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AngelBabyscootv, Gra, Port Harcourt (2026)

24/08/2026

Ugo never loved precious the fruit girl

22/08/2026

I collected my project file and tore it on the convocation stage because my supervisor called it his book. Yes, I did it.

They are calling me an ungrateful student on our department WhatsApp. They say I disgraced my supervisor on my graduation day.

Before you judge me, hear why.

My name is Esther. I am 23. I studied Microbiology at UNILAG. I graduated last Friday.

My final year project was on "Using cassava peel to produce cheap biofuel." I worked on it for 11 months. I spent my own money, 180k. I slept in the lab. My supervisor, Dr. Adebayo, is the Head of Department. He is 54 years old.

In February, he told me, "Esther, this work is good. We can publish it together."

I was happy.

In May, I saw a flyer on campus. Book launch. Title: "Cassava Waste to Wealth: A Nigerian Solution." Author: Dr. Samuel Adebayo.

My project topic.

I went to his office. He said, "Esther, calm down. I added my name as senior author. It is normal. You will be second author."

I checked the book online. My name was not there. Only his.

I reported to the department. They said, "He is HOD, manage it."

I kept quiet because I needed my result.

On convocation day, last Friday, at the main auditorium, Dr. Adebayo was called to give speech as best lecturer. He came on stage with his book.

He held it up. He said, "This book is my contribution to Nigeria. I wrote it from my research."

My research.

They called my name to collect my certificate. I walked to the stage in my gown.

Instead of shaking his hand, I collected my project file from my bag. The hardcover, 78 pages.

I held it up.

I said into the microphone, "Sir, this is your book."

I tore it page by page on the stage. Papers flew.

The hall scattered.

The Vice Chancellor stood up. Security came.

Dr. Adebayo shouted, "Esther are you mad?"

I said, "You stole my project. You published it as your book. I spent 180k. You did not pay one naira."

The students started shouting, "Thief! Thief!"

Dr. Adebayo collected the microphone. He was shaking.

He said, "Esther, I am sorry. I will explain later. Please don't spoil my career."

That was when my mother, who was in the audience, stood up.

She walked to the stage. She collected the microphone from me.

She said, "Everybody, Dr. Adebayo is not just her supervisor. He is her biological father."

My father?

The hall went silent.

My mother said, "I dated Samuel in 1999 when I was his student at UNILAG. I got pregnant. He told me to abort. I left school and gave birth to Esther. I later told him that the baby had died because I wanted him completely out of our lives. I raised Esther alone. Last year, he saw my name on her student records and recognized it. He realized Esther was my daughter and took her as his project student to monitor her. He stole her work because he knew she was his daughter and believed she could not sue him."

Dr. Adebayo knelt down on the stage in front of 3,000 people.

He said, "It is true. Esther is my daughter. I was ashamed. I wanted to help her by publishing the work in my name so she will get job easily as my daughter. I did not know she will find out."

Help me by stealing my work.

While he was kneeling, the Dean of Faculty came on stage with a file.

He said, "Dr. Adebayo, we have been investigating you for two years for stealing students' projects. We have 14 cases. Esther's case is the last straw. You are hereby suspended."

The students clapped.

I am sitting in the Dean's office now with my torn project on the table. My certificate is in my hand. My mother is crying. Dr. Adebayo, my father, is outside begging.

Inside the book he launched, on page 5, I found a dedication. It says: "To my late daughter, Esther, who died in 2003. This work is in your memory."

He dedicated my stolen work to the daughter he believed had died. That daughter was me.

Inside his bag that he left on stage, I found a bank draft of 5 million naira. Name: Esther Okoro. Purpose: Project compensation.

He was planning to give me money after convocation.

Should I take this 5 million draft and the book and go to a lawyer on Monday to sue him for theft and for denying me for 23 years, or should I take the draft and go to my mother's house first to ask her why she lied that I died and let him suffer guilt?

22/08/2026

I carried my children's school bags to my husband's office on PTA day because the headmistress called me his younger sister. Yes, I did it.

They are calling me a drama queen in the school parents WhatsApp. They say I disgraced my children.

Before you insult me, hear why.

