Chapter 24: REUNION

Karim heaved heavily after Jemima stopped, unsure where the story went from there. The room was quiet except for the distant hum of traffic outside. He had followed her words like a priest listening to a dying confession, but there was something in her eyes—a flicker of pain, of memory—that told him the story

didn’t end where she said it did. He wanted to know more. He wanted to know how the two women—so different, so scarred—had become what they were now.

Aisha broke the silence as if reading his thoughts.

“That night at the bar, when she approached me for

an audience, I thought she was the daughter of one of

my patrons,” she began softly, her tone distant, her

eyes wandering into the past.

Jemima had sat with her over a couple of shots of cognac. The bar lights painted their faces in honeyed gold and shifting red, the world outside reduced to shadows and sound. As the story unfolded, Aisha’s heartbeat quickened. Her breaths came sharp, uneven. The humming of voices around her and the bass-heavy music from the adjacent club began to fade into a kind of suffocating silence. The air thickened. Her grip tightened around the glass until her fingers hurt.

She had always known—intuitively, stubbornly— that her father was innocent, but she had buried it

under the noise of survival. And now, sitting opposite the woman who could finally confirm it, the truth rose from her chest like something long buried clawing its way to the surface.

Her mind replayed her life in flashes: her mother’s screams, the blood, the nights of running, the faces of men who saw her as an object before they saw her as human. And in the middle of all of it—her father.

The man who had carried her on his back through the flood, who had told her stories of Lagos before it became rot and ruin.

Her voice broke when she finally spoke.

“Where have you been all these years?” she asked,

half menacingly, half curiously, her eyes wet but

fierce. “How could you leave him to rot while you slept comfortably at night?”

Jemima’s lips trembled. “I didn’t sleep,” she whispered, her gaze dropping to the rim of her glass. “I left because I couldn’t live with the nightmares. I ran because every wall in that house screamed his

name. But I came back. I came back for him.”

That night ended with silence more powerful than words.

But it didn’t end there.

They kept in touch. At first through hesitant texts, then calls. Jemima would check in every few days—

sometimes to share updates on her father, other times just to ask if Aisha had eaten. They met again, once over coffee at a small café tucked behind Oniru Market, where the sea breeze sometimes slipped through the open windows, and once more at Jemima’s flat where the air smelled faintly of old books and perfume. The awkwardness that had hovered between them that first night began to melt. Their conversations grew longer, deeper. They spoke of guilt, of fathers, of the ghosts that followed them both.

For Aisha, Jemima became the first person in years who didn’t want her body or her money—just her truth.

For Jemima, Aisha was a second chance. A living reminder that running from guilt never frees you from it.

And then one evening, over a quiet dinner, Jemima

placed her hand gently on Aisha’s.

“You have to see him,” she said. “Your father. He deserves to see that you’re alive.”

Aisha’s hand froze. Her fork clattered against the

plate.

“I can’t,” she muttered. “He’ll hate me. He’ll look at me and see a murderer. A failure.”

Jemima shook her head slowly. “No, Aisha. He’s waited all these years for hope. You are that hope.”

It took weeks of convincing. Dozens of calls. Nights of silence. Aisha would hang up whenever Jemima mentioned it, only to call back later and listen without speaking. But eventually, the walls began to crack. And one humid Thursday morning, Aisha called and simply said, “Let’s go.”

The drive to the prison was quiet. The sky was gray, the kind of color that made everything look washed out and distant. Aisha sat in the passenger seat, her fingers tracing invisible lines on the window. Her reflection in the glass looked unfamiliar—older, colder, but also fragile in a way she had long forgotten she could be.

When they reached the gates, she almost turned back. But Jemima’s hand found hers, firm, grounding. “You can do this,” she said softly.

Inside, the smell of iron and damp filled the air. Aisha’s steps slowed as they led her to the visitation room. Her heart beat so loudly she thought the guards could hear it.

And then—he was there.

Samuel.

He looked older than she remembered, but not broken. His beard was streaked with gray, his eyes

sharp and searching. When their eyes met, time

seemed to stretch thin, the years collapsing into a single unbearable moment.

For a heartbeat, neither of them spoke. Then his lips parted, trembling as if forming a prayer.

“Aisha?” he said.

Her knees buckled. She caught herself on the edge of the chair before falling. Tears blurred her sight.

“Papa…”

He stood slowly, like a man rising from a grave. His eyes were wet now too, the fire behind them

softening into something fragile and raw. “You’re alive,” he whispered. “My baby is alive.”

A sob tore through her chest. She rushed into his arms. Years of pain, guilt, and silence melted into that single embrace. The guards looked away, the world seemed to disappear.

“I’m sorry,” she cried into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry for everything. For running. For what I did.”

He held her tighter. “No,” he murmured, his voice breaking. “You did what you had to. You survived. That’s all that matters. You survived.”

Jemima stood by the door, tears quietly streaming down her face. She had imagined this moment for months, but even her imagination had not captured

the purity of it—the way love could exist even after the world had burnt it to ashes.

When father and daughter finally pulled apart, there was something new between them. Not forgiveness—at least not yet—but recognition. A silent understanding that they were both scarred by the same fire, both still standing in its smoke.

And as they sat down to talk, their voices low, trembling, filled with half-laughs and tears, Jemima knew something had changed.

This wasn’t just a reunion.

It was the beginning.