Mama Efuna looked up with wide, watery eyes.
She stared at the face she had kissed as a baby. The face she had prayed for every morning. The face she had begged God to protect when he used to burn with fever as a child.
Chinedu. Her only son.
He stood at the entrance like a stranger. His chest rose and fell quickly. His jaw was tight. His eyes burned with anger. But beneath the anger, something else was hiding.
Fear.
Behind him, on the tiled veranda, Vanessa stood with her arms folded. She wore a shiny gown and a wig that looked like it cost more than Mama Efuna’s whole life. Her lips were curled into a small, cold smile, proud and slow, like she was watching a film she enjoyed.
Chinedu pointed at the street with shaking fingers.
“Get up and go!” he shouted. “Leave this house. Leave my life.”
Mama Efuna’s lips trembled. Her voice came out small, almost childlike.
“Chinedu… my son. Why?”
His eyes flashed.
“Don’t call me that!” he snapped. “I am not your son in front of people. You want to destroy me, right? You want my wife to look down on me? You want my neighbors to laugh at me?”
Mama Efuna tried to push herself up, but her knees were weak. The pain in her hip made her wince. Her wrapper was covered in dust. Her elbow bled a little.
She stretched out her hand toward him—not to beg for money, not to beg for food, only to beg for sense.
“Chinedu,” she said, her voice breaking. “I carried you in my womb. I washed people’s clothes so you could go to school. I slept on the cold floor when you had fever. I—”
“Stop it!” Chinedu roared.
He took one step forward like he might kick her again.
And that was when the whole street shouted at once.
“Chinedu!”
“Ah! Your mother!”
“Don’t do that!”
But Vanessa lifted her chin, calm and proud. She spoke softly, but her words were sharp.
“Chinedu, don’t let her perform this drama here,” she said. “If she wants to embarrass you, show her you are a man.”
Chinedu’s eyes flicked toward his wife.
Mama Efuna noticed that look.
It was not love.
It was not peace.
It was pressure.
The kind of pressure that makes a person do something evil just to appear strong.
He turned back to his mother and spat out the words that would stay in her heart like a knife.
“You are an embarrassment,” he said. “Look at you. Poor. Dirty. Smelling of old soup. I can’t build a future with you dragging me backward. If you don’t leave now, I will call the police.”
The street went silent again.
Mama Efuna’s eyes filled with tears so suddenly it shocked even her.
“Police?” she whispered. “You will call the police on your own mother?”
Vanessa gave a small laugh.
“Why not?” she said. “Let her go back to the village and cry there.”
Mama Efuna looked at Vanessa. She did not shout. She did not curse. She only looked like a tired candle flame.
Then she looked back at Chinedu—her son—and slowly, painfully, she stood up.
Her legs shook, but she forced them to hold her. She picked up her nylon bag from the sand. She brushed the dust off her wrapper with weak hands.
The street watched her, hearts pounding, eyes wide. Someone’s phone was already recording.
Mama lifted her head and spoke in a low but clear voice.
“May God judge between us.”
Chinedu scoffed. “Go. Leave.”
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