My name is Blessing. I am 33. I sell kitchen utensils at Trade Fair, Lagos. I married Daniel 8 years ago. We have two children, David 7 and Deborah 5. They attend Royal Crown Academy in Festac.

Last Wednesday was PTA meeting. I went alone because Daniel said he had a site meeting.

I entered the headmistress office to complain about school bus fee. The headmistress, Mrs. Johnson, smiled at me.

She said, "Good afternoon, madam. You are Mr. Daniel's younger sister, right? The one that always picks the children?"

I said, "No ma, I am his wife. Blessing."

She frowned. She opened her file.

She said, "But our record says wife is Mrs. Amaka Daniel. She came for last term PTA. She signed the forms. She is the one on the emergency contact."

Amaka.

I have never heard that name.

Mrs. Johnson showed me the file. Mother's name: Amaka Daniel. Phone number: different. Address: Lekki Phase 1. Occupation: Banker.

Father's name: Daniel Okafor. Same as my husband.

My husband registered another woman as the mother of my children.

I collected my children's school bags from their class. I did not go home. I went straight to Daniel's office in Ikeja.

He works in a construction company. He is a project manager.

I entered reception with the two bags on my shoulder. I told the secretary, "Tell Daniel his sister is here with his children's bags."

He came out fast. He saw the bags and his face changed.

I said loud in the reception, "Your headmistress said I am your sister. So I brought your children's bags to your office. Let your wife Amaka come and carry them."

Staff gathered.

Daniel pulled me inside his office and locked the door.

He said, "Blessing calm down. I can explain."

He said, "Amaka is not my wife. She is my cousin. I used her name for school because your shop is not stable and the school wanted a salary account for direct debit. They said trader cannot be guarantor. I used Amaka's bank details."

I said, "So my children have another mother on school record for two years?"

He said yes.

That was when his phone rang. It was on speaker by mistake.

A woman's voice: "Daddy, have you picked David and Deborah? Their bus did not drop them at my house today."

Daddy.

My children were supposed to go to her house after school.

Daniel cut the call.

He knelt down. He said, "Blessing, Amaka is not my cousin. She is my first wife. We married in 2013 in the village. She could not have children. Her family said I should marry again. I met you in 2015. I did not tell you because you said you cannot be second wife."

I have been second wife for 8 years without knowing.

I dropped the school bags on his table. I said, "So my children go to her house after school?"

He said, "Yes, three times a week. She helps with homework. She loves them."

My children call another woman mummy after school.

I left his office. I drove to the school.

Mrs. Johnson was waiting. She gave me a paper. It was a withdrawal form. Signed by Amaka Daniel last month. Rea*on: relocating abroad.

Amaka was planning to travel with my children.

I am sitting in my car outside the school now with David and Deborah's bags on the back seat. Daniel is calling nonstop. Amaka is calling me from a private number. The headmistress is waiting for my decision.

Inside David's school bag, I found a small notebook. It is his homework diary. On the last page, in a child's handwriting: "My mummies. Mummy Blessing at home. Mummy Amaka in Lekki. Daddy says don't tell Mummy Blessing about Mummy Amaka."

My 7-year-old son has been keeping secret for his father.

Inside Deborah's bag, I found a passport photograph. It is Amaka, Daniel, David and Deborah at a studio. They are wearing matching Christmas clothes. Date: December 2024. I was in the village for my mother's burial that week.

Should I take these bags and the school file and go to Amaka's house in Lekki now to confront her with my children, or should I take the evidence and go to the school board first thing tomorrow morning to change everything legally and report my husband for fraud?

20/08/2026

"My husband's phone rang while he was in the shower. My hands were full of groceries so I answered it. A small girl's voice said: 'Hello. Is that the aunty who lives in Daddy's house? Daddy says you are very nice but you don't know about us. He says that's okay because one day you will understand.' She sounded about seven years old. I sat down on my kitchen floor with the groceries still in my arms. Then she said: 'Aunty, are you crying? Daddy says you cry sometimes because you are lonely. That is why he feels sorry for you.'"

My name is Temi.

I have been married to Kunle for seven years.

We live in a four-bedroom house in Magodo. He is a civil engineer. I run an events company from our second bedroom. We go to the same church we got married in. We have the same couple friends we have had since our wedding year.

