Chapter 4 - Signed and Sealed
827 Words
The document arrived in her email at exactly 9pm.
Adaeze sat on her bed in the small room she had slept in since she was six years old and read every single word of it. Twice. With a notepad beside her where she wrote down every question and concern.
Chioma had called three times during the reading. She ignored all three calls. Chioma would talk and she needed silence.
By 11pm she had her list.
By midnight she had made her decision.
She signed it electronically the way Dare the PA had instructed her. Uploaded her signature. Hit send.
Then she put her phone face down on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a long time.
It was done.
She was going to be Mrs Emeka Okafor.
For twelve months. In name only. For fifty million naira and her family's freedom.
She kept repeating those last parts to herself like a prayer. Like an anchor. Like the thing that would keep her from drifting into the part of her brain that was quietly screaming.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
Received. Registry appointment is Friday 10am. Dare will send you the details. Come alone.
No greeting. No pleasantries. Just information delivered like a memo.
She typed back. Understood.
Then she added his number to her contacts.
She thought for a moment about what to name it.
She typed: E. Okafor.
Then deleted it.
Typed: The Devil.
Almost laughed. Deleted it.
Finally saved it as: Emeka.
Just Emeka. Because whatever this was it was going to be her life for the next twelve months and she refused to spend twelve months being afraid of a name.
She put the phone down.
From the next room she could hear her mother moving. The soft shuffle of slippers. The sound of the kitchen tap running. Mama and her midnight glass of water. Every night without fail since Adaeze could remember.
She got up quietly and went to the kitchen.
Her mother was standing at the sink in her old wrapper and house slippers, grey beginning to show at her temples, looking out the small window at the dark compound outside.
"Mama."
Nkechi Obi turned. Smiled the way she always smiled at her daughter. Like Adaeze was still seven years old and had just walked in from school.
"Ada. Why are you not sleeping?"
"I could ask you the same thing."
Her mother waved a hand. "Old people do not sleep well. It is our punishment for surviving this long." She looked at her daughter more carefully. "What is wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong."
"Adaeze."
She sat down at the kitchen table. The same table where she had done her homework every night for twelve years. Where her father used to sit on Sunday mornings reading the newspaper. Where her mother still said grace before every meal even though there were days when the meal was very small.
She had made a decision on the way to the kitchen.
Her mother deserved to know. Not everything. Not the debt. Not the threat. But enough.
"Mama I am getting married," she said.
The silence that followed was the loudest thing she had ever heard.
Her mother set down her glass very carefully.
"Married," she repeated.
"Yes."
"To who?"
"His name is Emeka Okafor."
Another silence. Her mother sat down slowly across from her.
"Okafor Holdings Emeka Okafor?"
"Yes Mama."
Nkechi Obi looked at her daughter for a very long time. Her eyes moved across Adaeze's face the way they always did when she was reading her. Her mother had always been able to read her.
"Are you happy?" she asked finally.
The question landed like a stone in still water.
Adaeze thought about lying. Thought about a bright reassuring smile and a firm yes and her mother going back to bed satisfied.
Instead she reached across the table and took her mother's hand.
"I am going to be okay Mama," she said. "I promise you. We are both going to be okay."
It was not an answer.
Her mother looked at her for one more long moment. Then she squeezed her hand with a grip that was still surprisingly strong.
"Your father always said you were the strongest person he ever knew," she said quietly. "Stronger than him. Stronger than me."
Adaeze's throat tightened.
"He was wrong," she managed.
"He was never wrong about you." Her mother stood. Picked up her water. Paused at the kitchen door. "This Emeka Okafor. He had better know what he is getting."
Then she shuffled back to her room.
Adaeze sat alone at the kitchen table in the dark for a long time after that.
Friday was three days away.
In three days she would walk into a registry office and change her name and her life in the space of ten minutes.
She was the strongest person her father had ever known.
She was going to need every bit of it
- Writer
