Chapter 1: The Elopement
The rooster crowed louder than usual that morning, as though trying to raise the dead—or warn the living. The sun was still shy behind the thick clouds hanging over Umuokoro village, and a cold harmattan wind blew dry dust across the compound floor. Adaeze awoke to the sound of her mother's hurried footsteps and the low murmur of voices—neighbors, perhaps, or strangers. Her heart pounded for reasons she could not name.
But by the time she stepped out, rubbing sleep from her eyes, she knew something had shifted in the air.
"Where is your papa?" Mama Nkechi's voice cracked as she asked one of the boys, Okechukwu, who stood barefoot at the gate, chewing a sugarcane stalk. He simply shrugged. The boy was only ten and didn't understand why their father's sudden absence was more than just a skipped breakfast.
Adaeze was the eldest—thirteen, going on thirty—and she knew the tension that had filled their home over the past few months. Her father, Obinna, once a quiet but proud carpenter, had changed. He no longer laughed at Mama's jokes or brought home small gifts like he used to. He would stay out late, come home reeking of palm wine, and argue over things that made no sense. Then last night, he hadn't returned home at all.
By midday, the whispers had begun to slither through the dusty paths of the village like smoke from a burning house. Obinna has run away. Eloped with that fair woman who sells groundnut by the junction. Left Nkechi with six children and debts too many to count.
Mama Nkechi said nothing to the gossipers. Instead, she tightened the knot of her head tie, grabbed a broom, and began to sweep the compound with a vengeance that made the dust rise in protest. Her silence spoke of pain she would not wear openly. When she finished, she entered the house, fetched her rosary from under her pillow, and knelt before the cracked wall where a faded portrait of Jesus hung.
That night, after the children had eaten their thin broth of okra and pap, Mama Nkechi gathered them under the guava tree.
"Your papa is gone," she said simply. "I don't know where, and I will not waste my tears searching."
The children stared at her, some too young to understand, others already imagining the ripple this would send through their lives.
"But hear me now, my children," she continued, her eyes sweeping from Adaeze to the baby sleeping on her lap. "No man will define our survival. I will raise you with what I have, even if what I have is little. We will suffer, yes. But we will live. We will rise."
And so began a new chapter in the life of the Nkechi household.
The next months were not kind. The landlord came knocking with threats. School fees became a luxury. Clothes grew tighter and meals smaller. Yet, Mama Nkechi's spirit remained unbroken. She picked up extra laundry, took to hawking fried akara at the local market, and taught Adaeze how to braid hair for money.
Adaeze matured quickly. She learned how to wash her brothers' uniforms before dawn, fetch water from the stream without spilling a drop, and calm the baby's cries while studying by the glow of a kerosene lamp. She watched her mother become iron and fire, and deep inside, a seed was planted—a belief that women could be both soft and strong, wounded and undefeated.
But even as she buried herself in survival, a part of Adaeze mourned. Not just the absence of her father, but the loss of innocence that came with it. She saw how people looked at her family now—with pity, with judgment, with questions.
Some said her father would return. Others claimed he was dead. A few swore he had been seen in Enugu, living with his new "wife" and starting another family. Mama Nkechi never spoke of him again.
And Adaeze? She built a wall in her heart. She told herself love was a lie told to children to keep them dreaming. She promised herself she would never allow a man to undo her life the way Obinna had undone theirs.
But what Adaeze did not know—what she could not have known—was that love has a way of finding those who run from it. And sometimes, the home you think is broken is exactly where love intends to rebuild.