When Toby stopped before her, neither of them spoke at first.
Then he said simply, “Bolanle.”
She lowered her eyes.
“Toby.”
For a few seconds, the entire square seemed to lean closer.
“I heard about the academy,” she said. “I came because… there are things I need to say.”
Before Toby could answer, the daughters reached them.
Bolanle looked at them fully for the first time in twenty years.
“Yetunde,” she whispered.
Yetunde remained still, composed but distant.
“Kemi…”
Kemi’s jaw tightened.
“Abiola. Folake. Titi…”
Tears filled Bolanle’s eyes.
“You have all grown so beautiful.”
Kemi stepped forward.
“Don’t.”
Her voice cut through the air like a blade.
“You don’t get to stand here and talk like that.”
Yetunde touched her arm. “Kemi—”
But Kemi had waited twenty years for this moment.
“Where were you when Daddy worked all night to pay our school fees? Where were you when people mocked us at school? Where were you when Titi cried asking why her mother left?”
Bolanle flinched as if struck.
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