Ada had been praying all week, hoping that the meeting with Ebuka would yield her desired result, yet it wasn’t even happening at all. He was always sending a message through his secretary to reschedule.

It was as though he was no longer interested in hiring her, and wanted to save her the experience of an awkward interview. If only he knew that she would prefer an awkward interview and a chance to prove herself, as opposed to being here like this with Richard, not knowing where the next meal would come from, or where to go now that the date on the ‘Notice To Quit’ letter she received, had passed.

Any moment from now, the landlord’s lawyer and police officers could come and chase them out. Little Richard was almost five years old, yet he had experienced more than his fair share of shocking moments.

First, it was his father. Two years after being married to her and promising that he would relocate the whole family to America, his main wife had called Ada to leave her husband alone. Apparently, Justus, her ex-husband, who was never really her husband, since he was married to another woman the whole time, actually came to Nigeria to marry her because his wife could not have children. Ada had been devastated after the call and had patiently waited for Justus to come and debunk the news shared by the woman. However, he simply threatened to take his son, so she packed out of the house he bought for them.

Justus had tried to kidnap Richard when he was three years old, and had actually succeeded. It was the worst period in her life. She had prayed like her life depended on it, because it did. Two days later, he returned with the boy, making another threat that he would be back, when his son had better sense to choose him over her. Apparently, Richard had cried and refused to eat anything till he returned him to his mother.

Ada couldn’t go back to her parents, because she was so ashamed of what the neighbours and extended family members would say about her situation. “I was so stupid” she had said to herself several times in the past three years. The only thing that didn’t make her regret her stupidity was Richard. She couldn’t imagine life without him. Yet, she couldn’t even give him a good life. Richard could no longer go to school.

Ada blinked back tears. If only she could get a job, then her life would be better.

“Lord, please remember us.” she cried out and Richard came to her. Apparently, he had woken up, and she didn’t know. Very quickly, she wiped off the tears on her face, hoping he wouldn’t see it.

“I saw you crying again, Mummy!”

Ada tried to smile.

“I wasn’t crying.” she tried to say but her voice was shaking. Suddenly, she bursted into tears, unable to control herself.

“Let’s call Aunty Gladys.” Richard said, his eyes misty too. He was about to cry because his Mummy was crying.

“We can’t call Aunty Gladys. Don’t worry, everything will be okay.” Ada said to her son.

Gladys already provided help by trying to get her this job that wasn’t working out. Even though they were sisters, they didn’t have that kind of relationship.

Ada had always been the church girl. Gladys was the party girl who also couldn’t be bothered about God. So, as teenagers and even up till adulthood, they never had anything in common. Gladys always felt like Ada was preaching to her, so they never could grow a close relationship. Yet, when Ada brought Justus home as the man she wanted to marry, Gladys had kicked against it. She said he looked like a player, and would not be faithful. Everyone had thought she was being her usual paranoid self, and that drew a bigger wedge between the two sisters. 

If she had listened to Gladys, she would have avoided Justus, and her life would have gone on a better path. The truth was that God didn’t approve of Justus too. Deep down in her heart, she knew this, yet she went ahead to marry him because she felt she was getting too old. At twenty nine, she wanted to be married so badly that when Justus had proposed, she ignored all the red flags, like how he didn’t seem to have siblings or a family, had only one friend, took a lot of calls away from her, and was unreachable for several days.

“Do we have to leave here today?” Richard asked for the fifth time, and she nodded. It was better to leave before they came to boot them out.

“Let’s just go to grandma’s place.” Richard advised, and Ada nodded in agreement. He who is down needs not fear a fall, but she also resolved that she was going to see Ebuka first.

