He spent four long years suffering, pedaling a bicycle through the freezing London snow just to send his wife to nursing school. But the moment she finally graduated and landed a high-paying job, she threw him out like trash. Get out of my house, dirty delivery boy. You don’t fit my expensive lifestyle anymore. I am done.
But I am your husband. I work the same delivery job day and night to see you through school, and this is how you pay me back. Thank you for the help. What she did not know was that the very same night she threw him out into the freezing rain was the exact same day his life was about to change forever. Stay with me as I tell you this incredible story of betrayal and how karma always has a way at the end.
But before we jump into the details, please like and subscribe to this channel so you never miss a story like this. And also, leave a comment below telling me where you are watching from. Now, sit down well, relax, and let’s begin. The evening before Tunde and Remi left for London, they sat on their small balcony in Ibadan.
A notebook open between them, planning their future with the kind of hope only young people in love can afford. “First, you get your nursing degree,” Tunde said, his finger tracing the line he had drawn. “I work whatever I can find. Delivery, security, warehouse, anything.” Remi leaned her head on his shoulder. “Then, I get my first job and you cut back your hours.
Then, I become a matron and you never work another day in your life.” “Deal.” He kissed her forehead. >> [music] >> They had been married 4 years. 4 years in a small neighborhood in Ibadan where the roads were unpaved [music] and the electricity was unreliable. But they had each other and that was enough. Tunde worked as a driver for a logistics company while Remi studied part-time at a local nursing school.
When the opportunity came to move to London for Remi to complete her degree at a top university, [music] they did not hesitate. The plane landed at Heathrow on a grey November morning. The moment the airport doors slid open, the cold hit them like a wall. It was not the harmattan they knew.
This was a wet, biting cold that crawled into their bones. Remi shivered and clung to Tunde’s arm. “We will get used to it,” Tunde said, pulling her close. But they did not get used to it, not really. They found a small flat in Peckham, a basement apartment with a single window that looked out at a brick wall. The heating worked only sometimes.
The walls wept moisture, but it was theirs. Tunde had saved enough to cover 3 months’ rent and Remi’s first tuition installment. After that, they would be living on whatever he could earn. He found a delivery job the second week. A local courier company gave him a bicycle, a reflective jacket, and a territory that covered the busiest parts of South London.
The pay was per delivery, so the more he rode, the more he earned. He rode through the rain, through the sleet, through the dark mornings and the darker nights. His jacket was thin and tore at the seams within a month. His shoes, the same ones he had worn from Lagos, began to leak. By December, his toes were often numb by the time he returned home.
He bought a second pair of socks instead of new shoes because new shoes cost money that would go to Remi’s tuition. [music] Every day, before Remi even woke up, Tunde was already in the kitchen. He would cook her breakfast, eggs, bread, sometimes beans if they could afford it, and leave it covered on the table.
He would pack her lunch, a small container of rice and stew, and leave a note [music] beside it. “Have a good day, my love. I believe in you.” When Remi came home from her classes, exhausted from long lectures and clinical rotations, Tunde would already be there. He would have cleaned the flat, washed her uniforms, prepared dinner.
He would sit with her while she ate, rubbing her feet the way he knew she liked, listening to her talk about her day. He never complained about his own day. He never told her about the customers who shouted at him, the cars that nearly hit him, the rain that soaked him to the bone. He did not want to burden her. Some nights, Remi would fall asleep [music] on the sofa while studying.
Tunde would carry her to bed, cover her with a blanket, and then go back to the kitchen to finish whatever she had left undone. He would wash her dishes, fold her clothes, arrange her textbooks in order for the next day. He made sure she never woke up to stress. He made sure her world was as smooth as he could make it. He loved her.
That was the only explanation. He loved her more than his own comfort, more than his own rest, more than his own dignity. There was a Ghanaian man in Remi’s nursing program named Kwame. He was tall, confident, always dressed well. He had a way of speaking that made people listen. He had been admiring Remi since their first year.
He would bring her coffee, save her a seat in lectures, offer to study with her. Remi always declined politely. “I am married,” she would say, showing him her ring. Kwame would nod and smile, but his eyes lingered. Tunde knew about Kwame. Remi mentioned him once, casually. Tunde did not worry. He trusted his wife.
He trusted the love they had built. For 3 years, Tunde worked. He worked when his bicycle got a flat tire and he had to push it 3 miles to a repair shop. He worked when his knee started to ache from the constant pedaling. He worked when his shoes finally fell apart and he had to wrap them in tape to keep them together. He did not complain.
He did not ask for thanks. He simply kept moving. Remi graduated at the top of her class. When the letter arrived, she screamed. She jumped into Tunde’s arms, laughing, crying, kissing his face. He held her and cried, too, because all of it, every cold night, every aching muscle, every missed meal had led to this moment. “We did it,” she said. “Yes, we did.
