The Maid of Goodwill Mansion

Amaka Harrison was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Harrison of Goodwill Village. Everyone in the village knew them. Mr. Harrison was a successful business entrepreneur who owned half the shops on Market Road. His wife was a nurse, the kindest woman in the village clinic. Amaka was their princess. She had just graduated from college with a Second Class Upper in Business Administration. She returned home full of dreams, ready to help her father expand his business. "What a beautiful family," people would say whenever they saw them. But beautiful things don't last forever. Three months after Amaka returned, her mother fell ill. A strange sickness that no drug could cure. She died in Amaka's arms on a Tuesday night. The house became silent. A month after the burial, her father brought home a new wife. Mrs. Flora. Flora was beautiful, well-dressed, with a loud laugh. She said she would take care of Amaka. Amaka tried to love her. But five months after the marriage, Mr. Harrison also died. He went to sleep and never woke up. After her father's burial, everything changed. Flora's real face came out. On the third day after the burial, Flora called Amaka to the sitting room. She was sitting on Amaka's father's favorite chair, wearing Amaka's mother's gold earrings. "Amaka," she said coldly, "from today, this house is my house. Your father's property is my property. If you want to continue eating here, you will work for it." That was how Amaka, the princess of Goodwill Mansion, became a maid in her own father's house. Now, every day starts at 5am. Amaka is awake before the c**k crows. She sweeps the whole compound. She mops the five-bedroom house until her waist pains her. She scrubs the toilets with her bare hands. Breakfast must be ready by 7am. If it is late by one minute, Flora will pour it away and make her start again. After breakfast, Flora will take her father's car keys, dress up, and go to the shop to do business. Amaka's father's business. "Take care of the house. And don't you dare go outside this gate," Flora warns every morning. Amaka has no phone. Flora seized it. She has no money. No friends. She cannot go out. The gateman has strict instruction not to let her out. She is always crying. Helpless. Lonely. At night, while Flora sleeps in her father's room, Amaka sleeps on a thin mat in the kitchen. She is tired. She wants a better life, but she has no direction. She doesn't know where to start. Until one night... She had a dream. In the dream, her mother was standing under the mango tree behind the house. The same tree where Amaka used to read as a child. Her mother was wearing the white wrapper she was buried in. "Amaka nwam," her mother called, crying. "Your father knew they would do this to you. He hid the truth inside this compound. Find it before she does, my daughter. Find it before Flora finds it!" Amaka tried to run to her mother. "Mama! What truth? Where?" But her mother started fading. "Remember what your father always does with keys..." Amaka woke up screaming, sweating on her mat in the kitchen. It was 4:59am. She could hear Flora's footsteps upstairs. "AMAKA! ARE YOU STILL SLEEPING?!" Amaka stood up, her heart pounding. Remember what your father always does with keys... Then it hit her. Her father always lost his keys. And whenever he did, he would shout, "Amaka! Tell your mother to bring the spare from under the flower pots!" Her mother always hid spare keys under the flower pots near the kitchen. Could her father have...? Amaka carried her broom outside to sweep the compound. Her eyes kept going to the row of old, dusty flower pots near the kitchen. Five pots, untouched for months because Flora never watered flowers. Her hands were shaking. She looked up. Flora was still upstairs. The gateman was outside. She bent down near the first pot. No one was watching. Her destiny was under one of those pots. To be continued.