By the time Tayo was 17, he thought he understood how a house worked.
His parents left at 7:20am and came back at 7:40pm. His little brother, Kemi, age 9, had football on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The generator came on at 6pm sharp. And every weekday at 8am, Dara arrived.
Dara was the nanny.
The first day she showed up, Tayo assumed she was Kemi’s older cousin. She was wearing sneakers, a plain white tee, and her hair in two braids. She had a tote bag with crayons, a water bottle, and a paperback.
“Hi,” she said to Tayo in the kitchen. “I’m Dara. I’ll be with Kemi.”
Tayo, half-asleep over cereal, said, “Cool.”
It took him two weeks to realize she was his age mate.
He found out because of the JAMB forms on the dining table. His mom had left them there for him to fill. Dara was helping Kemi with math at the table and glanced over.
“You’re writing JAMB this year too?” she asked.
Tayo looked up. “Yeah. You?”
“Same,” she said, and smiled. “I’m taking a gap year to work first. Save up.”
That was it. Age mate.
After that, the house felt different. Not because anything changed, but because Tayo started noticing everything.
He noticed that Dara always turned the kitchen light on at 6:15pm, even when there was still sunlight. She said it made homework feel “serious.” She noticed that Tayo always left a plate out after dinner, and she started washing it without saying anything. He noticed she hummed when she braided Kemi’s hair. She noticed he drank his tea with too much sugar and started making it with less.
They never talked about it directly. It would’ve been weird. She was there for Kemi. He was Kemi’s brother.
But there were the small things.
On Thursdays, Kemi had football till 5pm. Dara would come back with him, and Tayo would be back from school by then. The three of them would end up in the living room. Kemi would be playing FIFA, and Dara would be marking Kemi’s spelling test on the floor. Tayo would pretend to be doing physics, but he was actually watching how Dara bit her lip when she found a mistake.
“Why are you staring?” she asked him once, without looking up.
“Am I?” Tayo said.
“Mhm.”
He shrugged. “Just thinking.”
In December, the power went out for three days. The generator was being serviced. At night, the house was dark except for phone flashlights. On the second night, Kemi got scared and climbed into Tayo’s bed. Dara was in the guest room down the hall.
Around 2am, Tayo heard a knock. Soft.
It was Dara, holding a power bank and two bottles of water.
“Kemi okay?” she whispered.
“Yeah, he’s out,” Tayo whispered back.
She sat on the edge of his desk chair because there was nowhere else. The room was quiet except for the fan and Kemi’s breathing.
“JAMB is in 4 months,” she said.
“I know.”
“You nervous?”
“Terrified.”
She laughed quietly. “Same.”
They talked until the power bank died. About school, about wanting to study abroad, about the stupid movies their parents liked. When she left, Tayo lay there staring at the ceiling and realized he didn’t want the night to end.
The problem was that it wasn’t his story to tell.
Dara wasn’t his girlfriend. She wasn’t even his classmate. She was paid to be there. And every time his mom said, “Dara, can you make sure Kemi eats?” Tayo felt guilty for thinking about her at all.
By March, JAMB came and went. They both did it. Afterward, Dara started staying later to help Kemi prep for common entrance. Tayo would “help” too, which meant sitting at the table while Dara explained fractions to Kemi and occasionally sliding a note to Tayo under Kemi’s textbook.
The note on Tuesday said: Meet me in the kitchen at 9?
At 9pm, the kitchen light was on. She was sitting on the counter, swinging her legs.
“You called me here to tell me my physics grade is bad?” Tayo said.
“No,” she said. “I got into UNILAG. Part-time. I’ll start in September.”
“That’s amazing,” he said, and meant it.
“Thanks.” She looked down. “My contract ends next month. Kemi’s exams will be over.”
The words sat between them.
“Oh,” Tayo said.
“Yeah,” Dara said.
She didn’t say anything else, and neither did he. What was there to say? Don’t go? Stay for me? That would be unfair. She had plans. He had his own.
The last day, his parents threw a small “thank you” lunch. Jollof, chicken, Fanta. Kemi made her a card that said Best Nanny Ever in glitter. Tayo gave her a book — the same paperback he’d seen in her tote bag on day one, but this time it was a new copy.
“For JAMB stress,” he said.
She smiled and hugged him. It was quick, and it was the first time they’d ever touched like that.
After she left, the house was too quiet. Kemi asked for her every day for a week. The kitchen light stayed off at 6:15pm.
Two months later, Tayo got his admission too. Different school, same city. He texted Dara: Got in. Thanks for the book.
She replied in five minutes: Told you you’d do it. Congrats, Tayo.
They didn’t become anything official. It would’ve been messy, and timing was terrible. But sometimes on Sundays, if Kemi had a game, Tayo would “coincidentally” be at the same park. Dara would be there with her own siblings. They’d talk for ten minutes about school, about Kemi, about nothing.
And when she laughed, Tayo would remember the kitchen light at 6:15pm. How a house can feel completely ordinary, until one person walks in and makes you notice the way the light hits the counter.
He never told her he was in love with her. He never had to.
Some loves aren’t about endings. They’re about the year a 17-year-old boy learned that “carefully” could also mean “closely,” and that noticing someone could change the whole layout of a home.
---Thanks for stopping by🥰🥰