BRIDE FOR HIRE

Chapter 11: The CHOICE

Chapter 11: The CHOICE.

Six months of peace ended in one phone call.

Chinaza sat in the Toronto apartment with the permanent residency letter still warm on the kitchen table, and her hands shook too hard to hold the phone to her ear. Auntie’s voice had been calm, too calm, when she said the tumor was back. Bigger this time. Two weeks. That was all they had. Two weeks before surgery became impossible, before Christmas became a funeral.

She told Tobi as soon as he walked through the door. He didn’t ask questions. He pulled her into him and held her like if he let go, she would break. For a moment it felt like they could fight this together. Then reality set in. Six million naira. Fourteen days. No savings, no family rich enough to help, no time to raise it legally.

Tobi suggested calling his father. Chinaza shut it down immediately. She knew what that meant. His father never helped without owning you after. She had spent six months building a life where she wasn’t owned by anyone. She wouldn’t start now.

The offer came two hours later, as if the universe heard her desperation and sent the worst possible answer. Amaka.

The message was short and surgical. I heard about your auntie. Shame. I can help. Meet me.

Chinaza almost deleted it. But the number six million kept repeating in her head, and she knew she would never forgive herself if she didn’t at least listen. She told Tobi she was going out for air. She didn’t tell him where. She couldn’t. Not yet.

Tim Hortons smelled like burnt coffee and regret. Amaka looked older, softer around the edges, but the same sharpness lived in her eyes. She didn’t pretend to be kind. She laid it out plain. She would pay for the surgery. All of it. No debt, no repayment plan. The only condition was Chinaza’s signature on divorce papers. A clean break. No fight, no scene. She would let Tobi believe Chinaza had left him, and Amaka would step back in.

Chinaza stared at the envelope on the table. Inside was a bank draft. Real. She could feel it through the paper. It would save Auntie. It would give her Christmas. It would take everything else.

She asked why. Amaka didn’t lie. She said she couldn’t live with being the reason someone died. She said she needed to know she tried. She said she still loved Tobi, and if Chinaza loved him too, she would let him go so he could have a chance at a life without secrets and near-misses.

Chinaza walked out without answering. Forty-eight hours. That was all she had. After that, Amaka would walk away and the offer would die with it.

Back in the apartment, Tobi was making tea. He hummed under his breath, something he only did when he thought she was happy. He didn’t know about Vancouver. He didn’t know his boss had offered him the lead on a six-month project that would double his salary. He didn’t know saying yes meant leaving her alone in Toronto while she dealt with Auntie and a dying marriage that wasn’t even real on paper anymore.

She couldn’t tell him. Not with the envelope burning a hole in her bag. If she told him, he would refuse the job. He would try to fix it all himself and fail. She had seen him try before. Love made him reckless.

That night she lay awake while he slept with her head on his chest. His heartbeat was steady. Real. Hers. She thought about Auntie’s laugh, about the way she joked even with one breast and chemo in her veins. She thought about Tobi’s promise in the immigration office. We tell the truth. We fight together.

But what if the truth was that saving Auntie meant losing him? What if fighting together meant both of them losing everything?

She didn’t sleep. She stared at the ceiling and counted the hours. Forty-eight. Then forty-seven. Then forty-six.

By morning Tobi had made a decision too. He turned down Vancouver. He said it casually over breakfast, like it was nothing. He said no job was worth leaving her alone when she was scared. Chinaza felt like she had been punched. He was giving up everything for her, and she was sitting on a way to save Auntie that required her to walk away.

She told him she was going to Lagos.

It wasn’t a lie. She needed to see Auntie. She needed to look her in the eye and know if this was a choice Auntie would want her to make. Tobi didn’t argue. He booked the flight. He kissed her forehead and told her to come back soon. He believed she would.

At the airport, she almost turned back. She kept thinking of his face when he said he had never felt like he was living until he met her. She kept thinking of Amaka’s face when she said she didn’t want to be the villain.

Chinaza boarded the plane with the envelope in her bag and a decision she hadn’t made yet.

Lagos was hot and loud and familiar. Auntie looked worse. Thinner. But her eyes were the same. When Chinaza told her about Amaka’s offer, Auntie didn’t get angry. She didn’t cry. She asked one question.

Would you be able to look at yourself in the mirror if you took it?

Chinaza didn’t answer right away. She thought about the six months. About waking up to Tobi’s arm around her. About the way he said her name like it meant something. About the way he chose her over Canada, over fear, over everything.

No, she said finally. I wouldn’t.

Auntie nodded. Then she said something Chinaza would never forget.

Sometimes love means choosing the harder thing. Sometimes it means trusting that if it’s real, it will survive the hard thing.

Chinaza flew back to Toronto with the envelope still unopened. She didn’t tell Tobi about Amaka. Not yet. She needed to find another way first. She needed to believe there was another way.

Two days later, the email came.

Dr. Adebayo wrote that a foundation had heard about Auntie’s case through a colleague in Toronto. They covered eighty percent of the surgery cost for patients who couldn’t pay. The remaining one point two million had to be paid in seven days.

It wasn’t six million. But it was still impossible.

Chinaza looked at the number and then at Tobi. He was asleep on the couch, a book over his face, breathing slow. She thought about waking him up and telling him everything. She thought about letting him make the choice with her.

She chose to wake him up.

When she told him, he didn’t get angry. He didn’t say I told you so. He just got up, pulled out his laptop, and started calling every contact he had in Lagos and Toronto. He sold his car. He put his watch up for sale. He called his old engineering professor and asked for a loan he promised to repay in two years.

By day five, they had eight hundred thousand.

By day six, they had one million.

On day seven, Chinaza received a message from an anonymous donor. Two hundred thousand naira. No name. Just a note that said For Auntie.

They made it.

The surgery was scheduled for day twelve. Auntie would make it to Christmas.

Chinaza never told Tobi about Amaka. She never opened the envelope. She burned it two weeks later, after Auntie was out of surgery and stable.

When Tobi asked why she had been so quiet those two days, she told him the truth. She said she had been scared she would lose him if she chose Auntie. He held her and said he would have chosen her too, even if it meant losing everything else.

Six months of marriage had taught them one thing. Love wasn’t clean. It started messy, with contracts and lies and desperation. But if you chose it every day, it became clean enough to live in.