I thought loneliness was just a feeling some women carry. Something personal. Something to manage quietly with prayer and keeping busy.

I did not know my husband had a name for it.

I did not know he had explained it to a child.

Yesterday morning I came back from the market at 9:15.

Bags in both hands. Tomatoes balanced on top. Keys in my teeth.

Kunle's phone was on the kitchen counter, buzzing. He was upstairs in the shower. I could hear it running.

I pressed the green button with my elbow and put it on speaker.

"Hello?"

A child's voice. Small and clear and completely relaxed.

"Hello. Is that the aunty who lives in Daddy's house?"

I set the groceries down.

"Who is this?" I asked. Carefully.

"My name is Tiwa." She said it with the particular confidence of a child who has been taught to be proud of her name. "I am calling for Daddy. Is he there?"

"Daddy?" I said.

"Uncle Kunle. I call him Daddy but Mummy says to say Uncle so nobody gets confused."

I leaned against the counter.

"He's in the shower," I said. My voice worked fine. I don't know how.

"Okay." A pause. Shuffling sounds. Then: "Are you the aunty who lives in his house? He says you are very nice but you don't know about us yet."

The refrigerator hummed. Outside, a hawker called something I couldn't make out.

"He said that?" I asked.

"Yes. He says one day you will understand everything and then you will not be sad anymore."

The shower was still running upstairs.

"Tiwa," I said. "How old are you?"

"Seven. I am in Primary Three. I came first in last term's exam. Daddy brought me cake."

Daddy brought her cake.

"That's wonderful," I said. And I meant it. She sounded like a wonderful child.

"Aunty, are you crying?"

I pressed two fingers under my eyes. "No. I'm fine."

"Daddy says you cry sometimes because you are lonely. He says it makes him feel sorry for you. That's why he checks on you plenty."

He checks on me plenty.

Seven years of a man who always came home. Who never stayed out. Who I held up as evidence whenever my friends complained about their husbands. "At least Kunle always comes home."

He came home because he felt sorry for me.

I was not a wife.

I was a welfare case he visited regularly.

I kept her talking for eleven minutes.

Children that age do not know what to protect. They answer what you ask because they trust that adults already know the important things.

I learned that Tiwa's mother is called Shade.

That they live in a flat in Gbagada.

That Kunle, Daddy, comes every Wednesday evening and every other weekend without fail.

That there is a baby coming. Shade's stomach is "very big now." The baby is a boy. They have already chosen his name.

That Tiwa has a photograph of Kunle on her school locker. She calls it "my Daddy's picture." Her teachers know him. He attended her last Parents' Day.

He has never attended a single event in our marriage where I stood up and called him by name without planning it a month in advance.

Then I asked the question I should not have asked.

"Tiwa, does your Daddy ever talk about the aunty in his house?"

She thought about it seriously. The way children think when they want to give the right answer.

"Yes. He says she was there before Mummy. He says she needed him first and he didn't want to hurt her so he stayed. But he says his real family is us." A pause. "He says when the new baby comes he will explain everything properly to aunty and then she can decide what she wants to do."

She was there before Mummy.

She needed him first.

He didn't want to hurt her so he stayed.

In the story Kunle has been telling a seven-year-old girl, the story she will carry into adulthood as truth, I am not his wife.

I am the woman he felt too guilty to leave.

The relationship he maintained out of pity while his real life, his real love, his real family built itself quietly in a flat in Gbagada.

He did not have a second family.

I am the second family.

I am the one who doesn't know.

I heard the shower stop at 9:26.

I heard him moving around upstairs.

I looked at the phone in my hand.

Tiwa was still there. Humming something to herself, waiting patiently for Daddy.

"Tiwa," I said.

"Yes, Aunty?"

"You are a very good girl."

"Thank you, Aunty." Genuinely pleased. "Daddy says so too."

I walked upstairs.

I stood in our bedroom doorway.

Kunle was standing at the mirror tying his tie. When he saw my face in the reflection, his hands slowed. But he didn't stop. He kept looping the tie like a man finishing something he had committed to.

I held up his phone.

He turned.

I pressed the speaker button.

Tiwa's small voice filled our bedroom:

"Daddy? Daddy is that you? The aunty you live with was talking to me! She is very nice, Daddy. But I think she was crying. Is she okay?"

