the stillness of recovery. Alero often sat on the floor of her tiny apartment in Surulere, legs folded beneath her,

led him "Light" when no one was listening. Because that's what

ts, sleepless nights, and a kind of loneliness that didn't

st silence. She knew he knew. Someone must have told him. Lagos has

er memes at 1 a.m.-slowly disappeared too. Maybe they didn't know what to say. Mayb

didn't b

re

stylish secondhand blouses, denim jackets that looked like they belonged in Nollywood films fro

for diapers, milk, and sometimes,

othes herself. He rarely cried in public, as if he understood the unsp

customer in Ikeja, the woman looked at her and

o no

an eyebrow. "Wh

politely and

st armor. People rarely want the truth. They ju

ghts were

wl back in, Alero would sit at the window and write in her father's old notebook. Not

imes, but the silence w

eness looks like-my mothe

uestions I don't kno

nd she learned in Sunday school,

me the

velope, dropped at her doorstep

g was unfamili

er

. There's so much you don't know. So much I was too much of a coward to explai

nds tr

caught in

it over t

ly one perso

mo

't sleep t

ng Raymond's chest rise and fall. Fear tasted metallic in her m

or

r Mo

idn't

know if she

e need

neighbor, Mama Nkechi, a widow who'd taken a soft spot for t

ba Market and jeans that didn't quite fit anymore. She boarded

h suya stands, pepper sellers, and hawkers with dreams in nylon bags. But her heart had. She wa

wanted

ss the walls like veins. A single bench sat underne

meone

g sign, stood a woman in a yellow

eyes

her

irred dust

ned to stone. He

k one hesitan

ano

"You look just l

lero

into tears so deep they came from a

y s

idn't

n't

jus

her-Mabel-b

or. About running. About regretting. About stalking Alero's life from the shadows-school a

ispered. "But I broke yo

her long and har

ied. "I just knew I had to

n't heal

itched them b

hing crac

orgiv

t

e where it could

de her son, her heart beating slower than

Raymond a li

whispered into his ha