I sat with it for a long time.
The photograph in my left hand. The card in my right. My mother in her yellow housedress outside her gate in Lagos, one hand shading her eyes, looking down the road. The tear on the left shoulder she'd been meaning to fix for four years. I could see the tear. Someone had been close enough, and patient enough, and equipped enough to see the tear.
Leave the boy and go home.
I turned the card over. Nothing on the back. The handwriting on the front with my name, careful and unhurried, belonged to someone who was not afraid of being identified. Someone who expected me to understand the message and comply, and who did not feel the need to hide.
That was the part that sat in my chest like a stone. Not the threat. The confidence behind it.
I looked at the clock.
