for help with the application fee. You said you had nothing. You said I should 'face my life.' I didn't talk to you for two weeks, Daddy, two weeks! I told my friends you didn't care."
"I know."..
"So why?"
Baba Tunde sat down slowly on the overturnedy bucket by the wall, in the torchlight he looked smaller, greyer, "Because if I told you I could help, you would relax, You would stop pushing. You are like me, Tunde, once the road is easy, you start to walk slow." He rubbed his knee, "And I didn't want to promise something and fail, the money was not there, not until Alhaji agreed to buy the car."
"That car is your whole life! You drove me to school in it, youu drove Mummy to the hospital when she—" Tunde stopped, his eyes burning, "You love that car more than you love your own legs."
"I love you more than my legs."
It came out so plainly that neither of them knew what to do with it, Baba Tunde looked embarrassed, as if he had said something rude, Tunde let out a wet laugh and wiped his face with his sleeve.
"Daddy, I can't let you sell it."
"You can't stop me, I am the father here....." He tried to smile, "Besides, a man my age should be walking. Doctor said so."
"Which doctor?"
"Any doctor."
They both laughed then, quietly, awkwardly, two stubborn men in the dark behind a kitchen, after a while Tunde sat on the ground next to the bucket and rested his head against his father's knee, like he used to when he was six.
The kitchen light came on his mother's silhouette appeared in the window, hands on hips.
"Who is that outside? Tunde? Is that my son?"
"Mummy, go and sleep!" Baba Tunde shouted, his market voice back in full, "We are having a private conversation!"
"A private conversation, in the dark, with cutlass?"
Tunde laughed harder, his father squeezed his shoulder once, firmly.
"Friday," the old man said, "Don't say anything, you hear? Let me do this."
Tunde looked up at the cracked side mirror shining dimly in the torchlight.
"Okay, Daddy," he said, "But I'm driving you to Alhaji myself, one last time."
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