I watched my husband's face.

I have loved that face for seven years.

I watched it now and I saw something I have never seen on it in seven years of marriage.

Not guilt.

Not panic.

Relief.

The face of a man whose two worlds have finally, mercifully, collided. Who has been waiting, perhaps for a long time, for the weight of the secret to be lifted by something outside his own courage.

He sat down on the bed.

He looked at the floor.

He said nothing.

And Tiwa's voice, sweet and confused and completely innocent, kept calling:

"Daddy? Daddy, are you there? Daddy?"

I left the phone on the bed beside him.

I am in my car.

I have been sitting here since 9:31 this morning.

He has called me eleven times. I am watching the calls come through without answering.

A seven-year-old girl told me my marriage in seven minutes. More clearly and more honestly than her father managed in seven years.

She did not know she was doing it.

She was just answering what she was asked.

Because nobody taught her yet that some truths need to be hidden.

He chose the right child to build his real life with.

Women, do I go back inside and listen to what he has to say? Or does a man who has spent seven years deciding you are the one he stays with out of pity lose the right to explain himself?

A seven-year-old girl called me "the aunty who lives in his house."

Should I still be living in it tonight?

20/08/2026

I locked the church tithe box on Sunday morning because I saw my pastor's wife using my tithe envelope to pay for her Brazilian hair. Yes, I did it.

They are calling me a demon in our church WhatsApp. They say I disgraced the anointing.

Before you join them, hear why.

My name is Joy. I am 29. I sell thrift clothes at Wuse Market, Abuja. I attend Living Faith Assembly in Kubwa.

For three years I have paid my tithe every first Sunday. I write my name on the envelope. Joy Okeke. I write the amount. I seal it and drop it in the box. My pastor always prays for faithful tithers.

Last month my business was down. I still paid 15,000 naira tithe. I wrote it and dropped it.

On Wednesday I went to a hair shop in Wuse to price wigs. I saw my pastor's wife, Mummy GO, at the counter. She was buying a Brazilian hair, 250k. She opened her bag to pay.

The sales girl brought out an envelope to put the receipt. It was a white tithe envelope. I saw my handwriting. Joy Okeke. 15,000.

My envelope. My tithe.

I stood there. Mummy GO did not see me. She opened the envelope, took out the 15,000 naira inside, and added it to the rest of the cash in her hand before paying for the hair.

I went home and checked my Bible. I remembered Proverbs. I prayed.

On Sunday, service was full. It was first Sunday, tithe time. The ushers brought the wooden tithe box to the altar. Pastor said, "Bring your sacrifice."

I walked to the front. I did not drop envelope. I carried the tithe box.

I locked it with a small padlock I brought from my shop.

I held the key up.

I said, "Pastor, nobody will drop tithe today until we open last month's envelopes."

The church scattered.

Pastor shouted, "Joy what are you doing?"

I said, "Daddy, your wife used my tithe to buy hair on Wednesday. I saw my envelope in Wuse."

Mummy GO stood up from the front seat. Her face changed.

She said, "How dare you accuse me!"

I told the media guy to project my phone. I had snapped the envelope in the shop. My name was clear. Joy Okeke. 15,000.

The whole church murmured.

Pastor collected the microphone. He was shaking.

He said, "Church, forgive us. My wife has been borrowing from the tithe for two years. She has a loan of 3 million naira from a loan app. She uses tithe to pay small small. I did not know until last week. I told her to stop."

Mummy GO started crying. She knelt down.

She said, "It is true. I am sorry. I wanted to support the ministry. I did not want shame."

That was when the church treasurer, Brother Mike, stood up.

He said, "Pastor, that is not true. Your wife is not paying loan. She has been sending the tithe money to Canada every month. She sponsors a boy there. She told me it is your secret son."

Secret son.

Pastor's face turned white.

Mummy GO shouted, "Mike shut up!"

Brother Mike brought out his phone. He played a voice note. It was Mummy GO's voice. "Mike please help me send this 200k to David in Toronto. Don't tell pastor. It is for his school fees. Use the tithe from last month."

Pastor collected the tithe box from me. He opened it with a hammer.

Inside were many envelopes. He opened ten. All empty. Money removed.

He looked at his wife. He said, "Who is David?"

