Ifeyinwa stood for a long time after he left, her hand still hovering over the spot where his presence had been. The newspaper clipping lay on her desk, a flimsy piece of paper that felt heavier than the glass skyscraper around her. Tragedy at Olumo River. She could almost hear the words singing, a low, urgent pitch only she could detect. The hum of the echoes was no longer a distant choir; it was a single, piercing note, a siren call to a past she had tried so hard to outrun. Nonso, with his tired eyes and a heart still broken by a lie, had managed to do in five minutes what five years of work had not: he had shattered her carefully constructed world.
She didn't get any more work done that day. She sat at her desk, staring at the clipping. Her mind replayed the last conversation she'd had with Nonso, his voice a ghost she couldn't outrun. The accusation was not a new one, but the weight of it, combined with the newspaper, made it unbearable. He had always been the first person she shared her secrets with. And now he was the one who was haunted by a lie she had told to protect her family. A lie that was no longer hers alone, but had now become a burden she had to carry.
She left the office before dark, the city lights beginning to flicker on like a million fireflies. The echoes from the street were a cacophony now, a symphony of forgotten voices and whispered secrets. She felt like she was drowning. She got into her car, a sleek, black sedan that was a symbol of her success, and drove towards her childhood home in Surulere. It was a familiar drive, but the city felt different, more alive and more menacing, now that its secrets were no longer just a hum in the background.
The city's pulse, a rhythm she had always moved to with a deliberate, professional grace, now felt erratic and dangerous. The traffic, usually just an inconvenience, was a slow-moving river of angry horns and exhaust fumes, each noise a new layer of chaotic sound. She saw a young boy selling bottled water between cars, his laughter a bright, hopeful note that was immediately swallowed by the growl of an engine. The echoes now carried the weight of these living stories, the unseen struggles and triumphs of a million lives. The air, thick with the smell of gasoline and fried groundnuts, seemed to press in on her, a physical manifestation of the city's history. It felt personal now, an accusation whispered from every street corner, from every faded sign and cracked pavement. She had built her career on the idea of a new, gleaming Lagos, a city of the future. But Nonso, with a single newspaper clipping, had reminded her that the old Lagos, the one she had fled from, was still here.
Her family home was a two-story house with a faded green gate, a stark contrast to the gleaming high-rises she designed. The gate, with its peeling paint and stubborn hinges, was a portal to a different world. A world where success wasn't measured in square footage and glass, but in the warmth of a mother's smile and the smell of home. The aroma of jollof rice and fried plantain filled the air. The television in the living room was on, a low, constant murmur of voices from the evening news. Her mother's face, etched with the lines of a life lived, softened when she saw Ifeyinwa.
"My first daughter. You did not call to tell me you were coming," Adaora said, her voice warm and a little reproachful. Her mother was a woman of quiet strength, a force of nature wrapped in a gentle exterior. She had always been the keeper of secrets, the silent sentinel of their family's past.
"I was nearby, Mama," Ifeyinwa said, the lie feeling like ash in her mouth. She didn't want to bring this into her mother's peaceful home. But she had to. She sat on the worn couch, the cushions giving way with a familiar sigh. She placed her briefcase on the floor and took a deep breath. She could still feel the faint tremor in her hands.
"Mama," she began, her voice low. "Nonso came to my office today."
Adaora's smile vanished. Her hands, which had been resting on her lap, clenched into fists. "Nonso?" she said, the name a question and a warning. "What does that boy want with you? It has been years." Her voice had a brittle quality to it, a tension that belied her calm facade.
"He knows about the lie," Ifeyinwa said, her voice trembling slightly. "He has a newspaper clipping from before the accident. About a boy who was pushed."
Adaora's face went completely still, a mask of cold fury. "There is no lie, Ifeyinwa. There was a terrible accident. That is all there is to it." The words were a practiced defense, a wall built over years.
"That's not true, Mama. I heard the echoes. I know what happened. You asked me to lie to protect us. To protect Nonso." Ifeyinwa's carefully contained anger, the one she had tried to bury in her work, bubbled to the surface. "You said it was to protect us. To protect me. But what was it really for? What did the Omololu family give us?"
The Omololu family. The name felt like a snake, cold and slithering. They were one of the most powerful families in Lagos, their wealth built on a foundation of political connections and whispered-about business deals. A family so powerful, no one dared to cross them. They were the kind of people who made problems disappear, who could pull strings and rewrite histories. They were untouchable.
Adaora finally turned to face her, her eyes blazing with a mixture of fear and defiance. "You don't know anything, Ifeyinwa. You were just a child. They were going to ruin your father's business. They were going to take everything from us." She took a step closer, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "The debts were mounting. They controlled the city's contracts. They could have blacklisted him, made sure he never worked again. We would have lost everything—the house, your school fees, everything." She pointed to the walls around them. "They knew about the gift. They knew that you could be used. You had to tell the lie. It was the only way to save us."
The revelation hit Ifeyinwa like a physical blow. The "gift" was not just a family secret. It was a liability, a weakness that a powerful family could exploit. She had always thought of it as her burden, a constant headache. But to the Omololu family, it was a tool. A piece of leverage to be used against a family they wanted to control. What did they know? How had they found out? The questions swirled in her mind, a new kind of echo she had never experienced before.
"What did they know, Mama?" Ifeyinwa asked, her voice barely a whisper. "What did they know about the gift?"
Adaora looked away, her face a mask of regret. "I told you, you were just a child. We did what we had to do. Now leave it be. You have a good life. A good career. Do not go looking for trouble, Ifeyinwa. The city has many secrets. You cannot know them all." Her mother's plea was not one of simple denial, but of profound fear. It was the fear of a woman who had once stood at the edge of a cliff and had to sacrifice a piece of her soul to pull her family back.
Ifeyinwa felt a new kind of anger, colder and harder than before. Not just at Nonso, but at her mother. She had been used, a pawn in a game she hadn't even known she was playing. The "lie" was just the first domino. The real truth was buried deeper, and the Omololu family held the shovel. She saw her mother's plea for what it was: a desperate attempt to keep the past buried and her own daughter safe from the very darkness she had once navigated.
"I need to talk to someone else, Mama. I need to know the truth. Tell me, who else knew? Who else was a part of this?"
Adaora sighed, a sound that carried the weight of years of secrets. "There was my cousin, Nnenna. She was a reporter at the time. She helped me. She was the one who helped us get the debt settled."
"Where is she now?" Ifeyinwa's heart hammered in her chest.
Adaora shook her head. "I don't know, my daughter. We fell out a long time ago. She lives in Lekki now, I think. She works at a different paper. She does a lot of journalism about the city's past. She is a woman of the city, like you. She may know things. But Ifeyinwa, please, let it go. You do not need this."
Ifeyinwa stood up, her legs feeling wobbly. Her mother's plea was genuine, but it was too late. The past had already caught up to her. The promise of the new Lekki project, a beautiful monument to her success, was now tainted. The echoes of the city were no longer a curse, they were a path. She had to follow them. And the first step was to find her aunt, Nnenna. She had to find the truth, even if it meant tearing her own life apart. She had to do this not just for Nonso's mother, but for her own peace of mind. To reclaim her own story. To finally silence the incessant, humming chorus of the echoes and replace it with a single, clear note of truth. She would not live a lie, not anymore.