Daniel decided to leave the apartment that Saturday morning because staying inside it felt like standing in a room that echoed his mistakes.
The walls were too quiet now. Not the comfortable quiet he had once prized, but a hollow one that made every movement feel exposed. He showered, dressed without care, and drove aimlessly for nearly half an hour before realizing where he was headed.
His mother's house.
He hadn't planned the visit. He hadn't even called ahead. But something in him needed to trace the shape of the silence he was now afraid of—to understand where he had learned to treat quiet as safety instead of absence.
Mama Adebayo opened the door with mild surprise. "You again?"
Daniel forced a smile. "I was nearby."
She stepped aside to let him in, already moving toward the kitchen. Food appeared quickly, the way it always did. Her love had never been in question. It was just… contained.
They ate in silence for a while.
"Amara is still away," his mother said eventually, not looking at him.
"Yes," Daniel replied.
"She will come back."
Daniel hesitated. "What if she doesn't?"
That made his mother pause.
"She is your woman," Mama Adebayo said firmly. "Women complain, but they stay."
Daniel stared down at his plate. "What if staying is the problem?"
His mother frowned. "What do you mean?"
Daniel searched for words. "What if she stayed by becoming smaller?"
Mama Adebayo waved a dismissive hand. "Marriage is endurance."
"But what if endurance is lonely?" Daniel asked quietly.
The question hung between them, unfamiliar and unwelcome.
His mother straightened. "Too much talking causes confusion, Daniel. You are opening doors you do not need to open."
Daniel felt something inside him push back—not angrily, but insistently.
"What if the door was already open?" he asked. "And I just refused to look?"
His mother said nothing after that.
When Daniel left, he didn't feel absolved. He felt exposed.
On the drive home, memories surfaced uninvited—his mother holding everything together without complaint, his father retreating into silence, the unspoken rule that emotions were dangerous if examined too closely.
This is where I learned it, Daniel realized.
That night, he sat alone on the couch and wrote something for the first time in his life.
Not a message. Not an explanation.
A list.
Things Amara had asked for that he had dismissed.
Conversations he had postponed.
Moments he had mistaken for peace.
The list was longer than he expected.
Daniel closed his eyes.
For the first time, he didn't feel defensive.
He felt responsible.