” But something shifted after that letter. The day of Remi’s graduation arrived with grey skies and a biting wind. Tunde had saved for months to buy her a gift, a gold necklace with a small pendant. Not expensive, but beautiful. He had borrowed a blazer from a shopkeeper he knew, cleaned his shoes as best he could, and arrived at the graduation hall early to get a good seat.
He watched her walk across the stage, her cap [applause] and gown flowing behind her, and his heart swelled. He clapped until his hands hurt. When the ceremony ended, he pushed through the crowd to find her. “Remi,” he called, holding up the necklace. She saw him. For a moment, her face lit up.
Then she looked around at her colleagues, the doctors, the consultants, the people in expensive suits and polished shoes, and her smile faltered. “Tunde,” she said, her voice lower than usual, “I need to take pictures with my friends first. Wait for me.” He nodded. “Of course.” He stood at the edge of the crowd, holding her gift, watching her pose with her classmates.
She laughed with them, threw her cap in the air, hugged them tightly. Kwame was there, standing close to her, his arm around her shoulder for one photo, then another. Remi did not pull away. Tunde waited. He waited through the group photos, the individual photos, the photos with the lecturers. He waited for over an hour.
When he finally approached her again, she looked at him as if she had forgotten he was there. “Remi, can we take a picture together?” he asked. She glanced around. “I think I’m done with pictures. I’m tired. Let’s just go home.” “But Tunde, please. I said I’m tired.” He put the necklace back in his pocket. He did not argue.
He followed her to the car and they drove home in silence. He told himself she was just exhausted. It was a big day. She would be herself again tomorrow. But tomorrow came and she was different. The first sign came when Tunde visited her at the hospital. He had finished his deliveries early and wanted to surprise her with lunch. He walked into the lobby, his reflective jacket still on, his bicycle helmet under his arm.
Remi was at the reception desk with two colleagues. When she saw him, her face went pale. “Tunde,” she said, walking toward him quickly. “What are you doing here?” “I brought you lunch.” He held up the container. She took it from him without looking at it. “Thank you, but you shouldn’t come here.
It’s not It’s not appropriate.” “Appropriate?” “My colleagues are here. It’s a professional environment.” She lowered her voice. “You look like You look like a delivery man.” “I am a delivery man,” he said quietly. She said nothing. She turned and walked away, the container in her hand, and did not look back.
Tunde stood in the lobby for a long moment, then he put his helmet on and walked out. One evening, Tunde came home from work to find Remi on the phone. She did not hear him enter. She was speaking in a low voice, her back to the door. Mama, I want you to come. I need you here. Tunde is Tunde is not what I need right now. Tunde froze.
Yes, I know he helped me through school, but things are different now. I have a career. I have a future. He is still He is still the same. He still rides that bicycle. He still wears that jacket. Mama, I am ashamed. Tunde stepped back. He closed the door silently and stood in the hallway for a long time, his hands shaking. Then he went to the kitchen, made himself a cup of tea, and sat at the table.
When Remi came out, he said nothing. He never mentioned what he had heard. He told himself she was just stressed. She was adjusting to a new life. She would come back to him, but she did not come back. She drifted further. Mama G landed at Heathrow with four suitcases and an expression that said she had no intention of leaving.
She looked at the flat, at Tunde’s boots by the door, at his jacket hanging on the hook, and her lips curled. “This is where my daughter lives,” she said on the first day. “We are building,” Tunde said. She did not respond. She simply looked at him the way one looks at something that does not belong. Two weeks became a month.
A month became three. Mama G settled into the flat as if she had always been there. She cooked Remi’s favorite meals, planned her wardrobe, and filled her ears with words that Tunde could not hear, but could feel, like poison seeping through the walls. Remi stopped introducing him to her new colleagues.
When they asked about her husband, she said he worked nights. It was true, but the way she said it made it sound like something to hide. She stopped inviting him to hospital events. When there was a gala, she went alone. When there was a dinner, she went with her mother, who had arrived from Lagos and was now living with them. Kwame began appearing more often.
He would call Remi late at night. He would send her messages that made her smile. When Remi had a couple’s event at the hospital, a dinner for staff and their partners, she did not take Tunde. She took Kwame. She told Tunde it was a work thing and that partners were not invited. He believed her until he saw a photo on social media, Remi and Kwame dressed up, standing together at a table with other couples.
He did not confront her. He was afraid of what she might say. The business project came next. Remi was being considered for a senior position at the hospital. Part of the process required her to attend a formal dinner with her husband. The invitation specifically said spouses required. Remi panicked. She could not take Tunde. She could not let her colleagues see him in his worn jacket, his tired face, his hands calloused from years of gripping bicycle handles.
