Amara did not remember the day her father left, but she believed — in the quiet way children believe things they have been told too many times — that it must have been important.
People always described it with ceremony.
"He travelled for you people."
"He wanted a better life for the family."
"He didn't want you to suffer here."
Every explanation came wrapped in good intention, as if distance itself was proof of love.
By the time she was old enough to understand what abroad meant, it had already become a place that existed somewhere between hope and excuse. It was where her father lived now. A faraway land where everything was expensive, life was hard, and promises needed time to grow legs before they could walk back home.
She was six months old when he left.
Six months old — small enough to still be carried everywhere, too young to sit without support, completely unaware that the man whose chest she had slept on would soon become a voice that sometimes came through a phone speaker and then eventually… stopped coming at all.
⸻
Her mother liked to say the morning he left was quiet.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet that comes after rain, but the nervous type that sits between people who are trying not to say the wrong thing before something important happens.
The taxi had arrived earlier than expected.
Daniel — who was barely two at the time — had been running around the sitting room in a singlet and diaper, unaware that routines were about to be rearranged in ways that would last years.
Amara had been tied to her mother's back with a faded wrapper, her cheek pressed against warm skin, occasionally making the small sounds babies make when they sense movement but don't understand its purpose.
Her father moved through the house that morning with urgency disguised as efficiency.
Checking his documents.
Zipping his suitcase.
Unzipping it again to add something he had forgotten.
Closing it this time with finality.
He spoke mostly to their mother.
"Make sure you keep the passport somewhere safe."
"I'll call when I land."
"It won't take long before I settle down."
Two years, he said.
Maybe less if things worked out quickly.
He promised he would send money regularly.
Promised school fees would never be a problem.
Promised birthdays would be bigger when he returned.
Promised he would not miss their childhood.
Promised.
Promised.
Promised.
⸻
At the gate, neighbors watched from their balconies and doorways the way people always watched departures in that compound — with curiosity softened by sympathy.
Travelling abroad was a big thing.
It meant opportunity.
It meant escape.
It meant that maybe, just maybe, someone from their building would finally "make it."
Their mother had stood there with Daniel by her side and Amara tied firmly to her back, nodding as he repeated assurances she wanted to believe.
"I'm doing this for us."
The taxi engine started before the conversation could become emotional.
Suitcase in the boot.
Door closed.
Window rolled down halfway so last-minute words could still pass through.
Daniel waved because waving felt like the appropriate thing to do when someone was leaving.
Their mother waved because not waving would make the moment too real.
Amara slept through it.
⸻
After the taxi drove off, silence did not fall immediately.
Instead, it arrived slowly.
First in the form of fewer phone calls.
Then in delayed transfers that came with explanations about currency exchange rates and unexpected expenses.
Then in messages that were read but replied hours later.
Eventually, it arrived fully — not as absence of communication, but as absence of responsibility.
Life did not pause to accommodate hope.
Rent still needed to be paid at the end of every month.
Food still needed to be bought at the market every week.
School fees — even for nursery classes — had deadlines that did not care about international time zones.
Her mother began to learn new kinds of exhaustion.
The type that lived behind the eyes.
The type that made sitting down feel dangerous because resting meant thinking, and thinking meant remembering that this was not the plan.
⸻
For the first few years, she defended him easily.
"He is still trying to settle down."
"You know life abroad is not easy."
"He said something will come in next week."
But survival has a way of making optimism feel expensive.
And every time another promise arrived without proof, something inside her hardened quietly — not enough to break love completely, but enough to bruise it.
⸻
Amara's earliest memories were not of her father.
They were of:
Her mother counting money late at night under a rechargeable lamp.
Her mother ironing uniforms long after they had gone to bed.
Her mother pretending not to be tired in the mornings.
Daniel asking questions like:
"Will Daddy come for my birthday?"
And her mother replying:
"He will call."
As if calls could replace presence.
⸻
Absence did not announce itself in their home.
It settled.
In unpaid bills.
In postponed plans.
In the way their mother's voice changed whenever someone mentioned his name.
And long before Amara understood what abandonment meant, she understood this:
Someone could love you and still leave you to survive without them.