They almost flung me out. “Everyone called me crazy for marrying a 65-year-old woman,” but on our wedding night I saw a mark on her shoulder, heard “I have to tell you the truth,” and realized my entire life had been a lie.

—“Your real name is not Chidi Okafor,” Ngozi said.
“Not originally.”

My legs gave out.

I sat heavily on the edge of the bed.

—“Why?” I whispered. “Why would anyone lie about something like that?”

She swallowed.

And for the first time, I saw fear in her.

Not of me.

Of the past.

—“Because I ran,” she said.

Silence.

—“I was young. Seventeen. My family had already promised me to a man I didn’t choose.”

Her voice shook now.

—“When I got pregnant with you… it became a scandal.”

I stared at her.

Unable to breathe properly.

—“My father said the child would be taken. That I would marry anyway. That my life would continue as if you never existed.”

A tear slid down her cheek.

—“So I made a choice.”

My voice came out hoarse.

—“You left me.”

She nodded.

Barely.

—“I gave you to my sister,” she said. “She couldn’t have children. She agreed to raise you as her own.”

I shook my head.

—“You abandoned me.”

—“I saved you,” she said, sudden and sharp.

The force of it made me flinch.

—“If I had stayed,” she continued, “you would have grown up in a house where you were resented… hidden… treated like a mistake.”

Her voice broke.

—“I watched from a distance. For years.”

That hit differently.

—“What do you mean… watched?”