Birmingham, UK – Summer 2022
The sun beat harshly through the thin, cracked blinds of the cramped two-bedroom council flat on the outskirts of Birmingham. The scent of fried onions from a neighbour's window drifted in, teasing empty stomachs. Inside, the Smith family clung to routine, to prayer, and to one another.
The two-bedroom council flat always smelled like reheated stew and old church clothes.
It sat on the fourth floor of a peeling brick block in Handsworth, the kind of building where the lift rarely worked and the stairwell held more cigarette butts than secrets. The wallpaper in the hallway curled at the corners like it, too, wanted to leave. And yet, to the Adeyemi family, it was home. Crowded, quiet, and barely surviving.
In the smaller bedroom, their parents slept.
Papa's mattress sagged in the middle, the headboard missing entirely, a tattered Gideon Bible tucked under his pillow like a spiritual seatbelt. He worked part-time as a cleaner at the local leisure centre — a job he believed God had given him as punishment or provision, depending on the week. Mama had a walking stick for one bad knee, but still managed to iron uniforms for neighborhood kids to bring in a few extra quid. Her back curved slightly now, from years of cleaning houses that weren't hers and keeping faith that never seemed to fix anything.
The larger room — though barely so — belonged to the children.
It was stuffy in summer, the windows too old to open properly. At night, the heat clung to their bodies like guilt.
Sarah, twenty-two, the first child, slept closest to the door. Always the lightest sleeper. Always the first to wake. She used her hoodie as a pillow and folded prayers under it like secrets. Her back was bent from too much thinking and not enough sleeping. She carried the invisible weight of firstborn duty — the bills, the groceries, the failed dreams, the unanswered prayers.
Peter, twenty, slept nearest the window, legs dangling slightly off the edge of his mattress. He had once wanted to be a pilot — now he delivered parcels on his bike, watching planes fly overhead during breaks. Sometimes he still looked up and smiled, as if hope was aerodynamic.
The twins, Nicholas and Hannah, both seventeen, shared a mattress against the wall. Nicholas had a softness to him, the kind of quiet most people overlooked. He liked sketching things no one asked to see. Hannah, on the other hand, had a temper like boiled oil and didn't believe in holding back. She argued with the TV, the government, and the mirror.
They had no wardrobe. Just a steel clothing rack Mama found on Facebook Marketplace and a cardboard box marked "winter stuff." Their shared belongings hung like stories — stretched jumpers, frayed school ties, and faded hoodies with peeling letters.
Sarah, the eldest, woke first. She always did. Even before the buzzing clatter of the neighbour's lawnmower started or the muffled shouting from across the stairwell echoed through their paper-thin walls. She didn't need an alarm; the pressure of responsibility was its own clock.
She slid out from between Hannah's legs and Peter's arm without waking them, stepping onto the cool floorboards. She didn't bother looking in the cracked mirror — her headscarf had slipped halfway off in the night, and her oversized T-shirt bore oil stains from last week's jollof rice She didn't care. Looks were for people who had time and money.
Down the narrow hallway and into the small kitchen, Sarah opened the nearly empty fridge. A half carton of milk. Three eggs. Two slices of bread — one suspiciously green at the edge. She sighed.
"Mama will say we should fast today," Sarah muttered, closing the fridge. "Again."
Mrs. Smith entered moments later, her wrapper tied tightly across her chest, her eyes red from another restless night. She was a woman whose strength had once been vibrant — a proud Nigerian woman who moved to the UK at 19, full of dreams and Bible verses. But time, immigration papers, and poverty had carved away at her.
"Good morning, my dear," she said softly, touching Sarah's shoulder. "Boil water. We'll make tea and share the last bread. God will provide, eh?"
Sarah nodded. She didn't trust her voice.
---
In this house, chores were shared like tithes — reluctantly but dutifully.
Peter took out the rubbish and helped Mr. Smith fix anything broken (though he mostly watched). Nicholas cleaned the bathroom and kept their second-hand electronics alive with YouTube hacks. Hannah washed everyone's clothes by hand — and stole glances at her reflection every chance she got. She was the most spirited, sometimes rebellious, sometimes sulky.
But it was Sarah who carried them.
She cooked. She prayed the loudest. She ran errands for Mama. She stretched ten pounds over seven days like a magician, calculating every Tesco discount and praying no one noticed when she skipped her own meals.
---
At 9:00 a.m., Mr. Smith's grumbling voice filled the hallway.
"Turn that music down!" he shouted at a neighbour before slamming the front door shut. He'd been out all night again. No one asked where.
Mrs. Smith whispered a prayer under her breath. "We have to go to church this evening," she said, "Deliverance service."
Sarah nodded again, forcing a smile this time. "Of course."
Because even in a house where heat and hunger pressed at every corner, their mother never missed a church service. Never stopped fasting. Never stopped believing.
---
As Sarah stirred the boiling kettle, the sun's rays hit the window just right, illuminating the faded scripture magnet stuck to the fridge:
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." — Job 13:15
She didn't know yet how much that verse would come to define her life.