Chapter 6: The Turning Point

Nma closed her eyes, for years she had blamed timing, money, children and responsibility. But tonight... she was ready to tell the truth.

She opened her eyes, took a slow breath and quietly said,

"It didn't disappear overnight, It was taken from me...one promise at a time."

Nma could remember every sacrifice she had made. She simply couldn't remember when she had agreed to make them. The rain had stopped and the room was quiet except for the ticking of the wall clock. Adaobi sat opposite her mother, the old Biology textbook resting gently on the bed between them but neither of them touched it. It felt too important, almost sacred.

For several minutes, neither spoke, then Adaobi broke the silence.

"Mummy...Tell me everything."

Nma smiled faintly. "Everything?"

"Everything." Adaobi nodded

"I don't think I can."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know where it began."

Adaobi reached across the blanket and took her mother's hand. "Then begin where you first stopped being yourself."

Nma stared at her daughter, no one had ever asked her that before.

She took a long breath. "I don't think I noticed it happening, i think...it happened little by little." She took a quick pause then continued

"When I married your father, I thought I was postponing my dream. I didn't know I was surrendering it."

Adaobi remained silent. She wanted no interruptions, no explanations, only the truth.

"When you were born..." Nma smiled. "I was so frightened, I had never raised a baby before. There was no mother beside me, no sisters, no aunties. I had left everyone I knew, I was trying to become a wife...while learning to become a mother." She laughed softly.

"I used to cry when you cried. I didn't even know why babies cried. If you refused to sleep, I stayed awake. If you became sick...I blamed myself. I was figuring everything out alone."

She looked out through the window by her bed. "I remember after your younger brother was born, my body still hurt, I could barely stand straight."

Adaobi frowned."What happened?"

"The next morning...I went to the market."

"What?"

"We had no food and there was nobody else. So I carried my shopping basket, I walked slowly, I bought vegetables and I came home. I cooked."

"You had given birth the day before." Adaobi asked

"Yes."

"Mummy..."

Nma shrugged gently. "Who else would do it?"

Adaobi felt tears gathering in her eyes. "You should have been resting."

Nma smiled sadly. "I know that now, I didn't know it then. I stayed at home for years. I watched all of you grow, I packed lunch boxes, I ironed uniforms and I attended every parents' meeting. I waited at hospital beds, I stayed awake through fevers, I celebrated every good result and I worried through every bad one. I never complained."

Adaobi whispered, "I know."

Nma shook her head. "No, you don't. I loved being your mother, I still do. But somewhere along the way...I stopped being Nma, I became a mummy, even to my siblings"

She smiled. "And I forgot that before I became your mother I was someone's daughter, someone's friend...someone with dreams."

She paused to wipe the tears streaming down Adaobi's face. "I only started working when Chidera entered Senior Secondary School."

Adaobi nodded slowly. "I remember, The State Civil Service."

"Yes, I was forty it was my first real salary." She laughed. "I remember holding that first pay slip. I felt like a young woman again, It wasn't the money, It was knowing I could still achieve something but even my first pay slip wasn't mine. I had promised my sisters that none of the was going to go through what I went through, so even before I started working I deprived myself of a lot of things so we had enough money to send my sisters to school too.

Adaobi looked thoughtfully at her mother. "Weren't there other things you wanted to do?"

Nma smiled. "So many, I once started selling fabrics and It was doing well but your father said respectable wives shouldn't be hawking business, so I stopped. A friend introduced me to baking. I began making cakes, people liked them, he said the house was becoming too busy, so I stopped. I started selling provisions from home, he didn't think it looked good. So I stopped."

Every sentence ended the same way. "So I stopped."

Adaobi noticed it immediately. "Mummy, did you ever stop because you wanted to?"

Nma thought for a long time, "I don't think so."

"What about your friends?"

Nma laughed quietly. "I used to have many."

"What happened?"

"One friend was divorced and your father didn't want me around her, said she was going to be a bad influence to me and my daughters, so I stopped visiting. Another became a successful businesswoman, he said she was filling my head with ideas, so I stopped answering her calls. My closest friend moved to Lagos, she invited me many times but your father didn't see the need. So..."

"You stopped."

Nma nodded. "Yes."

Adaobi looked down at the bed. "What about church?"

That question made Nma laugh, a genuine laugh this time. "I've attended more churches than I can count. When your father liked one pastor... We all moved. When he disagreed with another... We all left. When he wanted a new denomination...We became members overnight."

"Did you ever choose your own church?"

Nma looked puzzled. "I never thought I could."

The room became quiet again. Adaobi looked around the room.

Every cupboard, every curtain, everything spoke of a woman who had built a home. Yet very little spoke of Nma herself.

Finally, Adaobi asked the question that had been forming in her heart all evening.

