Chapter One: Born Beneath the Wrong Star
Amara was born in the center of Nsukka, Eastern Nigeria, on a rainy Monday night. As she cried into life, the thunder that split the night sky appeared to be a warning rather than a welcome. Amara was never seen as a blessing by her mother, who was only seventeen years old and still recovering from her own childhood trauma. Her dad? He was never identified. There were rumors of a ghost, a cousin's buddy, and a roaming soldier. However, Amara just inherited his absence.
Mama Eke, Amara's resentful grandmother, raised her with regrets in her eyes and felt that bad luck held onto Amara like smoke to a fire. "She's the reason her mother died in childbirth," Mama Eke would frequently yell at locals. When Amara first heard it, she was five years old and cowering behind a broken door with one arm holding a broken doll.
Her uncle Uche once spat out, "You're a curse child," after she spilled palm oil in the kitchen. She had no dinner and a wounded lip when she went to bed that day.
The Charming Voice of the Boy
The time spent in secondary school was fleeting. She first encountered Ifeanyi there. Light-skinned, tall, and capable of melting stones with her voice. He referred to her as "Sunshine" despite the storms pursuing her. She learned to chuckle from him without peering over her shoulder. He had become the beat of her heart by SS3.
He said, "I want to marry you," one evening following a school social. She took him at his word. He kissed her for the first time and then betrayed her.
She missed her menstruation three weeks after WAEC. "Are you sure it's mine?" he said when she told him.
She gave birth to pain from the rubble of her broken world.
Sixteen-year-old Mama
She gave her kid the name Nkem, which means "mine," since he was everything to her. Their little face-me-I-face-you apartment had noisy neighbors and broken cement floors. Under the sun, she strapped Nkem to her back while selling okpa in the market.
She would watch the stars from a rusting window grille at night, humming lullabies in between her sobbing.
"God, if you're up there, do you hate me this much?" She would mutter.
Her delight, Nkem, was never well. Malaria. typhoid. chronic coughing. Even after Clinics took all of her money, he continued to lose weight and his eyes grew too big for his small face. She fasted, prayed, and made deals with God. Nothing was altered.
Then he didn't wake up one morning.
The neighbors discovered her sobbing on the ground, clinging to his icy body and yelling, "Take me too! Please! "Take me too!"
The Man in the Suit
Lagos served as both her haven and her downfall. She met Chief Ajayi, a plump businessman with gold-laden promises and a salt-and-pepper beard. Saying, "I will make you a queen,"
She was placed in a serviced apartment by him. purchased her iPhones, wigs, and weekend trips to Dubai. However, every gift had a cost. Her thighs were bruised by his hands, and her spirit was marred by his rage.
She turned him down one evening. He threw a glass at her. Like a horrible torrent, blood streamed down her temple.
She just had a handbag and a sore face when she departed the following morning. The security officer didn't even give her a glance.
The Rain Doesn't Request Authorization
Once more, she attempted to begin. working as a waitress. makeup jobs. Ushering in an event. Anything that cost a lot and paid little.
At a friend's party, she met Daniel. He was unique. Or he appeared to be. Kind, religious, and constantly repeating the Bible. "Your scars don't scare me," he said.
In a low-key court wedding, he wed her. She thought that God had finally responded.
He lost his job after six months. Then he became angry. The beatings became downpours after beginning slowly, like a rain.
Once, he yelled, "You're cursed," "Everything you touch dies."
That night, she ran barefoot into a familiar downpour. At that moment, she realized that the storm had never truly passed.
An Address to the Heavens
Amara was thirty-five when she sat at a women's shelter beside a window and observed kids playing outside.
She remarked to no one, "I used to have a child," "He would now have been sixteen years old. Perhaps as tall as Ifeanyi. Perhaps ill. Perhaps grinning. I'm not sure."
She kept a frayed journal in which she addressed letters to God:
"To God,
Why not undo me entirely if I'm wrong?
Or am I teaching others a lesson?
Your endurance example?
Lord, I'm exhausted.
I'm really exhausted."
The Light That Persisted
In the shelter, she met Chinyere. A woman whose home was set on fire by her own husband. They began making little cakes together to sell.
"Let's call it 'Sweet After Tears,'" Amara chuckled for the first time in years when Chinyere stated that.
The company expanded. Orders arrived. They were given a tiny place by the refuge. They once provided catering for a business gathering. Amaka, a classmate from secondary school, was the HR lady there.
"Amara? God, oh God! You appear... strange.
She was offered a catering contract by Amaka. Then came more employment.
There was a steady resurgence of hope. Be cautious. like the sun after rainy months.
The Sky Never Forgets
Every birthday, Amara went to see Nkem's grave. Each year, she left a cupcake there. Just one candle. No wish.
She was forty when she stood next to Chinyere in their chain of three bakeries. Her clothing was yellow.
A young girl and her father entered. As he grinned at Amara, the child remarked, "You look like my angel."
Amara's eyes were filled with tears. With a smile, she leaned down and added, "Maybe I am."
Occasionally, it rains twice. Hope, however, does as well.
THE END.