THE WEIGHT SHE CARRIES

CHAPTER THREE:GROWING IN FERA

The mornings in Chioma’s house began before the sun fully rose, but not with warmth or comfort. They began with tension thick, invisible, and ever-present.

Adaeze learned this early.

At just six years old, she already understood that the safest way to exist was quietly. She moved through the house like a shadow, careful not to make unnecessary noise, careful not to draw attention to herself. Even the smallest sound the scrape of a chair, the clink of a spoon felt like a risk.

“Have you swept the floor?” Chioma’s voice cut through the room one morning, sharp and impatient.

“Yes, Mummy,” Adaeze replied softly, clutching the edge of her faded dress.

Chioma stepped into the room, her eyes scanning the floor. “Does this look clean to you?”

Adaeze followed her gaze. There, near the corner, a thin line of dust had escaped her notice.

“I I didn’t see it,” she whispered.

Chioma sighed loudly, the kind of sigh that carried disappointment and irritation all at once. “You never see anything. Useless.”

The word hung in the air long after she had turned away.

Adaeze bent down quickly, sweeping the dust into a small pile, her tiny hands trembling. It wasn’t the correction that hurt it was the tone, the constant reminder that she was never enough. Breakfast was no better.

“Mummy, I’m hungry,” Adaeze said cautiously, standing by the doorway of the kitchen.

Chioma didn’t turn. She was stirring a pot with more force than necessary.

“Is it me that will kill myself for you?” she snapped. “Can’t you wait?”

Adaeze nodded quickly, even though her stomach ached. “Yes, Mummy.”

She stepped back, leaning against the wall. Hunger was something she had learned to endure. Asking twice was not an option.

Silence followed her everywhere.

At school, however, the world felt different lighter, almost unfamiliar. Children laughed loudly, ran freely, and spoke without fear of saying the wrong thing. Adaeze watched them the way one watches a distant dream, unsure how to step into it.

“Adaeze, come and join them,” her teacher called one afternoon, pointing to a group of girls playing under the mango tree.

Adaeze hesitated. The girls were laughing, their voices bright and carefree.

“I’m okay, ma,” she said, forcing a small smile.

The teacher studied her for a moment but said nothing more.

It wasn’t that Adaeze didn’t want to play.

She simply didn’t know how.

At home, laughter was rare. Words were measured. Mistakes had consequences.

So she sat under a tree with her book, turning pages she barely read, her ears tuned more to the sound of others than to the words in front of her.

Over time, her silence became part of her identity.

Teachers described her as “well-behaved.” Neighbors called her “a good, quiet child.”

But silence, for Adaeze, was not obedience.

It was survival.

Back home, the atmosphere remained unchanged.

One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the compound, Adaeze sat on the floor arranging her schoolbooks. She had taken extra care to keep them neat no folded pages, no torn edges.

She wanted, just once, to get something right.

Chioma entered the room, dropping her bag with a tired thud.

“What is that?” she asked, pointing at the books.

“My schoolbooks, Mummy,” Adaeze said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Chioma flipped through them quickly. “Hmm.”Adaeze’s heart pounded

“I came second in class,” she added, a hint of hope slipping into her tone before she could stop it.

Chioma paused.

“Second?” she repeated.

Adaeze nodded, her eyes lighting up slightly. “Yes, Mummy.”

Chioma closed the book and handed it back without expression. “Why not first?”

The light in Adaeze’s eyes dimmed instantly.

“I I will try harder,” she said.

“You always say that,” Chioma replied, already turning away. “Try is not enough.”

Adaeze lowered her gaze, clutching the book to her chest.

That night, as she lay on her thin mattress, she stared at the ceiling, her mind replaying the moment over and over again.

Second was not enough.

Clean was not enough.

Quiet was not enough.

Nothing was ever enough.

Tears gathered in her eyes, but she blinked them away quickly. Crying was dangerous. It made noise. It drew attention.

And attention, in her world, rarely ended well.

Instead, she turned to her side, curling into herself, as if trying to take up less space in a world that already felt too heavy.

In the next room, Chioma sat alone, her face lit faintly by a dim bulb. She rubbed her temples, exhaustion weighing heavily on her.

She did not see the way Adaeze shrank.

She did not hear the silence that had grown louder than any cry.

To her, she was simply raising a child the best way she knew how pushing her to be better, to be stronger, to survive a world that had shown her no mercy.

But what she did not realize was this:

In trying to harden her daughter against the world, she was becoming the very thing Adaeze feared the most.

And slowly, quietly, without a single word

Adaeze was learning not how to live,but how to disappear.