The lifeline Kemi provided became an anchor. Despite their back-breaking work, David could not make the money grow fast enough to repay the debt. The interest mounted, and the collectors, once polite, became aggressive and menacing. They were no longer just a number in a ledger; they were a constant, terrifying presence at their door.
Through it all, Sonia proved herself a wife of unimaginable strength. She did not blame or berate David. Instead, she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him, pouring every profit from her catering business into the bottomless pit of the debt. They became a team in a new, grim sense: a duo focused solely on survival. They would pay one collector, only for another to appear. It was a relentless, draining cycle.
But a business cannot survive when its profits are constantly siphoned away. Sonia's catering enterprise, once a symbol of her triumph, began to wither. She couldn't afford the best ingredients. She had to let her helpers go. The quality declined, and her loyal customers drifted away. The vibrant business that was her pride and joy was running down, its capacity drained by the relentless debt.
The final blow came when the threats from the collectors escalated beyond what any family could bear. Fearing for their safety and the future of their son, Oluwatobi, they made the most painful decision of their lives.
They packed what little they could carry and, under the cover of darkness, ran away.
They became fugitives from their own lives, fleeing from their state to another, leaving behind their home, their reputation, and the community they had built. The successful business owner and the respected hustler were now displaced, anonymous, and starting from zero once again—but this time, burdened by a past that had chased them from their home.
The new state offered no sanctuary, only anonymity and indifference. The phone calls to his mother and brothers, once a source of strength, now ended in awkward silences and hollow apologies. They could not help; their own resources were stretched, and the scale of David's debt was a tidal wave they couldn't withstand.
Then came the final, crushing blow. The debt was secured against the one thing of tangible value they owned: the house David had built for his family—the symbol of their triumph, the sanctuary Sonia had always dreamed of. The collectors, armed with legal papers, came and claimed it.
The eviction was not just a financial loss; it was a profound, soul-crushing humiliation. They stood on the street with their young son, their belongings in a few bags, watching the door to their home close forever. The walls that had witnessed their love, their child's first steps, and their shared dreams were now just a structure owned by a stranger.
David, the eternal hustler, the man who could always find a way, was broken. He tried everything—taking on any manual labor, hawking goods on the street, pleading for smaller loans. But the shadow of the massive debt and their flight made him a pariah. Every effort hit a wall. Every path led to a dead end.
"It's nothing," he would whisper to Sonia, his voice hollow, after another futile day. "Everything I touch turns to nothing."
They were now completely untethered: no home, no business, no community, and no hope in sight. The fall was complete. The proud, successful couple had been reduced to homelessness and despair, with only their strained love and their son as reminders of the life they once had.
There were no miracles in the new state. No long-lost relative appeared with a bag of money. There was only the hard, unyielding ground of rock bottom.
With the last of their strength and the final shreds of their pride, Sonia and David accepted the only option left to them: they had to go back to the beginning. They had to work for someone else.
The dream of being their own bosses—the caterer and the cocoa merchant—was buried under the mountain of their debt. Now, they were simply employees.
David, the once-respected businessman, took work as a day laborer on a construction site. His hands, once used for negotiating contracts, were now raw from mixing cement and carrying blocks under the scorching sun.
Sonia, the entrepreneur whose food had earned her a loyal following, found work in a noisy, crowded restaurant kitchen. She was back to being a food preparation worker, taking orders from a new cook, her own renowned recipes forgotten.
They rented a single, small room in a low-cost part of town. It was a far cry from the house David had built, but it had a roof and a lock on the door. Every evening, they would return to it, their bodies aching, their spirits weary, but their will unbroken.
They gave their all to these menial jobs. They were punctual, diligent, and reliable. They swallowed their pride and endured the orders and the low wages because it was the only way to put food on the table for their son and keep a fragile roof over their heads.
It was a "little life," a life of survival, not success. But in that struggle, they found a renewed partnership. They were no longer the high-flying power couple, but two survivors in the trenches together, fighting for every scrap, their love forged anew in the fires of shared hardship. They were slowly, painstakingly, laying a new foundation—one humble brick at a time.