Chapter One: The Name She Borrowed
The first thing Lovely Olanma Okechukwu noticed about her father’s new shoes was that they were entirely too clean.
She stood frozen beside the splintered wooden kitchen doorway, the cold weight of a metal bowl filled with washed tomatoes balanced uncomfortably against her hip. Through the narrow, grease-filmed frame, she watched him cross the concrete floor of the sitting room. He moved with a heavy, unnatural stride, as though the flat belonged entirely to him and not the landlord who had already threatened twice in the last fortnight to throw their belongings onto the dirt road if the rent wasn’t increased.
The shoes were pitch black. Shiny. Immaculate. They were utterly unmarked by the red dust that choked the market roads outside.
David wore them only when he wanted people to take him seriously. Olanma had seen them out of their battered cardboard box only twice before in her seventeen years. Once, when he went to meet the wealthy supplier who had finally agreed to lease him the larger warehouse at the edge of the regional market. And once, on the rainy afternoon he went to sign the final papers for the bank loan.
Tonight, the shoes looked exactly the same. Her father did not.
He dropped his brass keys onto the small glass table beside the television with a sharp clatter that made the glass rattle, before slumping his shoulders and aggressively loosening the tight collar of his dress shirt.
“Lilian,” he called out, his voice thick with an exhaustion that ran deeper than his bones.
Her mother’s sharp response came from inside the smoky kitchen behind Olanma, accompanied by the hiss of palm oil hitting a hot pot. “What?”
“I’m hungry.”
Lilian appeared at the kitchen threshold a second later, a soot-stained wooden spoon clutched in her right hand. “You have been hungry since you left this house at dawn.”
“I have a stomach, Lilian, not a calendar,” David muttered, dropping his head back against the worn fabric of his favorite armchair.
“You said you were going to eat outside with the suppliers,” Lilian countered, her eyebrows drawing together as her eyes dropped to the shiny black loafers on his feet.
“I changed my mind.”
“You always change your mind the exact minute the pepper soup is ready.” A faint, practiced smile pulled at David’s lips, but Lilian didn’t smile back. Not properly.
Olanma watched her mother’s face from the shadows of the hallway. She had learned over the past few months to tell the difference between her mother’s real smiles and the masks she wore for the world. Lilian could smile while mentally calculating the rising price of a bag of rice. She could smile while rowdy market customers argued over the cost of her tomatoes. She could smile smoothly while David complained about the uneven, coughing sputter of the diesel generator outside.
But tonight, her mother’s smile stopped dead at her lips. It didn’t reach her eyes.
“Did it go well?” Lilian asked quietly, her hand tightening around the handle of the wooden spoon.
David leaned his head back against the cushion, closing his eyes. “It went fine.”
“Fine?”
“Very fine, Lilian.”
“That is not what I asked you, David.”
Her father opened his eyes, looking directly at his wife. The heavy silence that followed was suffocating. Olanma lowered her eyes instantly, focusing entirely on the wet tomatoes in her bowl. She began sorting them unnecessarily, turning each smooth red skin over in her palm as if she had suddenly discovered a critical defect in every single one of them.
“Where is Daniel?” David asked, shifting the subject heavily.
“Outside,” Lilian replied, turning back toward the stove.
“Doing what?”
“Breathing.”
David frowned, a deep crease appearing between his brows. “Your son.”
“Your son too, David. I saw him putting on his slippers before you drove in.” David let out a long, ragged sigh, rubbing his temples. “That boy.”
Lilian walked back into the kitchen, her voice trailing behind her. “Your daughter is here. Leave the boy alone.”
David’s eyes shifted, finally noticing Olanma standing in the dim light of the doorway. “Come and greet your father properly.”
“I greeted you the exact minute you came in, Daddy,” she said, her voice light but careful.
“That was not a proper greeting.”
“It was.”
“You said, ‘Daddy, good evening’ from the kitchen corner,” David countered, mimicry softening his gruff tone. “That is not a greeting, Lovely. That is an administrative announcement.”
Olanma pressed her lips together tightly, trying her absolute best not to let the smile break through. Her father noticed the small twitch of her cheek instantly.
“There. You are laughing at me,” he accused, though the tension in his shoulders relaxed by a fraction.
“I am not laughing, Daddy. I am holding tomatoes.”
“Tomatoes can still be held while laughing at your father.”
Before she could respond, the front door swung open with a loud bang, and her identical twin brother Daniel stepped into the sitting room. He was seventeen, lean, and currently chewing on a piece of fried chin-chin. His school shirt was only half-tucked into his trousers, and he carried one of his rubber slippers in his hand.
“Who finished the beef stew from yesterday?” Daniel asked loudly.
Lilian closed her eyes from the kitchen. “Daniel.”
“What, Mummy?”
“Look at yourself. Is that how a senior secondary student dresses to walk on the main road?”
Daniel looked down at his mismatched clothes, entirely unbothered. “I am dressed, ma. That is the important part.”
David rubbed his forehead, the brief amusement vanishing from his features. “Where are you going at this time of the evening?”
“Out,” Daniel said simply.
“Where?”
“Somewhere.”
“With who?”
“People, Daddy.”
“Which people, Daniel?”
Daniel let out a dramatic sigh, leaning his shoulder against the painted wall. “Daddy, if I give you all the information you are asking for right now, will you actually let me leave the compound?”
“No.”
“Then why are we wasting valuable time?”
Olanma covered her mouth with her hand, a breathless laugh escaping her. Daniel pointed an accusing finger at her instantly. “Don’t encourage him, Lovely.”
“I am not encouraging anyone.”
“You are smiling behind your hand. You are a terrible liar, sister.”
She lowered her hand, her eyes narrowing. “You are one to talk about lying, Daniel.”
Daniel grinned, his teeth flashing in the dim light. “There she is. The academic snake.”
David looked from one child to the other. For a brief, fragile moment, something warm and familiar passed across his weathered face. It looked like the old days—before the loans, before the late-night arguments that shook the thin walls of the house.
Then, his mobile phone rang.
