The night before, Mama had braided my hair under the flickering glow of our kerosene lantern. Her fingers worked fast, her voice low as she hummed one of those Igbo lullabies that always made my sister Chika cry. I had begged her to tell me the story again - the one about the river spirit who stole a baby and raised her into a queen. She'd laughed, clicked her tongue, and said, "Ezinne, stories are for children who sleep on time." Then she kissed my forehead. That was the last time.
When I woke up, Mama's wrapper was still hanging on the hook behind the door. The cooking pot was untouched. The water in the clay pot hadn't been fetched. I waited for her footsteps, her voice, her humming - nothing came.
Baba arrived hours later, his shirt stained with palm wine, his eyes red. He didn't ask for her. He didn't seem to notice she was gone. He slumped onto the raffia mat and fell asleep, snoring like a broken generator.
By evening, the neighbors had started whispering. They always whispered first, before saying anything out loud. I overheard the woman from the next compound talking to Chika: "I heard there was trouble near the river last night. Police found a woman..." I didn't hear the rest. Chika's eyes had widened. Mine were already wet.
They never found Mama's body - at least, not one anyone identified as hers. No announcement, no burial, just her scent slowly fading from her wrapper, her shoes left untouched, her name never spoken again in that house. Baba forbade it. He silenced it like he silenced everything else - with his fists, his rage, his bitterness at the world.
Grief in our house had no space. It was as if we were expected to forget. But forgetting was impossible when every corner of the house reminded me of her - the way she folded laundry, the way she stirred her soup, even the way she tucked her Bible under the mattress like it was gold.
I used to dream of her return. In one dream, she came back, barefoot, soaked in river water, but smiling. She hugged me and said, "I couldn't stay gone. I had to see who you would become." I'd wake up clutching my chest, aching with hope.
But life does not wait for girls to dream.
Without Mama, everything changed. Baba drank more. Chika, though just twelve, took over the chores. I stopped speaking much at home. I stopped smiling. School became my only refuge.
Our school wasn't much - three classrooms, peeling walls, desks scarred with initials and secrets. But it had books. And those books were windows. In Eze Goes to School, I saw a boy fight to learn. In The Joys of Motherhood, I found women struggling to survive. I read stories about queens and rebels, girls who spoke and were heard. I wanted to be one of them.
I began to write.
At first, it was just sentences in the back of my math notebook. Then full pages. I wrote about a girl who found a talking mirror that showed her the future. I wrote about a boy who could hear the thoughts of animals. But one day, I wrote a story about a girl whose mother vanished by the river - and the dam in my chest cracked open.
My English teacher, Miss Remi, found the story. I was terrified when she asked me to stay behind. But she didn't scold me. She read the whole thing, then looked at me with something I hadn't seen in a long time - kindness.
"You have a voice," she said. "Don't ever let it be silenced again."
That was the moment I began to believe I might have something worth saying - something worth writing.
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