So, she lied. When her colleagues asked about her husband, she said he was working in night shift and could not attend. When they pressed, she said he was a security guard who worked unpredictable hours. She did not mention that he was the reason she had a degree, the reason she had a career, the reason she was standing in that room at all.
Kwame stood beside her that night. He played the role of the supportive partner. He held her hand, laughed at her jokes, posed for photos, and Remi let him. She smiled for the camera, her arm linked with his, while Tunde sat at home waiting for her to return. When she came home that night, she found Tunde in the kitchen.
He had made her dinner, her favorite stew, the one he had learned to cook from her mother’s recipes. He had set the table with the good plates, lit a small candle. “How was work?” he asked. She looked at the table. For a moment, something flickered in her eyes. Guilt, perhaps, or sadness. Then she looked at his hands, cracked and calloused, and the flicker disappeared.
“I’m not hungry,” she said. “I’m going to bed.” She left him standing there, the candle burning, the stew growing cold. Mama G watched all of this with satisfaction. She had never liked Tunde. From the day Remi first brought him home, Mama G had wanted more for her daughter. A doctor, a lawyer, a man with titles and land.
Tunde was a driver, a delivery boy, a man who worked with his hands. Now, Mama G saw her opportunity. “Look at him,” she would whisper to Remi when Tunde was in the bathroom or out on deliveries. “He still wears those shoes. He still smells of exhaust. Can you not see how he drags you down?” “He helped me through school,” Remi would say.
“Helped?” Mama G would laugh. “He did what a husband should do. That does not mean you owe him your future. You are a professional now. You work with doctors. You wear silk. And he He is still the same man who delivered packages in the rain. If your colleagues come to this house, how will you explain him? How will you introduce a bicycle man as your husband?” Remi would look at Tunde’s boots by the door.
Worn, cracked, held together with tape, and her face would tighten. Mama G saw the crack and poured poison into it every day. Remi had invited Kwame over for a meal. “It was meant to be casual,” she said, “a colleague visiting.” But Tunde knew. He had seen the way Kwame looked at Remi. He had seen the photos. He had heard the phone calls late at night.
He came home from work that evening, tired and soaked from the rain. His knee was aching. His hands were raw. He opened the door to find Kwame sitting at the dining table, a glass of wine in his hand, laughing at something Remi had said. The table was set with the good plates, the crystal glasses, the expensive wine Remi had bought for special occasions.
Kwame looked up when Tunde entered. His eyes traveled over Tunde’s wet jacket, his worn trousers, his taped-together shoes. He raised an eyebrow. “And who is this?” Kwame asked. Remi opened her mouth to speak, but Mama G was faster. “Oh, he is just a distant cousin,” Mama G said smoothly. “He came from Nigeria to find work.
Remi was kind enough to let him stay with us. He does deliveries. You know how these village boys are.” Tunde stood in the doorway, his jacket dripping onto the floor. He looked at Remi, waiting for her to correct her mother, to say the truth, to say, “This is my husband. This is the man who paid for my education.
This is the man who worked every night so I could sleep.” Remi said nothing. She looked at the table, her face red, and said nothing. Tunde felt something crack inside him. Not break, not yet, but crack. He turned and walked to the bathroom. He closed the door and leaned against it, his eyes closed, his breath coming in short gasps.
He stayed there for a long time, listening to the laughter from the dining room. When he came out, the dinner was over. Kwame had left. The table was cleared. Remi was in the bedroom, and Mama G was sitting on the sofa watching television. Tunde went to the bedroom. Remi was lying on the bed, her back to him. “Remi,” he said quietly.
“What happened tonight? Why did your mother say those things?” She did not turn around. “She was just trying to help.” “Help? She told your colleague I was a village boy. She told him I was a distant cousin. I am your husband, Remi. I am the man who” She cut him, her voice cold. “Please, Tunde. I am tired. Let me sleep.
” He stood there, the words unfinished in his mouth. Then he turned and walked out. That night, Mama G came to him. He was sitting on the sofa staring at the wall. “Tunde,” she said, her voice sweet like poison wrapped in sugar. “I have been thinking. You work long hours. You need your rest, but Remi also needs her rest.
>> [music] >> She has a big job now. She needs space to think, to plan her future. It would be better if you slept in the living room. Give her the bed. Let her breathe.” Tunde looked at her. “This is my bed, too. This is my home.” “Your home?” Mama G laughed. “What have you paid for? Remi pays the rent now.
