After the Divorce Paper

Chapter4

Sophia first heard about the fundraiser on a quiet Thursday morning. Her office window in Midtown looked down at the rushing traffic of Lexington Avenue, but her mind was already strained with deadlines. Contracts piled across her desk like layered bricks, each needing her sharp eye and firmer pen.

Danielle leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, her curls bouncing as she tilted her head. “You’re coming Saturday, right?”

Sophia blinked. “Saturday?”

“The Harlem Community Youth Fundraiser. My cousin’s organizing it. Free food, gospel choirs, even some live jazz. You love that stuff.” Danielle smirked. “And before you say no, it’s not just about food and music, it’s about showing up. Queens girl, Harlem pride, community love. All that.”

Sophia smiled faintly, though her instinct was to refuse. Crowds drained her these days. She preferred the predictability of her apartment, the company of books and soft lamplight. But Danielle’s expectant look softened her.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“Don’t think,” Danielle shot back, wagging a finger. “Do. You work too much, Soph. Even lawyers need air.”

Sophia laughed quietly, tucking a strand of hair under her scarf. “I’ll try.”

But as Danielle left, Sophia’s smile faded. Harlem. That word tugged. It carried memories, ones she wasn’t sure she wanted to face.

Akpabot, meanwhile, heard about the fundraiser from Michael.

It was late evening in Brooklyn, the soul food restaurant humming with warm chatter and the smell of cornbread. Akpabot sat across from his old friend, tie loosened, appetite half-gone.

Michael slid a flyer across the table, grease-stained at the corner. “Here. Don’t say I never invite you anywhere.”

Akpabot glanced down: Harlem Community Youth Fundraiser. Saturday, 6 PM. Faith, Food, and Future.

“Michael...” he groaned, pushing the paper back. “You know these things aren’t for me. I’m not a...”

“Not a what?” Michael’s voice was calm but firm. “Not a man who remembers where he came from? Not someone who cares about kids needing mentors? Or maybe not a man who’s ready to face people who’ll remind him he’s not just a name in a glossy magazine.”

Akpabot’s jaw tightened. He hated when Michael got this way—truth wrapped in friendship, unavoidable.

“Brother,” Michael leaned closer, “you work yourself to death in those towers, but towers don’t hug you back. Go. Be human for a night.”

Akpabot didn’t answer at first. His eyes drifted to the flyer again, the word Harlem bold against white. Harlem, his roots, his home, the place where he still found echoes of his mother’s prayers, his father’s laughter, and Sophia’s hand in his once.

He folded the flyer neatly, sliding it into his jacket pocket. “We’ll see.”

Michael smiled knowingly.

The days leading up to Saturday stretched differently for them both.

Sophia drowned herself in briefs and negotiations, but whenever she paused, she felt Harlem pulling like an unseen thread. She told herself it was just curiosity, nothing more. But at night, her dreams betrayed her, soft fragments of music, the echo of a voice she had once known too well.

On Friday evening, she stood in front of her closet longer than necessary. What did one wear to a community event that wasn’t a gala but wasn’t casual either? She finally chose a flowing navy dress, simple and modest, paired with a silk scarf patterned with faint gold. Professional but approachable. Strong but soft. She caught her reflection in the mirror and whispered under her breath, You’re just going for Danielle. Nothing more.

Yet her pulse quickened anyway.

Akpabot, on the other hand, spent Friday night with blueprints scattered across his brownstone floor. His team had been pushing toward a Midtown deadline, but concentration slipped away. The flyer peeked from under a stack of papers, mocking him.

By midnight, he set the pencil down and leaned back, rubbing his eyes. He could stay home, bury himself in work, and no one would question it. But Michael’s words replayed: Towers don’t hug you back.

So, on Saturday morning, he ironed a crisp shirt and pulled out a charcoal blazer. Nothing flashy, but sharp. He wanted to look like the man Harlem raised him to be, not just the man Manhattan worshipped.

That morning, Harlem woke with its usual symphony, street vendors setting up stalls, the smell of fried dough, gospel rhythms drifting faintly from open church doors. Posters for the fundraiser fluttered on lampposts.

Sophia’s subway ride from Queens was crowded, but she barely noticed. Her heart beat with an unusual rhythm, quickening the closer she came to 125th Street. She stepped out into the Harlem air, familiar yet distant. Memories clung to every corner, coffee shops where she once waited for Akpabot after late-night drafting sessions, bookstores they browsed hand in hand, sidewalks where faith and love once tangled like roots.

She inhaled deeply, steadying herself. This is about community. Nothing else.

Across the borough, Akpabot drove into Harlem slowly, windows down, letting the streets breathe into him. Children darted between hydrants spraying arcs of water. Old men sat on stoops, nodding in rhythm with radios playing jazz. He saw faces that reminded him of his father, his uncles, the people who first believed he could build more than blocks with Legos.

Pulling into a small lot near the event hall, he killed the engine but sat still for a long moment, fingers drumming the steering wheel. He wasn’t nervous about crowds or speeches. He was nervous about… something unnamed. Something that had been waiting a year in silence.

He exhaled, stepped out, straightened his blazer, and walked toward the music that drifted faintly from the gathering hall.

Inside, volunteers moved briskly, decorating tables with bright cloths, arranging chairs, setting up sound systems. Gospel rehearsals echoed in the background, blending with laughter and the clatter of pans in the kitchen.

Sophia arrived early, at Danielle’s urging. She carried a tray of utensils into the kitchen, grateful for the distraction of work. It kept her from scanning the room for… someone she told herself wouldn’t be here.

Akpabot arrived later, greeted instantly by Michael, who slapped him on the back and dragged him toward the registration table.

Neither saw the other yet.

Not yet.

But the air shifted, subtle and heavy, as if the city itself was holding its breath.

Two lives, once bound and broken, were being drawn into the same orbit again—not by chance, but by the quiet inevitability of unfinished stories.

And though their eyes hadn’t met yet, both felt it in their bones: Harlem was about to remind them that signatures on a paper could not erase a heartbeat.