Uncle Daniel never came to my mother’s funeral. She died in 1994, long before the mobile phone made its appearance in Nigeria, so word took longer to travel. We had to wait ten days to bury her, as I had to make my way down from Jos, where I was in boarding school. You would think, after being absent at his sister’s funeral, he would make an effort to come and see his niece later. But no.

Over the years, I imagined different scenarios of our eventual meeting. There is a particular favourite: like a celebrity I would appear, hair blowing in the breeze, glamorous, loaded, with my successful husband beside me, with or without a couple of beautiful kids. I would be gracious and polite as I give answers as to what has been happening to me over the years, even though deep inside I questioned his right to ask. There will be no accusations, but somehow Uncle Daniel will get the underlying message: See, I made it without you! I turned out just fine, despite your inattention. But my reality is quite different from my fantasy: I am not loaded, not quite married, no kids but I still want that message to bevery clear. Before this scenario can play out, however, my fiancé and I have to find Uncle Daniel first.

My maternal grandfather, a proper Edo man, had married more than one wife and my grandmother was the first. My mother and Uncle Daniel were the only children she had. But I don’t have any grandparents left, maternally or paternally. That loss aside, today I’m wondering who’s left on my maternal side and can provide information. The purpose of this trip is to find a contact address, so I can locate Uncle Daniel who, the last I heard, lived in Benin. He worked with Guinness once, ages ago. Since then, I don’t think he’s held down a steady job. He and his family apparently move pretty often.

Today I’m dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and flat shoes, almost identical to what my fiancé is wearing. Glancing over, I meet his eye and summon a small smile. He returns it without a word; I sense some reassurance in it. The conversation has dried up, as if in deference to the weightier matters on my heart and emotions. For a moment I fish around in my head for some thread of something to talk about but eventually abandon the effort. He’s looking out of the window at the passing scenery, the green-green of wild, uncultivated land, the occasional town, the sheds we pass with women underneath selling jerry cans of palm oil, yams, garri, snails and crayfish. I pull out my phone and dig out my earphones. In a few minutes I’m feeling better, singing along softly to the music coming from the earphones. When he glances at me in amusement I tone it down a bit, hoping I’m not warbling.

Like many of the roads in Nigeria, the potholes are teeth-jarring. As the driver swerves to avoid them, I alternately grab the headrest of the passenger seat in front of me or the door handle beside me for balance. On the plus side, I am glad that the driver of the taxi we hired is a bit familiar with the area. I would have been lost trying to find this place on memory alone. I had asked my father what he could remember by way of directions and requested he send me an SMS. There wasn’t much to go by from what he sent but at least I knew we were headed in the right direction: Oke-Old, Sabongida Ora in Edo State. The last time I was down this way I must have been about ten. If I recall correctly, at that time I was more concerned about my feet, which were swelling in the totally inappropriate pumps I’d worn for the trip, than the route.