A mother's last stand

Untitled Episode

Chapter 2

I stayed in the orphanage until I was thirteen years old. Thirteen years may sound small to the world, but to a child with dreams, it felt like an entire lifetime sealed behind locked doors. Days stretched endlessly into one another, each one heavy with routine and silence. Even then, I knew—deep in my bones—that if I stayed there any longer, the walls of that place would slowly suffocate every dream I carried inside me.

I was young, but I was not empty.

I dreamed of more. I dreamed of becoming something—someone who mattered, someone whose life would mean more than survival. But the orphanage had a way of shrinking children, teaching us quietly and cruelly that our hopes were too big for our circumstances. Day after day, it trained us to expect nothing, to want nothing, to accept less than we deserved.

Loneliness lived with me there. It followed me into the dormitories, sat beside me during meals, and lay awake with me at night. Surrounded by other children, I was still profoundly alone. Everyone carried their own sorrow, their own unanswered questions, and we learned early that crying too loudly or hoping too openly only attracted punishment or disappointment. So I learned to keep my feelings folded inward, like letters I never sent.

At night, when the lights went out, the darkness felt louder than the day. I would stare at the ceiling, wondering who I might have been if life had been kinder. I wondered if my mother could see me.

It was in that place of quiet suffering that I met Annabelle.

Annabelle was the first friend I ever truly had. She was small like me, with tired eyes that had seen too much too soon, but when she smiled, it felt like warmth breaking through a long winter. We found each other without words—two lonely souls drawn together by shared silence. We sat side by side during meals, shared whispered stories after lights-out, and held onto each other when the world felt unbearably cold.

With Annabelle, I could breathe.

We talked about dreams in hushed voices, as if speaking them aloud too boldly might make them disappear. She wanted to travel, to see the ocean one day. I wanted to go to school, to learn, to become someone who could stand tall and unafraid.

One fateful day, driven by desperation and hope tangled together, I escaped.

I went to my mother’s best friend, clutching the fragile belief that love would recognize me and take me in. When she saw me, she froze—shock spreading across her face as though she had seen a ghost. For a moment, I thought she might turn me away. Then she pulled me into her arms, holding me tightly, whispering my name as if afraid I might disappear. She promised me safety. She promised me care. She promised that nothing would ever hurt me again.

I believed her.

I wanted to believe her so badly that I ignored the uneasiness sitting in my chest. I ignored the way her hands trembled when she held me, the way her eyes kept darting to the door, the way her voice softened too quickly when she spoke of the orphanage. I was a child starving for protection, and she fed me words that felt like shelter.

What I did not know was that while she wrapped me in comfort, she had already betrayed me.

That evening, the house felt strangely quiet. Too quiet. I sat on the edge of a chair, afraid to relax, afraid that if I settled in, the world would remember me again. Then I heard it—the sound of heavy footsteps outside, voices I recognized even before I saw their faces. My heart dropped into my stomach. Fear rushed through me so fast my body went cold.

The door opened.

They came in numbers. Familiar faces hardened by authority and cruelty. The orphanage staff stood there, staring at me like I was a runaway animal, not a child. No one asked me why I left. No one asked if I was hurt. They didn’t speak my name. They grabbed me.

I screamed.

I clung to the door, my fingers scraping against the wood until they burned. I begged my mother’s friend with my eyes, silently asking her to stop them, to say something, to remember her promises. She stood there, frozen, watching as they dragged me away. In that moment, I learned a painful truth: betrayal does not always come with anger—sometimes it comes quietly, wearing the face of someone you trusted.

They pushed me into their vehicle like a sack of shame.

Back at the orphanage, punishment was waiting for me.

They said I needed to be taught a lesson. That escape was rebellion. That dreams were disobedience. They beat me until my body ached and my tears soaked the floor. Every strike carried a message: You do not belong to yourself. My small body shook, but I refused to scream again. I had already learned that screams only pleased them.

They locked me away that night.

I lay on the cold floor, my back burning, my heart heavier than my injuries. I cried silently, afraid that even my tears might be punished. Hunger gnawed at me, but loneliness hurt more. I felt foolish for believing kindness. Foolish for hoping. Foolish for thinking I was worth saving.

But somewhere between the pain and the darkness, something shifted.

As tears ran down my face, I made a promise to myself. A quiet, trembling promise spoken only in my heart: If I ever escape again, I will never come back. No matter how hard it gets. No matter where I have to sleep. No matter how hungry I become. I would rather face the world alone than return to a place that treated my existence as a crime.

That night did not break me.

It hardened my resolve.

I stopped seeing the orphanage as a home and began to see it as a cage. And I knew then, deeply, fiercely, that I would escape again. And the next time, I would disappear completely.

So I waited. Quietly. Carefully. And one night, I escaped for the last time.

I left with nothing except the little money visitors had once gifted me and small notes I had hidden like treasures. With that money, I boarded a bus to another city, far away, where no one knew my name, where no one could easily find me. As the bus moved, I felt fear and freedom sit beside me. I was alone—but I was finally moving forward.

In that city, survival became my daily prayer. I sold sachet water under the sun, my feet aching, my stomach often empty. Yet even in hunger, I held onto purpose. From those small earnings, I saved enough to register for my common entrance examination. I passed.

I enrolled in a public school, so I wouldn’t have to pay school fees. Life was cruel, but I was determined. I slept in mosques, in churches, anywhere my body could rest for a few hours. Some nights, the cold spoke louder than my thoughts. Some mornings, hunger was my alarm clock. But I never stopped.

I passed my junior exams. Then I started lessons for my senior WAEC. I wrote it, and I passed again.

Against every odd stacked against me, I gained admission into the university to study Law.

Law was not just a course to me. It was a promise. A weapon forged from pain. I studied while working, while carrying memories that refused to sleep. I studied for the child I once was, for the girl who slept on bare floors, for the woman my mother never lived to see me become.

I worked relentlessly—and I graduated with a First Class.

Today, I carry more than one certificate. I carry knowledge. Power. Voice. I have acquired everything I need to seek justice for my mother—to stand in truth, to speak for the silenced child I once was, and to bring her killer to book.

I survived. I endured. And today, I stand not as a victim of fate, but as a witness to a life that was cut short. I did not study law for prestige or applause. I studied it because my mother never got the chance to live the life she deserved. From childhood to motherhood, her days were filled with struggle, sacrifice, and silent endurance — and in the end, even death did not spare her from suffering.

Her life was taken violently, unjustly, before she could rest, before she could dream, before she could finally breathe. And with her death, my childhood was stolen too — ripped away in blood and silence. I was forced to grow up in fear, hunger, and loneliness, carrying grief no child should ever know.

I seek justice not out of revenge, but out of truth. For a woman who suffered from girlhood to her last breath. For a mother who chose life and paid for it with her own. For the childhood that was taken from me, and the voice that was silenced with her fall.

This is not the end of my story.