Was This What He Meant?

Lanre immediately stood up from the couch. She went to meet her mother. “Iyami, please open the door”. Lanre called. But her mother did not come to open the door. It seems she did not want to see Lanre at the moment.

Lanre wanted to get the keys from her mother so she could go out and report this issue to her bank. But her mother has refused to open the door. She sighed. Maybe she would do that the following day. She wonders what could be going through the sender’s mind right now. The person must be praying it is a good person that received the money. Someone good enough to refund the money.

She went back to the living room and laid back down on the couch. Then she realised even if her mother had opened the door, and she had gone to the bank, she would have met the place locked. It was already past 5 o’clock in the evening. Banks would be closed by this time. She sighed. At the very end, she could only live the following day.

Another message popped up on her phone. She opened it and read the message. “Please make good use of the money and never try to contact the Governor’s again. If you do, there will be grave consequences”. She wondered if it was a threat or an advice.

She turned off her phone and shut her eyes again. She thought perhaps this was all a part of a dream she was having and maybe she was yet to wake up from her sleep after she arrived from Lagos. But she was aware, she knew it was not. She just did not want to believe.

She could not even sleep. She read the message again. “Was this what he meant by she should wait for him?” She asked herself. Then she recalled when he offered to give her five million naira to spend a week with him. She had declined.

“Was he now giving her five million naira to leave him alone? Or who was it that had sent the money as well as the message?” She wondered.

Then she became angry. She was not even chasing after him. She did not bother him after all these things has happened. Yet she was being paid off as if she had caused any trouble. She wondered how they must think, whosoever had sent this. She suddenly no longer wanted to see Kehinde anymore.

Since they advised her to use her money well, then she will indeed use it well. She wanted to stay in Lagos in the first place. She was going there. She would use the money to open up a beauty parlour. She will pay for an apartment with the money. Then she would buy stocks or shares, whatever she could afford with two million from the money. She decided at that moment that she was not going to relent in making it. “If I don’t get shares, I will venture into other things”. Lanre said to herself.