Agu smiled slightly, but his mind was elsewhere.
He had recently returned from a tech conference in South Africa, where a speaker had broken down while talking about her mother’s sacrifices. She cried on stage about a woman who sold corn to pay her school fees.
Agu had clapped with everyone else.
But inside, he had felt a sharp ache.
Who cried for my mother? he had wondered.
Did she suffer like that too?
All he had was a name: Sarah Naji. No photograph. No grave. Just a name an orphanage nurse had whispered to him once before quickly changing the subject.
So he worked harder, grew richer, helped more women—but nothing filled the void.
That day, after the investors left, Agu called his driver.
“Take the back route through Ogbete. I want to pass the market.”
“Yes, sir.”
His driver raised an eyebrow. Agu rarely passed through local routes, but he did not question it.
That was one thing about Chief Agu—he was unpredictable, but always precise.
Back at the market, Sarah had finally sold half of her bananas. She had made only 1,200 naira—not enough for repayment, food, and rent, but she was grateful.
She sat by a gutter and opened a sachet of water. Her knees throbbed. Her throat was dry. She had not eaten since morning.
A young girl passed holding sausage bread and malt. Sarah’s stomach growled. She looked away.
Just then, a boy no older than sixteen threw a plantain peel into the gutter beside her. Some of the dirty water splashed onto her wrapper. He did not apologize.
She did not complain.
She had learned to be invisible.
Suddenly, a black Range Rover slowed beside the gutter. No one noticed at first. Big cars were common there—politicians, pastors, and police drove by all the time.
But this one stopped.
Sarah looked up, squinting against the sun.
Her heart skipped.
The man in the car.
Something about his face looked familiar.
But she dismissed the thought. Rich men did not know women like her.
Inside the car, Agu’s eyes landed on her for only a second. He did not know why, but something about her posture, her spirit struck him. She reminded him of the dream he used to have as a child—of a woman in white bending over a crib, singing an Igbo lullaby.
He blinked.
“Are you okay, sir?” the driver asked.
Agu did not answer.
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