Work Hard, Love Harder

“Baby, you can have everything you want and more.”

Zoe pulled herself from the memory, staring at Hajia.

“He asked my mom?” Zoe realized, suddenly understanding why Femi had been so intent on helping with the wedding plans. It was all for her.

“He did,” Hajia said. “He’s in this for you, Zoe.”

Zoe nodded, eyes wet thinking about how such Femi had done to make this day perfect.

“I’m always the one that loves more,” Zoe said softly. “I’m always the one that cares more… if he, if he ever leaves…” Zoe’s omission was almost a whisper, and Hajia ghosted a hand under her chin, bringing her eyes back up to hers.

“Femi would never leave you. He doesn’t belong in this world any more than you do. He belongs with you.”

Hajia gave Zoe an encouraging smile, before clapping her hands together.

“Alright, get up, you have a wedding to get to, enough of this,” Hajia said. “Just because Femi’s late to everything doesn’t mean you need to be.”

Zoe laughed past the lump in her throat, rising and grabbing her bouquet.

“Zoe, aren’t you forgetting something?” Hajia asked from behind her as she began walking away.

“Hmm?” Zoe turned, eyebrows raised.

Hajia gestured to the earrings at her side. “Something blue. My earrings.”

Zoe hesitated a moment, the strange feeling in her stomach rising instantly, and Hajia shook her head lightly. “I want you to wear them, Zoe. It would make me so happy.”

Zoe felt a weight she didn’t know was there lift off her shoulders at Hajia’s words, and this time when she smiled, it was unfiltered. Free.

Zoe quickly slipped them on, looking in the vanity as she adjusted them.

Aisha wandered back into the room suddenly, giving Zoe a strange look as she stood in the center of the room, searching.

“You okay?” Aisha asked, a laugh in her voice at the dumbstruck look on Zoe’s face.

“What?” Zoe asked, dazed, “Oh! Yes, yes, I’m great.”

“Alright…” Aisha trailed off, offering Zoe her arm. “Ready for your walk down the aisle?”

Zoe smiled, slipping her arm into Aisha’s. “More than you know.”

*****

After months of Femi insisting that inside his wife’s ever-growing stomach was a little heir, Zoe decided she was going to the obstetrician to prove they were having a little heiress. She told him she was going to do this, but she wouldn’t tell him when.

So, on an otherwise average Wednesday evening when Femi got home from work, Zoe was waiting up for him in bed. She was sitting attentively, back against her favorite pillows, cockiness etched into every one of her features. She held up the sonogram she’d had done earlier in the day and waved it at him when he appeared in the doorway.

Femi stalked across the room and plucked the picture from his wife’s fingers. Sure enough, there at the bottom read: SEX: FEMALE.

His lips parted at a loss for words. He stared at the image of their little girl for a good thirty seconds before looking up. His wife was still smirking triumphantly, as though she’d be content to wait hours for his reaction.

At last, he spoke.

“She’s not dating until she’s thirty.”

Once the news sunk in that a Dangote was going to have a daughter after centuries of his bloodline only having sons, Femi seemed to become even more sentimental about Zoe’s pregnancy. He convinced (read: blackmailed) John into painting his future goddaughter’s nursery a soft pink, and made it a point to tell all their friends at Harvard to keep a good five feet away from Zoe’s stomach at all times. Zoe rolled her eyes and told Femi she was pregnant, not made of glass, but she found the gesture touching all the same. Zack was a hundred percent on board with the excessive pampering so she didn’t even have an ally in him. Clare visited Boston more often to check up on her daughter and her son, while Hajia wrote frequently, expressing her elation over how she would soon have a granddaughter to take shopping and play dress-up with.

During her third trimester, Zoe buckled down on her reading, as did Femi. He insisted they read What to Expect When You’re Expecting, together and – much to his wife’s annoyance – he often jotted down little notes in the margins.

Femi finished brushing his teeth and was on his way to bed one night when he found Zoe fast asleep, the book tented over her face. He smiled and carefully moved the text off of her, making sure to mark her place before setting it down on her bedside table.

He flicked out the lights and climbed into bed but stopped before pulling the covers up over himself and his spouse. He leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on top of Zoe’s protruding stomach. “Goodnight. Daddy loves you… Abebi.”

*****

Abebi Jean Dangote was born on April 17 at 8:34 p.m. She weighed 6 pounds, 5 ounces and was 18.1 inches tiny. She had Femi’s shining brown eyes, as well as his curly thick hair, but from the way the thin strands were already beginning to curl of their own accord, it was clear she had Zoe’s downy texture. She also had Zoe’s nose and smile – and ability to win people over.

Femi never thought he’d see the day Aduba Elba Dangote cried.

Something in the air definitely shifted when Aduba first set his usually cool gaze on the miniature bundle of tiny joy the pediatrician carried in, wrapped up in a pink blanket smaller than a hand towel. Zoe instantly told her father-in-law he was welcome to hold his granddaughter, and the moment she was placed in the older man’s arms, it was clear the little heiress had shattered whatever remained of his reservations.

All of Femi and Zoe’s relatives and friends had taken turns holding and cooing over the newest edition to their lives for hours. Now all of their company had left, and Zoe was taking a much-needed nap. The nurse had offered to take Abebi back to the nursery with the other newborn girls and boys, but Femi assured her he wanted some time alone with his daughter.

He was seated right outside his wife’s room in a stiff chair that all the pillows in the world couldn’t have fixed, but the new father couldn’t care less. He was much too consumed with falling in love for the second time in his life.

His little girl was still wrapped up in her pink blanket. Femi carefully rocked her back and forth in his strong arms in the hopes that doing so would keep her from crying. So far, it was working. Every so often, Abebi gave a little stretch or yawn, and every time she did, Femi swore he fell in love a little bit more.

“You’re adorable, Abebi.” Femi stroked the softer than soft hair that lay atop his daughter’s small head. “Daddy loves you so, so much.”

Abebi made a small sound, which Femi decided to take as her saying she reciprocated his feelings.

He placed a kiss on her smooth forehead and watched as her eyes, identical to his, blinked up at him.

“Abebi, as you grow up, you’re going to hear some things about your mother. About how she maybe wasn’t so straightforward a person.” He didn’t know why he was saying it. He knew she couldn’t understand him, but he wanted to tell her all the same. “I’m sorry that some of those things are true. But I promise you, her heart was always in the right place. I love you and your mummy more than anything else in this world. I will never make you feel like you have to… to do something or be something to earn my love. I’ll make sure you always know you’re perfect just the way you are. And I will always, always, always do whatever I can to make sure you’re happy, Princess.”

Immediately, a small smile formed on Abebi’s lips. She made a contented little sound and stared up at her father happily.

Femi’s heart skipped a beat. Maybe she could understand him – she was Zoe’s child, after all. And his. She was a mixture of them both.

We made this, he thought, heart swelling with pride. We made this precious little miracle.

The end.