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“The night I left, it was raining heavily. I didn’t have a car. You had taken ours to your mother’s house for a meeting. So I walked for miles with my bag, not knowing where to go.”
He took a breath.
“I made it to a motor park on the expressway. I wanted to buy a ticket to anywhere. Aba, Calabar, anywhere far from Lagos.”
His face tightened.
“But I never made it inside. A jeep pulled up beside me. Tinted windows. Your mother stepped out with two men. Security men.”
Amara’s stomach dropped.
“They grabbed me. I tried to shout, but one covered my mouth. They took my bag, pushed me into the car, and drove.”
“Where?”
“To an old warehouse near Ikorodu. Empty. Dark. Far from everything.”
He closed his eyes.
“Your mother had a motorcycle there. An old okada. She told me to ride it to the Third Mainland Bridge, park it by the railing, leave my phone, wallet, ID — everything that proved who I was — and walk away forever.”
Amara felt faint.
“She said if I did it quietly, I could keep the money and disappear. But if I didn’t…” He paused. “She said, ‘Accidents happen on that bridge every week. One more won’t make the news.’”
“What did you do?” Amara whispered.
“What choice did I have?” he said. “I rode the motorcycle to the bridge. I left everything on it. Then I parked it by the railing and walked away.”
His voice shook.
“Then her men came back. I watched them push the motorcycle over the railing into the water.”
Amara covered her mouth.
“The splash,” Amecha whispered. “I still hear it in my dreams.”
“But you weren’t on it,” Amara said. “You were alive.”
“Yes. But anyone investigating would think I was on it. My wallet, my phone, my ID — all of it was gone.”
He looked at her.
“Your mother drove up one last time. She rolled down her window in the rain and threw an envelope at my feet. Then she said, ‘You’re dead now, Amecha. Officially dead. That is what the police will believe. That is what my daughter will believe. And if you ever come back, if you ever contact Amara, if you ever tell anyone the truth, I will make sure you really do die. And if there is a baby, I will make sure no one ever finds it.’”
Amara sat down heavily.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Amecha said. “I went to a small hotel in Ikorodu and stayed there for weeks. I thought about going to the police, but who would believe me? A mechanic from Ajegunle against Chief Mrs. Gloria Okafor?”
“You should have come to me,” Amara said, her voice breaking.
“She said she would kill me,” Amecha shouted. “She said she would kill our baby. And I believed her because she was powerful, rich, and connected, and I was nobody.”
Amara had no answer.
“Eventually, I left Lagos,” he said. “I went to Aba. Used another name. Found work in a mechanic shop. Paid cash for a room.”
He looked at her.
“Then, after seven months…”
“You had the baby,” Amara whispered.
Then something inside her mind cracked open.
The pregnancy.
She remembered.
After Amecha’s funeral, her belly had grown while her heart had shrunk. Her mother had taken over everything.
“Let me handle it, Nkem. You’re grieving. You’re not thinking clearly. Let me take care of you.”
Her mother arranged the hospital. The appointments. The delivery.
Amara remembered waking up in a white room, groggy and weak, reaching for her stomach and finding it flat.
Gloria sat beside her, holding her hand.
“The baby didn’t make it, Nkem. I’m so sorry. She was too small. Too early. They tried everything.”
Amara remembered screaming.