"Mummy, If Grandpa had allowed you to become a nurse, If Uncle Joseph's wife had allowed you to study...If Daddy had kept his promise, If his family had accepted you...If you hadn't had to give up your businesses, If you hadn't lost your friends...If you had been allowed to choose your own life..." She reached across the table. "Who would you be today?"

Nma looked at the Biology textbook, then at her wrinkled hands, then back at her daughter. A gentle smile spread across her face.

"I don't know." She paused then added, almost in a whisper, "And I think... that is the saddest thing I have ever admitted."

Outside, the first rays of morning sunlight crept through the window.

For the first time in many years, Nma wasn't preparing breakfast. She wasn't packing lunch, she wasn't thinking about everyone else's day, she was sitting with the woman she had spent decades trying to forget. And for the first time... She realized that maybe, just maybe

It wasn't too late to meet her.

Nma discovered that reclaiming your life rarely begins with a dramatic moment. Sometimes it begins with one quiet decision.

Nma barely slept because she was thinking.

For years, every morning had begun the same way: Wake before everyone, pray, prepare breakfast, wake the children, Iron clothes, pack lunches and basically think about everyone else's day before her own.

This morning, Something was different. She woke before dawn as usual.

She stood in the kitchen, filled the kettle then stopped. For the first time in twenty-four years, she asked herself a question.

"What do I want to do today?" And the answer surprised her.

"I want to learn." She whispered the words aloud, almost afraid someone might hear them. She smiled, it felt strangely wonderful but frightening too.

After everyone left the house, Nma walked slowly into the spare room. A small wooden desk stood against the wall and Chidera's old laptop was still there from the previous semester. She switched it on and the machine hummed to life. She stared at the screen, her fingers trembled over the keyboard because she had never searched for something simply because she wanted it.

She typed slowly. "Online Master's degree Nigeria." Hundreds of results appeared. She clicked one. Then another and another.

She read admission requirements, Course outlines, application procedures, Fees and closing dates.

Her heart beat faster with every page she opened. She felt like the young girl who had once walked into Uncle Joseph's computer centre and believed the world was still waiting for her.

One particular university caught her attention. It offered flexible online learning, weekend lectures, assignments that could be completed from home. It was open to students from different parts of the country, people who were returning to education after years away.

She stared at the words on the screen.

"Designed for working professionals and adult learners." Adult learners.

She whispered the phrase to herself. "Maybe that's me."

For years she had believed education belonged to the young, she had been wrong, learning had never stopped waiting for her.

She downloaded the application form. Her cursor blinked inside the first box.

First Name She typed Nma.

Surname, Date of birth, Address, Qualifications.

She reached the section that asked: Why are you applying for this programme?

She stopped. The cursor blinked patiently. She had written countless applications in her life. Applications for jobs, for promotions even for her children but never one for herself.

She began typing.

"I have spent many years investing in the growth of others while postponing my own academic journey. I believe learning has no age limit, and I am ready to continue my education, not only to advance my career but also to fulfill a dream I have carried for many years."

She read it twice. A single tear slipped down her cheek. She didn't wipe it away because this time they were not tears of regret, they were tears of recognition. For the first time in decades, she had written about herself.

She attached scanned copies of her necessary certificates.

Her Management degree, Her NYSC certificate, Her State Civil Service documents. Each file represented a different chapter of her life, none of them told the whole story.

Only she knew that behind every certificate was another dream she had postponed.

Her finger hovered over the Submit Application button. A familiar voice echoed inside her mind. "What will Chinedu say?"

Another followed. "Shouldn't you ask him first?"

Then another. "What if his family disagrees?"

Nma closed her eyes. For years, those voices had made every decision on her behalf. Today... Another voice finally spoke, stronger than the others. "What do you want?"

She opened her eyes and without asking permission or seeking approval, She clicked... Submit.

The screen refreshed. A message appeared.

Congratulations! Your application has been successfully received.

Nma stared at the words. She wasn't celebrating an admission, she hadn't even been accepted yet, she was celebrating something much bigger. For the first time since she was sixteen years old, she had made a life-changing decision that belonged to her alone.

She leaned back in the chair as her eyes wandered to the bookshelf to the old wooden box that sat quietly in the corner. She walked over and opened it carefully. Inside lay the Biology textbook.

She smiled. "You waited a long time for me." She gently placed her hand on its faded cover. "I may never become Nurse Nma." Her voice trembled.

"But I don't think the little girl who carried you all the way from the village wanted only a nursing uniform, I think...she wanted a chance."

She closed the box, not to hide it this time, but to protect it.

Because it no longer represented a dream that had died, It represented the girl who had survived long enough to dream again.

As Nma walked back into the living room, her phone vibrated, an email came in. Her application had been acknowledged.

She smiled. Then laughed softly. It wasn't a loud laugh. It was the laugh of a woman who had just taken back the first small piece of a life she thought she had lost forever.

And somewhere, deep inside her, the sixteen-year-old girl in the white nursing uniform smiled too.