Chapter 32: SHE RETURNED BUT NOT TO STAY

The journey back to Akwetia was decided two seasons after the escape from slavery . It was not long in distance, but it felt heavier than any path Abena had taken since the night she left the palace.

Not because she was afraid.

But because memory has its own weight.

She did not return as someone seeking home.

She returned as someone proving survival.

Ama walked quietly beside Adwoa, while Kato was carried against Abena’s chest. The village appeared slowly, the same clusters of mud huts and scattered compounds she had once known, but now they felt distant, like something that belonged to another life entirely.

Abena stopped at the edge of the village.

Her eyes moved across it slowly.

Then she spoke.

“I was twenty seasons when I left here.”

Adwoa looked at her but said nothing.

“I am twenty-seven now,” Abena continued. “Five seasons of slavery. Two seasons away from slavery”

She did not soften the words.

She let them stand as they were.

Behind them, people began to notice movement. Familiar faces. Unfamiliar silence. Then recognition spread in uncertain waves.

And then someone spoke her name.

“Abena?”

When they got to Kwaku Korsi's compound.

He was the first to step forward.

Kwaku Korsi.

Older now, his face marked by time and choices that no longer needed explanation. Behind him came her mother, Esi Korsi, her expression tightening the moment she saw her daughter standing there with children she did not know.

And then the rest.

Her elder brother, Kofi Korsi, standing beside his pregnant wife.

And her two younger sisters.

Her immediate younger sister—whose face changed the moment she saw Abena, stood akimbo watching.

Because beside her stood the man she had been forced to marry.

The same suitor Abena had once refused.

The same decision that had started everything.

Silence spread.

No one greeted properly.

No one knew how.

Abena stepped forward slowly.

Her voice did not tremble.

“Five seasons,” she said again, louder this time. “Five seasons in chains.”

Her father took a step forward. “Abena… you are alive.”

She looked at him directly.

“Yes,” she said. “I am alive.”

Her mother’s voice broke slightly. “We thought...”

“You thought I died,” Abena interrupted.

No one corrected her.

She looked at her siblings one by one.

Her brother lowered his eyes.

Her sisters did not speak.

Then she spoke again, her voice tightening.

“I was sold.”

The words hit harder than anything else she had said.

Kwaku Korsi’s face shifted. “We had no choice…”

Abena’s eyes sharpened.

“You had a choice,” she said. “You chose survival for yourselves.”

Her voice rose slightly now, not in anger alone, but in memory finally given shape.

“You sold me because I refused marriage. Because I would not bend. Because I would not become what you wanted.”

Her mother stepped forward. “Abena, please...”

Abena turned to her.

“Esi Korsi,” she said clearly.

The use of her mother’s full name made the woman freeze.

Then Abena turned to her father.

“Kwaku Korsi.”

Her voice was steady now, but heavy.

“You gave me away.”

Silence returned again, deeper this time.

Ama shifted slightly beside Adwoa, confused by everything she was seeing.

Abena continued.

“I was taken to a palace where I became nothing but property,” she said. “I was beaten, used, forced to give birth while working like an animal. I buried pain so deep I stopped counting.”

Her voice cracked slightly, but she did not stop.

"Two seasons away from slavery and from you"

She said and tears came, flowing smoothly.

Her brother finally spoke, his voice low. “We regret everything each day ..."

Abena looked at him.

“No , you didn't until now you have seen that I live” she replied.

Her pregnant sister-in-law stepped slightly forward, but said nothing.

The man her sister had married looked away entirely.

Abena’s gaze returned to her immediate younger sister.

“You married Nana Baffour.,” she said quietly.

Her sister’s lips parted, but no words came.

Abena nodded once.

“So you took what I refused.”

The weight of that sentence settled without needing further explanation.

Kwaku Korsi stepped forward again. “We are sorry.”

Esi Korsi followed. “We are your family.”

Abena shook her head slowly.

“No,” she said. “You are the people I came from.”

Her voice softened slightly, but only in exhaustion.

“Not the people I belong to.”

Kato stirred against her chest, letting out a small sound.

There was silence again.

No argument followed.

No justification survived her words.

Abena adjusted Kato and stepped back slightly.

“I did not come here to return,” she said.

Her father’s voice lowered. “Then why did you come?”

Abena looked at him directly.

“To show you that I did not break.”

Her eyes moved across all of them again.

“I survived what you sent me into.”

A pause.

Then she added,

“And I built something out of it.”

Adwoa stood quietly behind her, Ama now fully holding her hand.

Abena turned slightly.

“I am leaving now.”

Esi Korsi’s voice broke again. “Abena…”

But she did not respond.

Kwaku Korsi stepped forward one last time. “At least let us see the children...”

“No,” Abena said firmly

Abena's voice did not rise.

“They are not yours to touch .”

That final sentence settled everything.

There was no more argument after it.

No more apology.

No more attempt.

Abena stepped back fully now, turning away from the village that had once been her beginning.

Ama followed immediately.

Adwoa adjusted her hold and followed as well.

Kato remained against Abena’s chest, quiet now.

Behind her, the village remained frozen in silence.

Not in peace.

Not in reconciliation.

But in understanding too late.

Abena did not look back.

Not once.

The path forward was already chosen.

The forest, the shelter, the life she had built from nothing waited ahead.

She walked until the village disappeared behind the trees.

And when it was gone completely, she finally spoke again.

“Let them remember me,” she said quietly.

Adwoa glanced at her.

“I understand you" She said

Abena looked ahead.

“I was never meant to survive what they did.”

A pause.

Then she added,

“But I did.”

And she kept walking, remembering that she killed three souls to be alive .

All these she did and yet , she wasn't caught.

She left unseen .