CHAPTER ELEVEN: Esi Aba’s Letters
669 Words
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Esi Aba’s Letters
The morning after the river ceremony, the sky had a hush to it. Birds didn’t sing. The air smelled of roasted time—like something old had been cooked open, and now nothing would ever taste the same again.
Adjoa sat cross-legged on the wooden floor of her grandmother’s room.
Everything looked smaller now. Or maybe she had grown in ways mirrors couldn’t measure.
She had come to return the red sash. But instead, she found something else.
Tucked inside the back panel of her grandmother’s old wardrobe—beneath a false base, behind a piece of kente folded like a promise—was a weathered box.
Wooden. Locked.
The initials E.A.D carved on the lid.
And taped to it: a key.
Shaking, Adjoa opened it.
Inside: thirty-six unsent letters, neatly tied with twine.
Each one dated.
Each one sealed.
Each addressed:
> "To Kojo (Wherever You May Be)"
Some yellowed with age. Others newer, even recent. Her grandmother had been writing them until the very end.
With trembling hands, Adjoa opened the first one.
---
Letter One – February 14, 1989
> My dearest Kojo,
They say if you truly love something, you let it go.
But they never say what to do when it comes back as someone else.
I saw your face yesterday. Not yours exactly. But a boy in the marketplace, same crooked smile. I had to sit down.
My chest cracked like old wood.
You would’ve laughed. You always said I was too serious.
I’m writing this because I don’t know how to forget you.
And I don’t think I’m supposed to.
But I cannot be your bride. Not here. Not in this life.
I rang the bell once.
It answered.
But I stayed silent.
That was the price.
Yours in every dusk,
Esi_
---
Adjoa clutched the paper to her chest. It still smelled faintly of hibiscus and old ink.
She opened more:
---
Letter Seven – November 1995
> Kojo,
I saw her today.
A girl in the village. Maybe six or seven. She walked like me. Laughed like you.
She turned suddenly and looked right into my soul.
Do you do that? Do you come through people?
Sometimes I wonder if you’re scattered across time like feathers.
I miss the way you used to hold your silence. It felt like prayer._
---
Letter Fifteen – March 2002
> Kojo,
I dreamed of the river again.
This time, the stones bled.
I think our story is unfinished.
Or worse—it’s repeating._
---
But it was the final letter that stopped Adjoa cold.
It was dated exactly one year before her grandmother’s death.
And it was sealed in gold wax.
The only one with her name on the back:
> To Adjoa—when you are ready.
Her hands trembled.
She peeled open the wax, unfolded the page, and read:
---
> My brave girl,
If you’re reading this, you’ve done what I never could.
You’ve faced the man built from memory.
You’ve walked into the river that holds our grief.
And maybe—just maybe—you’ve started to rewrite what love is allowed to become.
Kojo was my heart. But he was also my lesson.
He is not evil. He is unresolved.
What we do not grieve becomes ghost.
What we silence becomes bell.
And what we never finish becomes a cycle that chooses our children to complete it.
You are not cursed, Adjoa.
You are chosen.
To end the ache.
To tell the truth.
To let love grow without haunting.
Burn the letters if you must.
Or write your own.
But never stop finishing the stories we were too afraid to speak aloud.
With all my breath,
Esi Aba
---
Adjoa wept.
Not because of pain.
But because for the first time, she felt like someone had passed her a torch instead of a wound.
She gathered the letters.
Each one a testimony of grief, of longing, of almost-love.
And she began to write.
- Writer
