SHATTERED💔

Chapter 9 — Why Her

Grandma Efua had held her hands and told her the truth.

‎Or rather — told her the truth about not knowing the truth.

‎” I am as lost as you are my child,” the old woman had said, her eyes honest and tired. “I knew about Nana Boateng. I knew he was your father. But whatever else he is — whatever darkness follows that man — I am just an old woman in a village who reads his name in newspapers and wonders.”

‎” So, nobody knows,” Abena had said flatly.

‎” It is up to you,” Grandma Efua had said firmly, squeezing her hands. “It has always been up to you. Everything has always been up to you.”

‎The drive back to Accra had been quiet.

‎Myra — perhaps sensing her mother’s mood with the particular sensitivity of children who have grown up reading one parent’s emotions like a survival skill — had been unusually still in the back seat. No questions about goats. No complaints about potholes. She had pressed her small face against the window and watched the red roads slowly give way to tarmac and then to the familiar chaotic concrete of Accra without a single word.

‎Until —

‎” Maa.”

‎” Mm.”

‎” Are you sad??”

‎Abena’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.

‎” I’m okay Myra.”

‎A pause.

‎” You don’t have to be okay,” Myra said matter-of-factly, with the particular wisdom of a six-year-old who had apparently decided today was the day to be profound. “My teacher says it’s okay to not be okay.”

‎Abena said nothing.

‎” I’m here,” Myra added simply. Then turned back to the window as if she hadn’t just cracked something open in her mother’s chest.

‎The familiar gates of their compound appeared in the SUV’s headlights and Abena pressed the horn once.

‎Kwaku — the gateman, a thin cheerful man of about fifty who had worked for the previous tenant and simply stayed through three different occupants out of what appeared to be pure loyalty to the gate itself — appeared immediately, his torch cutting through the evening dark.

” Madam, you’re back!!” he called, already pulling the gate open with his usual enthusiasm. “Welcome, welcome!! The small madam too!!”

‎” Kwaku!!” Myra exploded back to life instantly, hanging out of the window. “I went to the VILLAGE!! I saw chickens!! Real ones!! And I tried to teach one to sit, but it wasn’t smart!!”

‎” Myra sits inside,” Abena said automatically.

‎” I’m just TELLING him—”

‎” Inside Myra.”

‎Myra sat inside. Muttering.

‎The SUV rolled into the compound and Abena sat for a moment after she cut the engine, looking at the modest house in the darkness. Two bedrooms. A small garden Myra had enthusiastically destroyed by trying to plant a mango seed. A wooden door that stuck in the rainy season.

‎Home.

‎She had built this too. From nothing. Piece by piece.

‎Then why, she thought, does it feel so empty tonight??

‎Myra was bathed, fed and in bed with suspicious speed — the village air had clearly done its work. She was asleep almost before her head touched the pillow, her mouth slightly open, her afro puffs pressed flat against her worn Hello Kitty pillowcase.

‎Abena stood in the doorway watching her daughter sleep for a long moment.

‎My whole world, she thought. My whole entire world in one small room.

‎She pulled the door too gently.

‎The house was very quiet.

‎She moved through it slowly — locking the front door, checking the windows, the automatic choreography of a woman living alone with a child who had learned to check every lock twice before sleeping.

‎She sat on the edge of her own bed.

‎Took off her shoes.

‎Looked at her hands in the dim light of the bedside lamp.

‎Hands that had scrubbed dishes. Handed in exam papers. Signed her own name on Myra’s birth certificate alone. Hands that had fastened a police badge to her uniform every morning for three years and told herself it was enough.

‎Was it enough??

‎She thought about the photograph on Grandma Efua’s wall.

‎A man looking at baby her like she was precious.

‎A man who had then watched her entire life from a careful distance and done nothing.

‎She thought about Richard Mensah.

‎The deacon. The respected man. The monster.

‎She thought about Perry.

‎I promise I’ll come back for you.

‎She thought about Myra’s face when she first saw Grandma Efua. That immediate fearless launch into the old woman’s arms. The complete uncomplicated trust of a child who had never been taught to be afraid of love.

‎Where did she get that from?? Abena thought. It certainly wasn’t from me.

‎The lamp cast long shadows across the ceiling.

‎She lay back.

‎Stared up.

‎And for the first time in a very long time — in the privacy of her own room, in the silence of a house where nobody could see, where nobody needed her to be strong or certain or okay —

‎Abena Asante cried.

‎Not the controlled silent crumbling of the village. This was different. This was the kind of crying that starts somewhere deep in the chest and comes up whether you want it to or not. The kind that makes no sound because it has learned over years to be quiet but shakes your whole body anyway.

‎She pressed her face into her pillow.

‎Why??

‎Why did it have to be her??

‎Why was she the one born to a woman who loved too proudly??

‎Why was she the one accused and chased from the only home she knew??

‎Why was she the one Richard Mensah had chosen??

‎Why was she the one Perry had left??

‎Why was she the one raising a child alone while the people responsible for her pain lived their lives untouched and unbothered??

‎Why was she the one who had to be strong every single day without anyone ever asking if she was tired??

‎She was tired.

‎The thought arrived with such quiet force it almost surprised her.

‎She was so tired.

‎Not of Myra. Never of Myra.

‎Tired of carrying. Tired of building. Tired of being the only person in her own story who showed up every single time.

‎Tired of being strong because there was simply no other option.

‎She cried until there was nothing left.

‎And then she lay in the dark, emptied out and strangely lighter, listening to the sounds of the Accra night outside her window — the distant bark of a dog, a car passing, someone’s music drifting faintly from down the street.

‎Life. Ordinary relentless life. Moving forward, whether she was ready or not.

‎Tomorrow, she told herself. The same word she had been telling herself for years.

‎Tomorrow, I’ll figure it out.

‎Tomorrow I’ll be strong again.

‎But tonight—

‎She closed her eyes.

‎Tonight, I’m just tired.

‎She was asleep before she finished the thought.

‎Down the hall Myra slept on, unbothered and perfect, dreaming of whatever six-year-olds dream of.

‎And in a Labone apartment across the city, a man lay awake staring at a ceiling he didn’t recognize in a life he didn’t understand yet, feeling inexplicably like he had forgotten something important.

‎Something he had left behind a long time ago.

‎He just couldn’t remember what.