Whenever she prayed, she was convinced that going to his office regardless of the meetings he kept postponing was the best cause of action. However, she kept holding back simply because she did not want to be disgraced. They were classmates, but he had probably forgotten her. Even though he was besties with her sister, they never ran into each other, and while they were both in school, he always looked down on her. Ebuka was the head boy, and she was just one of those girls who sat at the back. Ada never failed, but never passed either. She was just an average girl, easily forgotten.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

A bad day could get worse, Ada knew this. She just didn’t know it would be today. When she left Justus, all she took away from the marriage were their clothes, her certificates, and the car he bought for her as a wedding gift. A car that had served her well for the first two years, but just like the marriage, it also developed its own issues. However, unlike the marriage which she discarded immediately, she held on to the car.

It was all she had now; despite all the issues it kept having, it was still serving her. Wherever she showed up with the 2008 Toyota Camry, people still thought that she was okay, that things had not become so bad. However, today, the car which was loaded with all their belongings decided to get angry. They had just gotten to the junction of Ebuka’s Beauty Place when it stopped. 

“I poured water, what could be the matter?” she wondered, as she got down from the car.

“It is fuel. It has finished.” Richard replied to her, but she turned her nose at him. What did he know? Although the red ‘low fuel’ alert was on, she believed that she still had some. She bought five litres of fuel yesterday and they did not go anywhere with it. However, when she opened her radiator, she noticed that it was alright. The car was not overheating or anything. ‘Could it be fuel?’ She wondered.

“It is fuel.” Richard said again, and although he was smiling as he said it, it felt like sarcasm, and she rolled her eyes at him as she finally agreed that he was right. The boy wasn’t even five, yet he possessed the brilliance that even children twice his age barely had. 

“It is fuel.” Richard said again, and Ada quickly responded, “Yes it is fuel.” If she didn’t answer him, he would keep saying it.

She forgot the distance from her house to this area. If she had known, she would have used the last 1000 naira on her to top up the fuel, but she had also been so afraid to let go of her last card.

Standing in the middle of the road, Ada’s eyes filled up with tears as she closed the bonnet. It was at this exact time that a Mercedes SUV looking like it had just been unwrapped from the dealership store, parked beside her and wound down. Ada didn’t only feel the cold air emitting out of the car, she could also smell its nice fragrance even before she saw the driver. She immediately realised who it was, and wished that she could enter the ground.

“What is the matter?” Ebuka asked, and Ada blinked back her tears quickly, even though she sensed that he had already seen them. Someone was always catching her crying these days.

“It’s fuel.” Richard shouted from the back seat of the car, and for the first time since she gave birth to him, having a brilliant child embarrassed her.

Ebuka smiled at her son, then faced her.

“You ran out of fuel?” he asked, but it sounded like an accusation, and all the willpower to keep her tears at bay left her, as she broke down into tears. In the past, whenever she cried, she would try to keep her voice down to avoid alerting Richard, but right now, in this moment, Ada couldn’t be bothered. She was losing her mind.

Ebuka stared at her, confused about why his question could have incited such a reaction, but Richard ran out of the car and gave her a hug.

“Mummy stop crying!” he pleaded with his small voice.

“Why are you crying?” Ebuka asked, but she couldn’t muster the courage to answer.

“Mummy is always crying.” Richard said, and for the second time she really wished the ground would just open and swallow her up right then.

Without saying anything more, Ebuka drove away, and she was grateful, subtly praying that he would not know that it was her, and that she had not ruined her chances of ever getting a job at his company. Organisations avoided people with baggage and drama, and she had plenty.

She was waiting for him to leave, wiping her face, when she realised that he was only driving to leave the road and park properly. Few minutes later, he was rounding off a phone conversation and walking towards her.

“Ada, please leave the sun. Come and join me in my car. I have called one of my boys to get you fuel for your car. We can wait in mine till he arrives.”

He remembered her name. She didn’t know why, but it shocked her. If Gladys ever referred to her by name, she would have called her Grace, so there was no way he remembered her name through her sister. It was only in school that people called her Ada.

“You remember my name?” she said, wiping her tears with the back of her hand.

