BOOK ONE Chapter Five: When the Past Knocks Softly
1061 Words
There are moments life tests you by circling back to the things you thought you had outrun. Sometimes it’s loud, sometimes subtle, almost polite. The kind of knock you hear faintly but pretend wasn’t meant for your door. That was what Somto’s reappearance felt like—a soft tap that echoed too loudly inside Dinma’s chest.
It began with a message.
Not a dramatic, long paragraph.
Just a simple line that blinked on her phone late one afternoon:
We need to talk.
No greeting.
No explanation.
Just those four words that unravelled years of carefully packed emotions.
She stared at the message for a long time. Her hands rested on the kitchen counter, still damp from washing plates. Ike was in the living room trying to teach Chidera how to stack blocks without knocking them over. The house smelled faintly of stew. Everything around her felt normal, ordinary.
But inside, something shifted.
She locked her phone and tried to focus on cleaning, but the thought kept pulling her back.
Why now?
What did he want?
What was he coming to say after eleven years of distance and silence?
She wasn’t angry anymore. Anger was a luxury she learned to outgrow. She was… cautious. Memories of being dismissed, disbelieved, left alone with a newborn—they stirred, but not in the same painful way they once did. Like old injuries that no longer throb but still ache when the rain changes.
Later that evening, after putting Chidera down and helping Ike finish homework, she finally replied.
I’m not sure what there is to talk about.
She expected him to take hours. Or not respond at all.
Instead, he replied almost immediately.
It’s about Ike.
Her heart steadied painfully. For all her emotional strength, motherhood still held her by the throat. Anything involving her children triggered a different level of alertness.
But something felt different in his tone—not defensive this time, not cold. It held a weight she couldn’t place.
He asked if they could meet. Somewhere neutral, somewhere “calm.” She didn’t want to go, but she agreed. She didn’t know why. Maybe she wanted closure she never admitted needing. Maybe she wanted answers. Or maybe she was tired of carrying a story alone.
The next day, she dressed simply. Kept her face bare. Tied her hair back. Ike was in school; her mother watched Chidera for a few hours. As she walked to the small café Somto suggested, her stomach tightened with each step.
She saw him through the glass door before she walked in. He looked older, yes, but also different around the eyes—like life had humbled him in ways he never expected. For a moment, she just stood there, trying to steady herself.
When she finally entered, he stood up awkwardly.
“Dinma,” he said softly.
It was strange hearing her name in his voice again.
“Somto,” she replied.
They sat.
An awkward silence settled.
She folded her hands to keep them from shaking.
He started with small talk—how she was doing, how work seemed to be going well, how she looked “stronger than before.” She didn’t indulge the niceties. She had survived too much to dance around the reason she was there.
“What do you want to say about Ike?”
His shoulders dropped.
He exhaled like he had been holding onto something for years.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just the truth, stripped bare.
It caught her off guard.
She blinked.
He continued.
“I was young. I was stupid. And I was afraid. When everything happened… I didn’t know how to understand it. I didn’t know how to handle the possibility of what you went through. I convinced myself the child wasn’t mine because it made it easier for me to walk away instead of dealing with… everything.”
She felt heat rising behind her eyes, but she blinked it away quickly. She didn’t want tears. Not here. Not now.
He swallowed hard, voice unsteady.
“But I was wrong. And I’ve been wrong for eleven years.”
She didn’t say anything. She let him talk.
“I want to make things right. Not for us—” he paused, almost afraid to assume too much “—but for him. I want to know my son.”
There it was.
The truth she thought she no longer needed but still shook her.
“And the DNA?” she asked quietly.
He nodded. “I did one recently. I… I shouldn’t have taken so long.”
The world went strangely still.
Not painful.
Not relieving.
Just still.
She sat back. Let the truth settle. Let the weight of eleven years of judgment, silence, and doubt fade into something else—something softer, though not yet forgiveness.
“Ike is a good boy,” she finally said. “A kind boy. He doesn’t know he has anything to heal from.”
“And he shouldn’t,” Somto whispered.
There was a sincerity in his eyes she hadn’t seen before.
Life must have humbled him indeed.
They talked more—about logistics, boundaries, the slow steps necessary for something like this. She told him she would decide what was best for Ike. She wouldn’t rush anything. He agreed. No arguments. No pressure.
As she stood to leave, he reached for the air slightly, not touching her, just trying to find the right words.
“Thank you for hearing me,” he said. “And I am truly sorry for everything I put you through.”
She nodded once. “I just want peace for my children.”
When she stepped outside, the sunlight felt different.
Brighter somehow.
Sharper.
Not comforting, but honest.
She stood on the sidewalk for a moment, breathing slowly. It wasn’t closure exactly. But it was something. A beginning of a beginning.
Life had a way of reopening doors she thought she’d locked forever.
And quietly, almost too quietly, another truth sank in:
If the past had found its way back, the present would soon demand the same honesty.
Because what waited for her at home—her relationship with Kene, the subtle wounds she kept ignoring—was beginning to cast a longer shadow than she could manage.
And shadows always grow right before something breaks.
- Writer
