The black car sped through the Lagos night. Streetlights flashed across the windshield like blinking eyes.
In the back seat, Mama Efuna lay still, her chest rising slowly. Her wrapper was dusty. Her Bible sat beside her, still open where it had fallen.
The stranger kept glancing at her.
His name was Mr. Adawale.
In business circles, people knew him as calm, careful, and sharp. He was not a man who rushed into decisions. He did not believe in coincidences.
But tonight, something had shaken him.
That name.
Ada.
Mama Efuna had whispered it like a prayer.
Adawale pressed his fingers against the steering wheel. His mind ran backward through the years to a chapter of his life he had locked away.
He turned to the driver.
“Go straight to the hospital,” he said. “Fast, but careful.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mama Efuna groaned softly.
Adawale leaned closer and studied her face. The shape of her nose. The line of her cheek. The faint mark above her eyebrow.
His heart began to beat faster.
“No,” he whispered again. “It cannot be.”
At the hospital, doctors rushed Mama Efuna into the emergency room.
“She collapsed from stress and injury,” one nurse said. “And she has not been eating well.”
Adawale stood outside with folded arms, his expensive watch ticking loudly in the silence.
Then he made a call.
“Bring the file,” he said. “The old one.”
A pause.
“Ada’s file.”
There was another pause.
“Sir… that file?”
“Yes,” Adawale said. “Tonight.”
He ended the call and sat down heavily.
Minutes passed. Then hours.
Finally, a doctor came out.
“She will live,” the doctor said. “But she needs rest and care.”
Adawale let out a long breath.
“Can I see her?”
“Yes. But only briefly.”
Inside the room, Mama Efuna opened her eyes slowly. The lights were bright. The smell of medicine filled the air. She tried to sit up.
“Easy,” Adawale said gently, stepping closer. “You are safe.”
She looked at him in confusion.
“Where… where am I?”
“In the hospital. You collapsed on the street. I brought you here.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“My son,” she whispered. “Chinedu…”
Adawale said nothing.
She turned her face away in shame.
“I am sorry,” she said weakly. “I have nothing. I cannot pay.”
Adawale shook his head.
“Do not worry about money. That is not why you are here.”
Mama frowned.
“Then why?”
Adawale hesitated. Then he asked softly:
“Why did you say the name Ada?”
Mama Efuna’s eyes widened. Fear and confusion mixed across her face.
“Who… who are you?”
“My name is Adawale,” he said. “And Ada was someone very important to me.”
Mama closed her eyes.
For a long moment she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “She was my friend.”
Adawale’s heart skipped.
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