Lovia was back home with a heavy heart. She got Jones into bed early and shut herself up in their room. She prayed a bit for her husband, took his picture, cuddled up in bed and just cried. She was missing her sweetheart already. In the state of ‘mourning’, so to say, her mind flashed back to nine years ago; when the two met. The genesis of their love story comes across as rather strange and unexpected. Lovia received a strange call and was wondering whether to give it her attention or not; she had not regretted ever picking that call. Why? Joshua Anthony was on the line but back then, he was just one of the numerous callers who missed their way by dialing a wrong number. When they started dating then, Joshua explained to her that, he was calling a friend on the number 0207062824 but accidentally dialed 0207062823 which was Lovia’s number. Lovia, who was a long standing and celebrated staff of one of the largest telecommunication companies in Ghana in the area of operations, had developed a reputation of being hospitable on phone. This character could be attributed to the nature of her work and solid upbringing of her single mum. Lovia fought her way through school in spite of lack. She may had lacked money, fashionable clothes but never intelligence. She virtually started topping her class at age 6 and moved through Junior High and Senior High being considered one of the brilliant students in school. She completed University of Ghana with Bachelor degree in Human Resource. All this was made possible because her mum worked extremely hard to push her as Lovia took menial jobs like being sales girl at shopping Malls, KFC and even phone shops. She never gave up on her dream to be an expert in handling people. Though her career cushioned her for such, her mum’s advice urged her to always leave an indelible mark on the hearts of anyone she met. Her appointment at VoKa was one of the many blessings that came her way after her National Service. She worked as Customer Service head then later promoted to become Operations Manager. There wasn’t a day a call didn’t come through that was meant for Lovia from a satisfied client. Of course, there were those who were taken aback by her extreme beauty but loveable character and revisited her outlet just for another look at her pretty face; a few daring ones went to the extent of asking for a date. She always had her own style of refusing such offers whilst still making them feel worth it. On this particular day when Joshua’s call came in, she was on vacation and was home relaxing. She picked and the smooth deep voice of Joshua just mesmerized her. That was definitely a compliment since she had dealt with a lot of voices by different customers. Lovia positioned herself well and was at her best. “Michael, are you bringing the document?” queried Joshua. All of a sudden, Lovia’s facial expression changed which automatically translated into the tone of her voice. She answered, “Please, this is not Michael, Sorry!” Lovia said. There was a dead silence for few seconds as caller regained his disposition and said, “So sorry, wrong number”. Strangely, the caller did not hang up as most people would have. Coincidentally, Lovia was not too quick to hang up either. Joshua created a conversation with her and both quickly realized that, they were at University of Ghana and their workplaces were close to each other. The call ended with an agreement that they will both keep each other’s numbers and meet up when Lovia returned to the office.
A few days on, Lovia did return to the office only to be met at the car pack by Joshua who called up to be shown where she was. Joshua was taken aback by Lovia’s beauty but managed to control his rather ‘stupid ‘gaze. Lovia took a great look at the man before her and just felt like screaming, “Waow!! I have hit a Jackpot.” She did her checking out rather professionally at the blind side of Joshua. He stood 6 feet tall, fair, well-built with well-trimmed moustache, decently dressed with a good shirt and tie and a captivating perfume. As they spent few minutes chatting, they realized they couldn’t say bye to each other but Lovia managed to signal that she needed to be briefed in the office before work started. That meeting became the first of the many for next three years as they began dating. The fourth year of their relationship was crowned with sealing of their love; marriage. The two had survived stormy times especially when their ex-es came running back to them at the point when they had gone a year into their relationships. They almost departed because these ex-eses were their first loves and found it difficult to choose each other over them. They relationship came to a halt for a whole year with each person battling their feelings for each other and trying to make sense out of the situation. Though they never met during the one-year long break, they kept chatting and talking till they were sure, they wanted each other and faced their ex-es and gave them the boot out of their lives. The marriage plans were communicated to both families and arrangements made accordingly. They both were congregant of the same church though with local assemblies making it easy for them to have six-month counseling session uninterrupted. The 6-month session was followed with both customary wedding and church wedding. The two love birds had never in their entire relationship gone apart from each other for that long; two days maximum. In marriage, they virtually did everything together; bathed together, cooked together, ate together and sometimes worked on office documents on the same desk back at home. Fresh tears dropped on the cheeks of Lovia as she laid there remembering every single detail of their love story. She managed to mutter,” J Sweet, this is going to be hard!!!” she got up reluctantly and realized it had been almost two hours since she dragged herself down memory lane. She quickly took her shower and walked over to Jones’ room, took a look at him and smiled. He looked just like his father and that was her consolation. She definitely had to just take a long gaze at her son, and the loneliness in her heart would minimize. This dear son of hers would let her see her man in the house always. She slept on the floor beside Jones bed with fresh tears dripping, wiping them off as quickly as they trickle down. She just couldn’t let her son wake up to see her in that state. Sleep slowly overcame her consciousness as she graciously stepped into dreamland.