“Of course, I remember  your name. We were in the same class.” Ebuka said, as though it was a no-brainer. He then went to open the passenger’s door and the back door so that she and Richard could enter the car.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

The first thought that dropped on Ada’s heart as soon as they settled in the car was that she was smelling. The heat had been intense, and she had driven for thirty minutes in the sun without using deodorant because it had finished and she could not afford to buy.

‘He must definitely be regretting letting us in. We’re ruining his aesthetics’, she thought, when he broke into those thoughts.

“Now, tell me Ada, why were you crying? What happened?”

There, he said her name again, as though she too was one of the important people in the world who mattered, not a castoff who made a mistake she could never recover from.

“I am so sorry to have embarrassed you. I was just having a bad day,” Ada said, because it was easier than explaining that she was homeless, her child could no longer afford to go to school, she hadn’t eaten for two days so that Richard could keep having something to snack on, she needed a job so badly, and she was going back to her parents’ home in shame.

However, even if she didn’t say those things, the look on Ebuka’s face showed he had an idea of what she was going through. Gladys must have told him a few things.

“Don’t worry, everything will be alright.” Ebuka assured her. 

Everything will not be alright. In fact, everything was going from bad to worse, but she couldn’t tell him that either, instead she nodded in agreement with him, pretending to believe.

“Were you coming here to get your hair done?” Ebuka asked, and Ada almost laughed. 

Laughing at herself was what she did most these days, and Ebuka had given her another reason to do so. If ever she could afford to get her hair done in a place like Ebuka’s Beauty Place, then she could afford to put her son in a government school. Richard was not going to school. How on earth would she be making her hair?

He must think she needed a makeover. In her blue spaghetti dress and her hair parked to the back, she may not look like what she was going through but she still looked like she needed fixing.

Ebuka was looking at her waiting for an answer, and she was trying to form an intelligent one when Richard said: “Mummy’s job.”

“You have a job here?” Ebuka asked, confused.

“Don’t mind him.” Ada said shyly, then turned her face to warn Richard to be silent. Ebuka caught the exchange and was wondering what was going on, when Alex the company driver pulled up in a truck with some fuel for Ada’s car.

Ebuka was partly relieved to see them go, as she thanked him and practically jumped out of the car to assist Alex in fueling her car, but she left her son behind with him.

“Do you eat biscuits?” The little boy asked.

“Yes” Ebuka answered, even though the question felt a little off.

“Do you put biscuits in your car?” The boy continued.

“No, I don’t.” Ebuka said, trying to get what the boy was trying to say.

“Biscuit is good.” Richard said, nodding his head vigorously, and then he opened the door.

It was after he left that it clicked. The boy was probably hungry. A part of Ebuka wanted to take the boy to a nearby store and buy him biscuit, but he knew it would hurt his mother’s pride, so he refrained. 

However, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the little boy and his crying mother. So, he went to the nearest supermarket and bought some biscuits, chocolates and juices to keep in his car, for the next time he saw the boy, whose name he did not even know.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

The man Ebuka sent to give her fuel had brought fifty litres. Ada couldn’t remember the last time she filled her car with so much fuel, and all of a sudden the embarrassment she faced this afternoon meant nothing. Free fuel was free money, and no one was giving her that anymore.

“Would we get the job?” Richard asked from the back seat as soon as they were settled in the car, and she didn’t know what to say to him.

“God will provide the job.” Ada said eventually, and he nodded quietly, which was unlike him. Usually, he would have a question, so this could only mean one thing, Richard was hungry and didn’t want to tell her, because his small brain had registered that asking for food made mummy cry, and Richard did not want mummy to cry.

“Will you eat rice?” she asked him, and his eyes lit up with joy. They had been surviving on cereal for the past three days, and the look on Richard’s face right now was proof that he wanted something else badly. It may be her last one thousand naira, but she was determined to feed her son well with it. 

“Mummy, will you eat rice too?” Richard asked, possibly noting that he hadn’t seen her eat for awhile.

Ada reversed to turn out of Ebuka’s Beauty Place.

“Seeing you eat will make me happy.” was all Ada could say, and she hoped that would be enough.