Where Bread Meets Gold

Chapter 8: The sacrifice

cost that Chioma had not anticipated. Personal relationships suffered.

She had no time for dating. She had no time for friendships. All her energy went into the

bakery, the workshops, the teaching.

Tunde was still there, managing the business side, but even he seemed distant sometimes.

Chioma realized she had not asked him about his life in months. She had been so focused on her

own work that she had forgotten to see him.

One evening, Tunde told her he was leaving. He was going to start his own business — a

restaurant, something different from the bakery.

Chioma felt panic rise in her. "You cannot leave. I need you."

"Do you?" Tunde asked gently. "Or do you just need someone to handle the things you do

not want to handle?"

The question stung because it was true.

"I need you as a friend," she said. "And I have not been a good friend. I have not been a

good partner."

"No," he agreed. "You have not. But that is because you are obsessed with your work. You

are obsessed with making perfect bread. And I understand that. I respect that. But I cannot

spend my life managing something I do not care about."

After Tunde left, Chioma had to learn to do the business side herself. Accounting.

Contracts. Negotiations. It was painful and inefficient, but it was necessary.

She hired a manager — a woman named Zainab who was sharp and competent and did not

expect Chioma to be her friend.

"Just manage the business," Chioma told her. "I will make the bread. That is the division."

It worked. Zainab handled the practical things. Chioma focused on the art.

But there was a loneliness to it. There was a cost to choosing your work above everything

else.

Chioma thought about this one morning, standing in her kitchen at four in the morning,

surrounded by no one but the bread and the silence. She thought about whether it was worth it.

And the answer was complicated. Yes, it was worth it. She had created something real.

She had built a legacy. She had touched people's lives through her bread, through her teaching,

through her art.

But yes, it had cost her. It had cost her the kind of normal life that other people had. It had

cost her relationships. It had cost her the possibility of a family of her own.

She had chosen bread and gold over love and companionship.

And she was not sure, at that moment, if she had made the right choice