08/11/2025
I cleaned his office for 8 years; He never knew I was the mother of the boy he dropped out in high school.
I was seventeen when I found out I was pregnant. It was my senior year in secondary school in Enugu when all I wanted was to finish my studies and dream of a better life. He was my deskmate: Nonso Okoye. Funny, always eloquent, son of a comfortable family. Me, daughter of a shoemaker and a saleswoman of bananas, barely dared to look him in the eye.
The day I told her I'm pregnant, he kept quiet.
— ARE YOU SURE? —he asked me, with a trembling voice.
—I haven't been with anyone else, Nonso. It's yours.
He never talked to me again. Within a few days, I learned that his parents had sent him to study in the UK. One morning, my mom found the doctor's letter in my backpack.
—You want to embarrass us? Look for the father of your baby! —she screamed, furious.
—Mom, I have nowhere to go...
— Then go away. There's no room for sinners here.
I was left alone, with a belly that was growing and a fear eating me inside. I slept in half-built houses, washed other people's clothes and sold oranges in the market to survive. When the time came, I gave birth under a mango tree, behind the house of the midwife Doña Estela.
""Hang in there, baby, almost there,"" she said, wiping the sweat off my forehead.
The child was born quietly, with clenched fists.
—What are you going to name him?
—Chidera. For what God has written, no one can erase it.
Life was a battle. Chidera and I share borrowed mattresses, cold nights and hungry days. When he turned six, he asked me:
-Mom, where's my dad?
—He traveled far, son. One day he'll come back.
— And why doesn't he call?
—Maybe he lost his way.
He never did.
When Chidera was nine years old, he fell ill. Fever , cough , sickness. The doctor said :
—It's a simple operation, but it costs sixty thousand naira.
I didn't have them. I borrowed, sold my ring, my radio, but it wasn't enough.
I buried my son alone, with a broken picture of his father and a blue blanket.
— Forgive me, son. I did not know how to save you.
I moved to Lagos, looking for a new beginning. I got a job as a cleaner at G4 Holdings, a technology company on Victoria Island.
—Your uniform is brown, your schedule is night. Don't talk to executives. Just clean — instructed by the supervisor.
On the seventh floor was an office with gold handles and thick carpet.
The sign read: “Mr. Nonso Okoye, Managing Director.”
I felt like my world was collapsing around me.
—It can't be…— I whispered, tightening my grip on the mop.
Nonso had changed. Taller, more robust, wearing an expensive suit and imported cologne. But his gaze remained the same: sharp, arrogant, as if the world owed him everything.
I cleaned his office every night. I tidied his papers, polished his glass table, emptied his trash can.
He never recognized me.
One afternoon, while he was cleaning his desk, my name badge fell to the floor.
—Does your name ring a bell?” he asked, staring at me. —You worked in Enugu before?
I smiled slightly.
—No, sir.
He didn't insist. He went back to his laptop, as if I were invisible.
That night, while I was mopping the conference room, I heard him laughing with his colleagues.
—I once got a girl pregnant in high school—he said, laughing. —She said it was mine. But you know how poor girls are, they say anything.
They all laughed.
I dropped the mop, ran to the bathroom, and cried for an hour.
—Why, God? Why me?
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