Morning in Grace River always arrived like a hymn—soft, sure, and a little offbeat. The sun didn't rush itself; it eased over the roofs, slow as forgiveness. By the time Amara stepped onto the veranda, the street was already awake with noise. Pots clanged. Radios argued. Someone's rooster sang like it had something to prove.
She breathed it in: the smell of wood smoke and frying plantain, of rain still hiding in the red earth. The house on Hill Street hadn't changed much since she'd been gone. It still had the same patched roof her father swore would last another season. The bougainvillea by the gate was wilder now, leaning over like a gossip who had waited too long to speak.
Inside, she had barely unpacked. One suitcase open, clothes folded in deliberate hesitation. The floorboards still creaked where they remembered her. It was strange—the past didn't welcome her like a guest. It regarded her like someone late to her own story.
A knock came, loud and certain, followed by a familiar voice that could only belong to one woman.
"Amara! Ah! I said it can't be the same girl, but it is you! The city didn't carry you away after all!"
She smiled before she turned the latch. Mrs. Ajayi filled the doorway with her laughter, her body wrapped in a bold Ankara that announced her before she spoke. Her eyes were the same—bright, shrewd, endlessly kind.
"Mrs. Ajayi," Amara said, the name tasting like home and reprimand all at once.
The woman opened her arms. "You're thinner! Lagos has been using you for decoration."
Amara laughed. "I'm fine, ma. I eat sometimes."
"Sometimes," Mrs. Ajayi repeated. "See your neck. Your mother would not let you leave this house until you eat something heavy."
They hugged. The scent of camphor and pepper soup clung to the older woman, and something in Amara's chest loosened. When Mrs. Ajayi pulled back, she studied her face like a mother hen inspecting a lost chick.
"Still stubborn," she said. "You even stand like your father—shoulders proud, eyes pretending not to see what they see."
Amara looked away. "It's just been a long trip."
"Hmm." Mrs. Ajayi's voice softened. "Grief and distance do the same thing to the body. They stretch it until even comfort feels like a stranger. Come, sit."
They went to the veranda. The wooden chairs still leaned slightly, as if tired from holding generations of talk. Mrs. Ajayi reached for the kettle on the side table and poured tea with the authority of someone who had decided that conversation would require hydration.
"So," she said, "you've come home for how long? Or should we pretend you know?"
Amara smiled faintly. "I'm not sure."
"Not sure means long enough for gossip to change its flavor," Mrs. Ajayi said. "Good. You need that."
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the street stretch awake. A hawker passed, calling 'pure water, cold one!'; children ran barefoot past the gate, arguing over marbles. The ordinary beauty of it pressed against Amara like sunlight through glass—visible, unreachable.
Then came the unmistakable sound of slippers slapping the pavement, a rhythm Amara knew before she looked up.
"Mama Ejiro," she said under her breath.
The woman appeared in the gate's shadow like a memory too alive to ignore—head tie tied like a crown, wrapper tied for battle. Her voice arrived before she did.
"Who is in this house laughing when the morning hasn't finished praying?"
"Come in, Mama," Mrs. Ajayi called. "See your prodigal daughter."
Mama Ejiro stepped in, squinting until her eyes adjusted. Then she threw her hands up.
"Jehovah! It is truly you, Amara! I told my knees yesterday you would come, and see—you obeyed."
Amara stood, half laughing, half ready to flee. "Mama Ejiro, you haven't changed."
"God forbid I change," the woman said, gripping her hands. "When people like us change, the world tilts. Sit down before you fall."
Amara obeyed, smiling as Mama Ejiro perched on the edge of the chair like she might fly away any second.
"So," Mama said, eyes sharp. "You've come to stay? Or is this the visit you city people call checking in?"
"I don't know yet," Amara said carefully.
"Ah, the child of confusion speaks." Mama Ejiro clucked her tongue. "When a person doesn't know where to stand, even the wind will choose for her."
Mrs. Ajayi shot her a look. "Let the girl breathe."
