Chapter 5 Rising from the rubble

The day Alice enrolled back in school, it rained.

Not heavily, not enough to flood the streets-but enough to feel like a blessing. She stood in the corridor of the local community college, holding her admission slip like it was a passport to another world. Her hands trembled, but her heart was steady.

It had taken her 15 years, eight children, and the death of her second son, to reach this point. But she was done surviving. She was done obeying. She was building her exit-brick by silent brick.

Festus had once forbidden her from continuing school.

"You don't need books to raise children," he had said. "You don't need education to be a good wife."

But now that the spell was fading, and the power of the charm weakening, she could think for herself again. And her first thought was: I need to become whole again.

Back at home, life was still brutal.

Her older children were teenagers now-some rebellious, some withdrawn. They bore the scars of an unstable home. Dennis,her first son, still could not live a normal life.He couldn't cope with non inclusion school as Alice could not afford a special needs school. Her daughters had started questioning the tension in the house. The younger ones clung to her like shadows.

Festus had stopped pretending. He no longer provided. No school fees. No food money. Not even a bar of soap.

"I made you," he said once when she begged for school books. "I can unmake you."

He thought starvation would crush her spirit.

Instead, it fueled her determination.

She took up sewing at night, learning through YouTube videos and help from a neighbor. She sold secondhand clothes at the market. She braided hair for girls at the local school. It wasn't much-but it was hers.

There were nights she went to bed hungry so her children could eat. There were days she cried in the bathroom so no one would hear. But for the first time in years, the tears weren't just from pain.

They were from purpose.

She kept everything hidden.

The school files. Her earnings. Her savings in a secret pocket of her old wrapper. Even her customers never knew her full name

Mama, one day, will you take us away from here?" asked her first son one night while she helped him with his speech exercises.

She looked into his soft eyes, full of quiet wisdom.

"Yes," she whispered. "One day, we'll leave. And we'll never come back."

Festus noticed the change.

"You walk like a woman who has a secret," he said one day, leaning against the doorway while she cooked.

Alice smiled without looking up. "I have many. You only know a few."

He laughed, but there was unease behind it. The charm that once made her weak was no longer working. He still had the children as leverage, but even they were slipping through his fingers. The older ones questioned him now. Asked about his absence. About the other women. About the bruises they sometimes saw on their mother's back.

Festus began to fear what he could no longer control.

So he tried to destroy her in new ways.

He mocked her schooling. "Book won't help a woman with seven mouths to feed."

He mocked her sewing. "You're just a house girl with needles."

But she endured.

Every exam passed, every naira earned, every customer she smiled at-was a stone added to the bridge she was building toward freedom.

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One night, Alice stood outside with her youngest son asleep in her arms. The moon was full. The wind gentle.

She whispered to the wind, "I will not die here. I will not leave my children behind. But I will leave. And when I go, I will not look back."