My thoughts wandered to my mother’s half-brother, Uncle Boniface. He had lived with us when I was a child. At the time, he slept on a mattress on the living room floor and ate with a plastic plate on his knees in the kitchen like Odinkemmelu and Chikaodinaka. He had repeated several classes more than once, and eventually left secondary school without a certificate. But Uncle Boniface knew exactly what he wanted from the future. And he never kept quiet about it.

‘Kings, sit down and watch me,’ he would say. ‘Let me show you how rich men behave.’

Then he would puff out his arms and stride around the living room in slow, unhurried steps. Then he would stop and frown and dim his eyes, and look up into the air. Then he would sit in my father’s favourite chair, cross his legs, and shout orders at invisible servants.

‘Come and take away these plates!’ he would bark at one.

‘Will you stop wasting my time!’ he would howl at another. ‘Do you think I pay you so much money for doing nothing?’

Then he would glare at invisible naira notes in his hands and chuck them onto the floor.

‘Kings, come and take them and throw them in the bin,’ he would say. ‘These notes are too dirty to be in my wallet.’

It used to be a fun game that tickled my fancy no end. Not any more. Despite his poor academic record, Uncle Boniface was extremely wealthy. Rumours abounded of his innumerable cars and real estate and frequent trips abroad. And here I was sitting beside Ola’s mother, a complete disappointment.

Fear gripped my heart tighter. My mother-in-law-to-be had clearly run out of patience with me. I needed to do something quick. As soon as things turned around, she would become my best friend again. I had seen it happen before. When I was still the only child after five years of for-better-for-worse, my father’s family had fallen out of love with my mother. And like Ola’s mother, they were very open about their grief.