"I'm only saying truth," Mama Ejiro said. "We prayed for this one when her mother was sick. I said, 'Lord, return her feet to this soil.' Now He has done it, she must decide if she came as seed or shadow."
Amara lowered her gaze, the words pricking at something she had not named yet. The two women began to argue, not in anger but in rhythm—Mrs. Ajayi teasing, Mama Ejiro dramatizing, both claiming ownership of her as if her absence had been a personal inconvenience.
"Since your father's funeral, this house has been half asleep," Mrs. Ajayi said. "You woke it."
"It's only a house," Amara said.
Mama Ejiro frowned. "That's what people say when they're afraid to love a place."
The line hung between them. Even Mrs. Ajayi didn't challenge it. The morning sun shifted, laying new light across the veranda, touching the wooden floor like forgiveness.
After a while, Mrs. Ajayi rose. "I brought you something," she said, lifting a small food flask from her bag. "Jollof and fried goat meat. Eat it while it's still hot."
"Thank you," Amara said.
"I'll check on you tomorrow," Mrs. Ajayi said. "And please, come to fellowship on Sunday. They'll want to see you."
Amara hesitated. "I don't know if I'll—"
"Just come," Mrs. Ajayi interrupted. "The roof still remembers your voice from choir practice. It will echo properly if you sing again."
Mama Ejiro snorted. "If she sings, angels will faint from surprise."
"Go home, Mama," Mrs. Ajayi said, laughing. "Leave the angels alone."
The women left together, their laughter fading down Hill Street like old music. When the gate closed, silence returned, but not the same kind as before. This silence was fuller, stitched with belonging she hadn't asked for.
Amara sat a long time, tracing the rim of her teacup. She remembered her mother's laugh echoing across this veranda, her father reading the paper aloud, pretending not to notice the way her mother corrected every political opinion he offered. They had loved loudly. She wondered if she still knew how.
Inside, she found the food still warm. The smell was childhood—tomatoes and spice and the certainty that someone had cooked because they loved you. She ate slowly, not out of appetite but reverence. Every grain of rice felt like a conversation with her younger self.
Afterward, she walked out the back door into the yard. The guava tree still stood there, older but defiant, its branches bending toward the fence. She touched its trunk, rough and familiar.
A voice floated over the wall. "Amara?"
It was Ejiro, Mama's youngest son—grown now, taller, carrying the wiry confidence of someone who knew his strength but hadn't learned to boast about it yet.
"I heard you were back," he said, smiling over the fence. "Mama's been preparing testimonies since yesterday."
She laughed. "Tell her I'm not a miracle. Just a visitor."
"That's what miracles always say," he replied.
They talked for a while—about small things: the flood last season, the market road still unpaved, who got married, who left for abroad and forgot to return. His laughter was easy; hers was cautious, like something she'd borrowed.
When he finally waved and disappeared back into his yard, Amara leaned against the fence and let the quiet soak through. The air smelled of rain and dust and distant palm wine. The simplicity of it pressed against her chest until it hurt.
She thought of Lagos—of noise dressed as purpose, of days devoured by schedules and silence disguised as success. Grace River was slower, but not soft. It demanded that you feel everything you'd postponed.
Inside, she found her mother's Bible on the shelf, the one with the spine cracked from years of service. She opened it without plan and saw a note in her mother's handwriting: "Return does not always mean retreat."
Amara closed it quickly, as if the words might call her by name.
She stood by the window until the streetlights blinked on, one after another, like hesitant prayers. Somewhere down the road, a child laughed. Somewhere else, a generator coughed to life. In the space between both sounds, her heart found a rhythm that almost felt like belonging.
That night, she dreamed of fire—not destructive, but warm. People sitting around it, faces she knew and didn't, telling stories that glowed brighter than the flames. She woke before dawn, tears on her face, unsure whether they came from peace or longing.
When she stepped outside again, the horizon was bruised with new light. The town was breathing, and for the first time since she'd arrived, she breathed with it.
Grace Note
Not every fire burns to destroy; some fires keep the house warm until we remember the way home.