Part 1
Auntie Sade threw 18-year-old Amara out of the compound at 10:47 p.m. with only 2 dresses, a cracked phone, and the last photograph of her dead parents hidden inside her wrapper.
The iron gate slammed behind her so loudly that the neighbours in the Agege compound came out to stare. Nobody stopped Auntie Sade. Nobody asked where the girl would sleep. They only watched, the way people watched rain spoil another person’s market goods.
—Go and find the mother that gave birth to you, Auntie Sade shouted from behind the gate. Since you want to keep useless family secrets in my house, carry your bad luck and leave.
Amara stood barefoot on the dusty street, trembling. Her palms were still stained with charcoal from cooking dinner for the same family that had refused to let her eat. Her younger cousins peeped through the window, whispering and laughing, while Auntie Sade’s husband looked away like he had suddenly gone blind.
For 5 years, since her parents died in a road accident on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Amara had lived in that house. Outside, people called Auntie Sade a good woman for taking in an orphan. Inside, Amara was the girl who woke before sunrise, scrubbed bathrooms, carried water when the pump failed, washed plates after parties, and slept beside the storeroom where rats scratched at night.
That evening, everything changed because of a small tin box.
Amara had found it under an old mattress while cleaning the back room. Inside was a faded photograph of her parents smiling in front of a church and a folded letter in her mother’s handwriting. Before Amara could read more than “My precious daughter,” Auntie Sade snatched it from her hand.
—So you are still digging up rubbish? Auntie Sade hissed.
—Auntie, please, it belonged to my mother.
—Your mother is dead. Dead people do not feed you.
Then she tore the letter into pieces.
Amara dropped to her knees, gathering the scraps with shaking fingers. She did not scream. She had learned that crying made cruel people feel powerful.
But Auntie Sade was not finished.
—Pack your things. Tonight, you are leaving.
—Auntie, where will I go by this time?
—That one is between you and your God.