Mummy GO fainted.

I am sitting in the pastor's office now with the padlock key still in my hand. The service has stopped. The elders are outside. Mummy GO is on the floor with water on her face. Pastor is crying.

Brother Mike gave me a paper from the box. It is a school fees receipt from a college in Toronto. Student name: David Okeke. Sponsor: Joy Okeke.

My name.

David Okeke is my younger brother. He traveled two years ago. I have been sending him money from my shop. I did not know Mummy GO has been adding tithe money to it and telling him it is from the church scholarship.

Inside the tithe box I also found a small diary. It is Mummy GO's handwriting. Last page says: "Joy must not know David is pastor's son from university days. If she knows, she will stop paying tithe."

David is not my brother. David is pastor's son. My mother raised him as her son to cover shame.

Should I open this diary and read it loud in front of the whole church now so everybody knows pastor has a secret son in Canada, or should I take the diary and go to my mother first to ask her the full truth about David before I scatter the church?

20/08/2026

I switched off the generator at my best friend's wedding reception because the DJ played my husband's voice note to his side chick. Yes, I did it.

They are calling me a bitter wife on Instagram. They say I spoiled my best friend's big day.

Before you insult me, hear what happened.

My name is Precious. I am 31. I do makeup in Port Harcourt. My best friend, Chioma, married last Saturday at Royal Hall, GRA.

My husband, Emeka, is Chioma's cousin. He was the chairman of the wedding committee. He was busy with money and protocol.

During reception, the DJ was playing music. He said, "We will now take a special dedication from the groom to the bride."

He connected his laptop to Bluetooth. He clicked play.

Instead of music, a voice note played loud on all speakers.

It was Emeka's voice.

He was saying, "Baby, I can't wait for tonight. After this wedding, come to our hotel. I told Precious I am lodging at the hotel with the groomsmen. Wear that red nightie I bought you. I love you."

The whole hall went quiet.

Then a female voice replied on the voice note, "Okay daddy, I will be there. Don't let your wife suspect."

The DJ tried to stop it. He pressed next. Another voice note played.

Emeka again: "Chioma's wedding is perfect cover. Precious will be busy doing makeup. She will not know."

My best friend's wedding was his cover for cheating.

I stood up from the bridal train table. I was wearing a*o ebi. I walked to the generator outside.

I switched it off.

The hall went dark. Music stopped. People shouted.

Chioma ran to me. "Precious what are you doing?"

I said, "Your wedding is a lie. My husband is using it to sleep with another woman."

Emeka ran outside. He was sweating.

He said, "Precious it is not what you think. That voice note is old."

I played it again from the DJ's laptop. The date showed yesterday, 11:42pm.

Chioma collected the laptop. She looked at the Bluetooth name. It was "Emeka's iPhone."

She looked at Emeka. She said, "Cousin, who is the girl?"

Emeka kept quiet.

That was when the bride, Chioma, did something nobody expected.

She collected the microphone from the DJ, even in darkness.

She said, "Everybody, I knew about this voice note. I told the DJ to play it. I wanted Precious to hear it today."

My best friend set me up at her own wedding.

She said, "Precious, I am tired of covering for you. Emeka has been cheating for two years. The girl is not a stranger. The girl is your younger sister, Kelechi."

My younger sister Kelechi, 24, who lives with us in Port Harcourt. Who I pay her school fees.

The generator was still off. People were using phone torch.

Kelechi was not at the wedding. She said she had exam.

Emeka knelt down in the dark. He said, "Yes, it is Kelechi. It started last year. She said she loves me. I was weak."

Chioma said, "I found out three months ago. I told Emeka to stop or I will tell you at my wedding. He did not stop."

I switched the generator back on. Light came.

I walked to the center. I collected the microphone.

I said, "Chioma, thank you for the gift. Emeka, thank you for the shame."

I removed my a*o ebi headtie. I dropped it on the floor.

As I was leaving, the DJ called me. He said, "Aunty, your husband's phone is still connected. There is a new message."

He played it on speaker.

It was Kelechi's voice, live. She was crying. "Emeka where are you? I am at the hotel. I am pregnant. I did the test today. It is positive. Please come."

Pregnant.

My sister is pregnant for my husband.

