Chapter Thirteen: Ghosts of the Father
The call came at 3:17 a.m.
Adrian’s eyes fluttered open, the darkness of his flat stretching thick and unfamiliar. His phone buzzed again. Unknown number. London code.
He hesitated—then answered.
A deep male voice spoke on the other end. “Mr. Nwosu? My name is Uche. I’m calling from Enugu. Your father—he passed this evening.”
Adrian said nothing.
“We found your contact in his old Bible. I’m sorry for your loss.”
He hung up without a word.
By morning, he had booked the earliest flight to Nigeria.
He didn’t tell Maya.
He didn’t tell anyone.
But she found out anyway.
It wasn’t hard. She noticed the booked calendar slot marked “out of office.” Then came a call from Priya, who was worried about Adrian’s sudden absence. Something told Maya to look deeper. A quick check of his office desk revealed an old Nigerian number scribbled beside a boarding pass stub.
She stared at it for a long time before whispering, “Oh no…”
And just like that, she booked a flight.
The red dust of Enugu clung to Adrian’s shoes as he stepped off the motorbike that had brought him from the airport to the flat his father had died in. The air was thick with heat and memory.
Inside, a dim fan turned slowly above his head. On a nearby table sat the old Bible, its corners worn. Beneath it, photos — one of Adrian at age ten, beaming beside a science project. Another of his mother, smiling weakly in a hospital gown. Adrian’s throat clenched.
Footsteps echoed behind him.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Maya said gently from the doorway.
Adrian turned.
She wore a soft linen dress, her curls pulled back, her eyes calm but searching.
He blinked. “Maya?”
She took a step forward. “Your colleague told me something felt off. I called around. Pieced it together.”
“How did you even find me?”
“I knew the name of the city. I asked enough people until someone recognized your father’s name.”
He wanted to say she shouldn’t have come. That he didn’t need emotional backup. But the words wouldn’t come.
Instead, he lowered himself into a worn armchair and whispered, “He was a hard man.”
Maya sat across from him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Adrian looked out the window at the orange-tinted sky. “He taught me to fear vulnerability. To value discipline over softness. He believed success meant control. Always control.”
“And you believed him.”
“For too long.”
They sat in silence. Not awkward, not heavy. Just still.
Later, at the burial, Adrian didn’t cry. But when the priest read, “For everything there is a season…” his hands trembled.
Maya reached for them.
And he let her.
That night, back in the quiet of his father’s flat, Adrian opened the Bible. Inside, scribbled in the margins next to Psalm 147:3 — “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” — was his father’s handwriting:
“For Adrian. I was wrong.”
His vision blurred.
