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She had asked to see the baby.
Her mother said, “You don’t want to see her like that. It will only make it worse. Let me handle the arrangements.”
And Amara, twenty-one years old, broken by grief, had let her mother handle everything.
The body.
The burial.
The paperwork.
All of it.
She had never seen her baby’s body.
She had never questioned it.
“Oh God,” Amara whispered now, shaking. “Amecha… my mother told me the baby died. She told me I lost her.”
Amecha stared at her.
The anger on his face changed to horror.
“She told you the baby was dead?”
“Yes,” Amara sobbed. “After I thought you died, I found out I was pregnant. I was alone. My mother took over everything. When I woke up after the delivery, she told me the baby didn’t survive. I never saw her. I never held her. I buried a baby I never got to see, just like I buried a husband whose body was never found.”
She pressed her hands over her face.
“Two empty graves. She gave me two empty graves.”
Amecha’s hands shook.
“She took Zara from you,” he said. “She took her while you were unconscious and told you she was dead.”
“How did Zara get to you?” Amara asked.
Amecha’s face darkened.
“About three weeks after I got to Aba, someone knocked on my door late at night. It was one of your mother’s men. I recognized him from the motor park.”
His voice cracked.
“He was holding a baby carrier. He put it on the floor, handed me an envelope with two million naira, and said, ‘Madam says this is yours. Don’t come back to Lagos.’ Then he left.”
Amara could barely breathe.
“I opened the carrier,” Amecha said. “There she was. A tiny baby wrapped in a hospital blanket. I didn’t know whose baby she was at first. Then I found a note inside the blanket. Your mother’s handwriting.”
He swallowed.
“It said, ‘The child is yours. The mother has been told it died. Do not contact anyone. This is your last warning.’”
Amara made a sound between a sob and a scream.
“I was alone,” Amecha said, crying now. “I didn’t know how to take care of a baby. A nurse who lived nearby helped me. I told her the mother had died. She taught me how to feed Zara, how to hold her, how to keep her alive.”
He wiped his eyes.
“But when I held her, when I looked at her face and saw your eyes looking back at me, I knew I had to keep going. She was alive. She was safe. That was all that mattered.”
He looked at Amara.
“I named her Zara. I gave her the middle name Amara because even though you weren’t there, even though I thought you had forgotten us, she was still yours. She was always yours.”
Amara wept silently.
“I worked hard,” Amecha continued. “Saved every kobo. After a few years, I had enough to come back to Lagos. I knew this house was empty. Abandoned. I thought you had moved on with your big life and forgotten it.”
He lowered his eyes.
“So I broke in. Fixed it as best I could. Made it a home for Zara. I know it wasn’t legal, but I had nowhere else to go. I thought you would never come back.”
He looked exhausted.
“I’ve lived here for six years. Mechanic during the day. Night guard at a warehouse at night. Barely making enough to feed us and keep the lights on. Praying every day that your mother never found out we were here.”
Amara stood.