The silence after the confession was a living thing in the hospital room. Mina braced for the end. For the sleek black car to vanish. For the evening visits to cease. For the world to snap back to its harsh, ungenerous reality.
It didn't.
The next evening, at precisely the same time, a soft knock echoed on the door. Mina's heart leapt into her throat. Lara, now sitting up in bed and growing stronger by the hour, shot her a sharp, knowing look.
"Come in," Mina called, her voice barely a whisper.
It was Emmanuel, the driver. He held a simple, brown paper bag. "Good evening, madam," he said with a slight bow. "From Mr. Dared. He apologizes; he is detained by an unavoidable international conference call. He asked me to deliver this."
He handed her the bag. Inside was not restaurant food, but a container of still-warm moi moi, steamed bean pudding, the kind sold by street vendors outside of schools. Nestled beside it was a book. Not a new, expensive hardback, but a well-loved paperback copy of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, its spine creased from multiple readings.
There was no note. The message was in the choices. Humble, Nigerian, intellectual. A direct response to her confession. He wasn't retreating; he was changing his approach.
Lara peered at the book. "Things Fall Apart? Is he trying to be ironic?"
Mina ignored her, running her fingers over the worn cover. He was telling her he'd heard her. He was respecting her boundaries, but he wasn't leaving.
The courtship of Adams Dared had begun. And it was unlike anything Mina could have imagined.
He didn't bombard her with gifts or grand gestures. The car remained, but Emmanuel became a quiet, unobtrusive fact of life. The extravagance was replaced by a focused, genuine thoughtfulness.
He discovered she loved the poetry of Christopher Okigbo. The next day, a fragile, out-of-print collection appeared, left with the front desk. He learned she missed the specific taste of suya from a vendor in her old neighborhood; Emmanuel somehow located the man and brought her a portion, still smoky and spicy from the grill.
But his true weapon was conversation.
When he visited, which was now every other evening, he never mentioned Tunde. He never tried to touch her. He simply… talked. He pulled his chair not too close to hers, and he engaged her mind.
"I was rereading the Okigbo book I gave you," he said on one visit, while Lara pretended to read a magazine. "The line 'The star has fallen on my head'… do you think he's talking about destiny or disaster?"
Caught off guard, Mina fumbled for an answer. "I… I think it's the same thing. Destiny is a kind of disaster, isn't it? It arrives whether you want it to or not."
Adams's eyes lit up, the way they did when he discussed a brilliant business strategy. "A fascinating perspective. So we are all just managing our personal disasters?"
"Aren't we?" she countered, feeling a thrill at the intellectual sparring. "Your sister gets sick. A stranger pays your bills. Isn't that a disaster of a kind? A beautiful, terrifying one?"
He held her gaze, and the air in the room grew thick with unspoken understanding. "Perhaps it is," he said softly.
Lara loudly turned a page of her magazine. The spell was broken.
The skepticism from her family, however, was not so easily dismissed. It arrived in the form of her Auntie Grace, her mother's sister, a woman whose face was permanently set in a frown of disappointment.
Auntie Grace swept into the room one afternoon, her eyes immediately cataloging the orchids on the windowsill, the new fruit basket, the obvious signs of a benefactor.
"So," she said, without preamble, after kissing a startled Lara on the cheek. "This is the famous hospital man I've been hearing about." She turned her hawk-like gaze on Mina. "A man who throws money at problems. What does he want, eh? A pretty young wife with no parents to ask for a proper bride price? A easy girl to keep on the side?"
Mina's face burned. "Auntie, it's not like that! He's just kind."
"Just kind," Auntie Grace scoffed, settling her considerable weight into the chair Adams usually occupied. "Men like that are not just kind. They are rich. And rich men are used to buying what they want. Has he met Tunde? Does Tunde know about this… kindness?"
The mention of Tunde was a well-aimed dagger. Tunde, who called every night without fail. Tunde, whose conversations were about lesson plans and the rising price of garri. Tunde, who was safe, and predictable, and whose family was already discussing dowry with Auntie Grace.
"Tunde doesn't need to know," Mina said, her voice tight. "There's nothing to know."
"Nothing?" Auntie Grace picked up the worn copy of Things Fall Apart from the bedside table. "He gives you books now? What does a teacher need with more books? Is he trying to be your lecturer or your lover?"
"Auntie, please!" Lara interjected, coming to Mina's defense. "He's been good to us. He saved my life."
"And now he thinks he owns it!" Auntie Grace retorted. "Mark my words, Mina. This man is courting you. Not in a way a decent man courts a decent girl, with aunties and uncles and a proper introduction. He is courting you in secret, with books and food, like you are a secret he is keeping. You will end up a hidden thing. Is that what you want? To shame your parents' memory?"
The words were designed to wound, and they did. They echoed Lara's earliest fears, giving them voice and legitimacy.
Later that night, after Auntie Grace had left, armed with enough gossip to last a week, Adams appeared. He looked tired but his face brightened when he saw her.
"I had the most fascinating debate today about the future of print media," he began, settling into his usual chair.
Mina, raw from her aunt's visit, couldn't engage. "Adams," she interrupted, her voice strained. "Why are you really doing all this?"
He stopped, studying her face. "What happened?"
"My aunt was here. She thinks… she thinks you're courting me like a mistress. In secret."
He was silent for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his gaze intense and serious. "Mina, look at me." She did. "I am not a man who does things in secret. When I want something, I am direct. I told you my feelings before you mentioned Tunde. I respected your honesty. Now, I am respecting your situation."
"By buying me suya and talking about poetry?" The question came out more accusing than she intended.
A slow smile touched his lips. "No. By getting to know you. The real you. The woman who is a teacher, a sister, a reader, a thinker. The woman who argues with me about destiny. Tunde may have an understanding with you, but does he know that woman?"
The question hung in the air, blunt and devastating. Tunde knew the woman who graded papers and worried about rent. He did not know the woman who felt seen by a line of poetry, who thrilled at a debate about abstract concepts.
"This…" Adams gestured around the room, to the book, to the two of them. "…is the only honest way I know how to court a woman like you. Not with aunties and uncles, not yet. But with genuine kindness, and I hope, with intellectual conversation. I am challenging you, Mina. And you are challenging me. That is not a secret. That is a fact."
He stood up to leave. "The extravagance was for a crisis. This… this is for you."
He left her then, with her thoughts and her aunt's venomous words ringing in her ears. But his words were louder. 'I am not a man who does things in secret.' 'When I want something, I am direct.'
He was courting her. openly, honestly, and on a battlefield of the mind and heart where Tunde didn't even know a war was being waged. The family's skepticism was a wall, but Adams wasn't trying to break it down.
He was patiently, brilliantly, giving Mina the tools to tear it down herself. And the terrifying, exhilarating part was that she was starting to want to.