I am sitting in my car outside the hall now. The wedding is still going on inside. Emeka is outside begging. Chioma is inside dancing. Kelechi is calling me nonstop.

Inside Emeka's bag that he left on the chair, I found a small hospital card. It is an antenatal card. Name: Kelechi Okoro. Husband name: Emeka Okoro. Date of first visit: four months ago. Next of kin: Chioma.

My best friend is the next of kin for my sister's pregnancy for my husband.

Should I go back inside the hall now, collect the microphone, and play Kelechi's pregnancy voice note for the whole wedding to hear, or should I drive straight to the hotel where Kelechi is waiting and catch them together with evidence?

20/08/2026

"My wife has been visiting her mother every Friday for one year. Last Friday I followed her. She did not go to her mother. She went to a cemetery. She sat at a grave for three hours and talked. I checked the name on the gravestone. It was mine."

This was the story of a man named Chinedu.

Chinedu was thirty-seven years old. He lived with his wife, Adanna, in a two bedroom flat in Awka. He sold building materials. She was a seamstress who worked from home. They had been married for six years — six quiet, ordinary, comfortable years.

No big fights. No big problems.

Just life.

So when Adanna started the Friday visits to her mother, Chinedu thought nothing of it.

"I want to start spending more time with Mama," she had told him one Thursday evening, folding his shirts on the bed. "She is getting old. I don't want to have regrets."

"Of course," Chinedu had said. "Go. Take her something every time."

And she did.

Every Friday morning, Adanna packed a food flask, dressed up, and left by nine. She always returned by four. Always came back quiet and soft — the way people came back from spending time with someone they loved.

Chinedu never questioned it.

For one year, he never questioned it.

Until his mother-in-law called him.

**

It was a Wednesday afternoon.

He was at his shop counting invoice receipts when his phone rang.

Mama Obiageli — Adanna's mother.

He answered warmly.

"Mama, good afternoon. How are you feeling?"

"Chinedu my son." The old woman's voice was thin but sharp. "I am calling because something is worrying me."

"What is it?"

"It is Adanna." A pause. "I have not seen my daughter in a very long time. She does not visit me. I call her and she says she is busy. I wanted to ask if everything is okay between you two."

Chinedu's hand tightened on the phone.

"Mama, Adanna visits you every Friday." He said. "She has been doing it for one year."

Silence.

"Chinedu." Mama Obiageli's voice was very careful. "My son, Adanna has not set foot in this house in over a year. The last time I saw my daughter was Christmas before last."

The invoice receipts scattered across the floor.

**

He did not tell Adanna what her mother had said.

He went home that evening and watched her. Really watched her — the way he had stopped doing after years of comfortable marriage.

She was her normal self. Made dinner. Asked him about his day. Laughed at something on the television. Went to bed.

He lay beside her in the dark and listened to her breathe.

And planned.

That Friday, he woke up early. He told her he was going to the shop. He kissed her forehead. He drove around the corner and parked.

He waited.

At exactly nine, Adanna came out of the compound gate. Food flask in hand. Well dressed. She flagged a keke and got in.

Chinedu followed in his car.

He followed her through Awka town, past the market, past the motor park. Out of the main road. Down a narrower road he did not recognise.

Until the keke stopped at a gate he recognised immediately.

Even though he had only been there once.

The day they buried his uncle.

Ikenga Memorial Cemetery.

He parked far back and watched Adanna pay the keke driver and walk through the cemetery gate alone.

**

He gave her ten minutes.

Then he followed.

The cemetery was quiet in the Friday morning. A groundskeeper in the distance. Birds. The sound of the main road fading behind the trees.

He walked slowly between the rows of graves, looking ahead, until he saw her.

She was seated on a small stool she had apparently brought herself, in front of a grave near the far wall. Her food flask was open beside her. She was talking.

Not crying. Not praying.

Talking.

The way you talked to someone sitting across from you at a table.

Calm. Comfortable. Like she had done this many times.

Because she had.

Fifty-two times, he calculated later.

Every Friday for one year.

He moved closer.

Slowly. From behind a row of graves, his heart hammering. Close enough to hear her voice but too far to make out the words.

He looked at the gravestone in front of her.

And his legs stopped working.

The name on the stone was his.

