The first sign was not the sickness.
It was the silence. Emerald noticed it on a Wednesday evening, after a long day that left her feet aching and her spirit thinner than usual. She reached for her phone out of habit, scrolling through missed calls, unread messages-advertisements, job rejections, empty noise. No call from home. Her mother never missed a week. Emerald told herself it was nothing. The network in the village was unreliable. Maybe Mama was busy. Maybe she had gone to the farm. Maybe she had simply fallen asleep early, tired in the way only women who had lived long lives of service could be, still, that night, Emerald slept badly. Two days later, the call came.
Her mother's voice was softer than Emerald remembered. Not weak-just distant, like it was traveling a long road to reach her.
"Emerald, my daughter." Relief rushed through her, sharp and sudden. "Mama! I've been calling." "I know," her mother said. "The phone has been disturbing me." Disturbing.
The word sat strangely in Emerald's ears.
"Are you okay?" Emerald asked, already standing up, pacing the narrow room.
There was a pause. "I am fine," her mother replied, too quickly. "Just small body pain. You know how these things are." Emerald knew her mother well enough to hear the lie wrapped in gentleness. Her mother had always been strong, the type to ignore pain until it demanded attention. The type who believed sickness was something you endured quietly so as not to burden others.
"Have you gone to the hospital?" Emerald asked. Another pause. "I will go," her mother said. "Don't worry yourself. Focus on what you are doing there. Lagos is not smiling."
Emerald laughed lightly, forcing ease into her voice. "I will come home soon. Let me just settle something." Her mother did not argue.
That should have scared her. The sickness grew quietly. Emerald did not see it, but she felt it - in the tone of her mother's voice, in the shortened conversations, in the way her mother now prayed for strength instead of progress. Sometimes her mother would cough while speaking, then apologize as though illness was a personal failure.
"Sorry, my daughter." Emerald began to send money, small amounts, never enough. Each transfer felt like a confession. Each one whispered, I am not there. Aminat noticed the change in Emerald before Emerald admitted it herself. "You are not okay," Aminat said one night as they sat on the floor, sharing rice that had gone cold. "My mother is sick," Emerald said simply. Aminat nodded, eyes understanding. "Go home." Emerald swallowed. "Not yet." The call that broke her came at dawn. Emerald was half-asleep when her phone rang, the screen glowing insistently in the dark. She answered without thinking. "Emerald," her aunt's voice said, heavy, unfamiliar. "Your mother has been asking for you." Emerald sat up. "What do you mean?" she asked, heart racing.
"She has not been strong," her aunt continued carefully. "She keeps saying your name. Saying she wants to see your face."
Emerald's throat closed. "I will come," she said quickly. "I will come this weekend."
There was silence on the other end.
"Try," her aunt said softly. That word-try-felt like a warning, she packed her bag that same day. Not with pride. Not with triumph. But with fear. On the bus ride home, Lagos disappeared behind her, but its weight followed. She rehearsed what she would say to her mother. She imagined her mother sitting up, smiling, scolding her for worrying too much. She did not imagine the smell of medicine, she didn't imagine the thinness, or the way death had already begun to introduce itself quietly, respectfully, as though it had been invited.