Chinedu Okeke.

His full name. His exact name.

A date of birth that was his date of birth.

And a date of death — fourteen months ago.

Two months before she started the Friday visits.

He pressed his hand against the nearest gravestone to hold himself up.

His name. His date of birth.

His grave.

**

He did not confront her there.

He walked back to his car on legs that did not feel like his. He sat behind the wheel for a long time. Then he drove home and sat in the parlour and waited.

She came back at four, as always. Quiet and soft, as always.

She came inside and stopped when she saw him sitting there.

"You're back early." She said.

"Adanna." His voice came out strangely calm. "Where did you go today?"

She held his gaze.

"My mother's." She said.

"Adanna."

Something shifted in her face.

"Sit down." He said.

She sat.

He looked at her for a long time.

"I followed you today."

Her hands, folded in her lap, tightened against each other.

"I saw the grave." He said. "I saw my name on the grave."

The room was very quiet.

"Adanna, whose grave is that?"

She looked at the floor.

"Whose grave is that?" His voice cracked slightly. "Is there something you know about me that I don't know?"

She was crying now. Silently. The tears just falling without her face crumbling.

"Answer me." He whispered.

She looked up at him.

"Fourteen months ago," she began, her voice barely holding together, "you were in an accident on the Enugu expressway. A truck. I received a call from a hospital that—" She stopped. Started again. "They told me you didn't make it."

Chinedu stared at her.

"I came to that hospital." She said. "I identified your—" She pressed her hand over her mouth briefly. "I buried you. Your family was there. We buried you. I have your death certificate in this house. I have it."

"Adanna, I am sitting in front of you."

"I know." She whispered.

"I am alive."

"I know." Her voice broke. "I know, and I don't understand it. I buried you, Chinedu. I put you in the ground and I watched them cover you. And then three days later you walked through that door and you didn't remember any of it. You acted like nothing had happened. Like you had just been to the shop."

The room was tilting.

"And I was so—" She exhaled. "I was so happy to see you that I didn't say anything. I thought I was going mad. I thought grief had broken my mind. So I said nothing."

"But every Friday—"

"I go because I don't know which one of you is real." She said. The words fell out of her like something she had been holding for fourteen months. "The man in that grave with your name on it. Or the man sitting in front of me. And I am terrified—" Her voice dropped to nothing. "I am terrified that one day I will come home on a Friday and this chair will be empty. And that will be my answer."

Chinedu looked at his own hands.

He thought about the last fourteen months.

The mornings he woke up and couldn't remember his dreams.

The way mirrors sometimes confused him — like the reflection took a half second too long to follow.

The cold he sometimes felt in his own fingers that Adanna always rubbed warm without commenting.

He had always explained it away.

He looked up at his wife.

"The death certificate." He said quietly. "Go and get it."

She stood up.

She went to the bedroom.

She came back with a folded document.

She handed it to him.

He opened it.

His name. His date of birth. His photograph — the one from his driver's licence.

Cause of death — multiple blunt force trauma.

Date — fourteen months ago.

His hands were very still.

"Adanna." He said.

"Yes."

"When I came home that day — three days after the burial—" He looked up at her. "What exactly did I say?"

She wiped her eyes.

"You said — my love, I'm home. Sorry I'm late. There was traffic."

Chinedu folded the document slowly.

He set it on the table.

He looked at his wife — this woman who had buried him and said nothing, who had loved whatever came back through that door, who had spent every Friday sitting at his grave talking to him just to feel like she had both versions of him.

"The food flask." He said. "What do you put in it?"

"Ofe akwu." She said. "With white rice. Your favourite."

"And you eat it there? At the grave?"

She shook her head.

"I leave it there." She whispered. "The groundskeeper says by the time he passes in the evening, the flask is always empty."

The evening light through the window was going orange and slow.

Chinedu sat with the death certificate in front of him and his living wife across from him and fourteen months of his own life suddenly rearranging itself into a shape he did not recognise.

Then his phone rang.

Unknown number.

He looked at Adanna.

She looked at the phone.

He answered.

Static.

Then a voice.

His voice.

Coming from the phone.

His exact voice — but tired, in the way he never sounded anymore.

Three words.

Let her go.

AngelBabyscootv

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