Remi buys the food. Remi pays for everything. You cannot even afford a proper jacket. Let her have the bed. It is the least you can do for the woman who carries you.” Tunde said nothing. He went to the bedroom, took his pillow and a thin blanket, and brought them to the sofa. He lay there, the cushions worn and sagging, listening to the sounds of Remi and her mother talking in the bedroom.
The next night, Mama G came again. “Tunde, you are dirtying the sofa. Your clothes smell. Look at this stain you left on the white cushion. Do you know how much that sofa costs? Remi bought it with her money. If you cannot keep it clean, you should sleep on the floor. That is where people like you belong.” Tunde looked at the sofa.
There was no stain. His clothes were clean, but he did not argue. He took his blanket and lay on the floor, the cold seeping through his thin clothes, his body aching from the day’s work. He lay there and listened to Remi and her mother laugh in the bedroom. They were laughing about something. He wondered if they were laughing at him.
The days that followed were a blur of humiliation. Remi bought a car, a slick silver car that she parked outside the flat. She did not tell Tunde. He came home one evening to find it there. And when he asked whose it was, she said, “Mine. I bought it with my first bonus.” “Congratulations,” he said. “That is wonderful.
” She did not ask him to sit in it. She did not offer him a ride. She took her mother shopping instead, driving to expensive stores, buying clothes and bags and shoes. Tunde came home that evening to an empty flat and a cold kitchen. There was no food, no note, nothing. >> [snorts] >> He found bread in the cupboard and ate it plain, sitting at the table alone.
The weekend trips began. Remi would leave on Friday evenings, her suitcase packed, her hair done, her best clothes on. She would say she was going on a business retreat. Tunde believed her at first, but then he saw the photos on social media. Remi at a seaside hotel, Remi at a fancy restaurant, Remi walking hand in hand with Kwame along the beach.
She was not on business. She was on vacation with another man. When she returned on Sunday evenings, she would kiss Tunde on the cheek and tell him about the workshops and networking events. He would nod and smile and pretend he had not seen the photos. One Sunday, he could not pretend anymore. “Remi,” he said, “I saw the photos, the ones from your trip.” She froze.
“What photos?” “You and Kwame at the beach, at the hotel.” For a moment, her face showed something, guilt perhaps, or fear. Then it hardened. “You are spying on me now?” “I am not spying. I am your husband.” “Husband?” She laughed, but there was no joy in it. “Tunde, look at yourself. Look at what you have become.
You sleep on the floor. You wear shoes held together with tape. You cannot even afford to take me to dinner. What kind of husband is that?” “I am the kind of husband who worked every night so you could sleep. I am the kind of husband who ate bread so you could have cake. I am the kind of husband who” “That was the past,” she snapped.
“I am in the present now, and in the present, you are nothing.” She walked into the bedroom and closed the door. Tunde sat on the floor, his back against the wall, and stared at the ceiling. The next week, Mamaji sat Remi down for a serious conversation. “You have done well for yourself,” Mamaji said.
“You have a career, a car, a future. But Tunde, Tunde is a weight around your neck. He adds nothing. He gives nothing. He’s dragging you down.” “He helped me through school,” Remi said, but her voice was weak. “He did what he was supposed to do. That does not mean you owe him your life. Look at Kwame. He is a doctor. He has status.
He can give you the life you deserve. Tunde cannot even give you a proper bed.” Remi looked at the floor. “Send him away,” Mamaji said. “He is of no use to you. Let him go. You have your whole life ahead of you. Do not let a delivery boy ruin it.” Remi nodded slowly. “Okay, Mama.” On the coldest night of the year, Tunde’s bicycle hit a patch of black ice.
He went down hard, his body skidding across the road, his bicycle twisting beneath him. He lay there for a moment, gasping, his knee throbbing, his hands scraped raw. When he sat up, he saw the damage. The front wheel was bent. The chain was snapped. The frame was twisted. His bicycle, his lifeline, his livelihood, was destroyed. He limped to the side of the road and dragged the wreckage to a lamp post.
He left it there and began the long walk home, each step sending pain through his injured knee. The rain turned to sleet, then to snow. His jacket, already torn, offered no protection. His shoes squelched with water. He thought about Remi. He thought about the warm flat, the hot bath, her arms around him.
He kept walking, putting one foot in front of the other, until he finally reached their street. The flat looked the same. The lights were on. He climbed the stairs, his body screaming with every step, and reached for his key. It did not turn. He tried again. The lock would not budge. He looked down and saw a new deadbolt, a lock he had not bought, he had not been given a key for.
Then he saw the bags. Two black garbage bags sat on the wet sidewalk beside the door. They were tied at the top, the rain soaking through the thin plastic. He opened one with numb fingers. Inside were his clothes, his shirts, his trousers, his shoes, the photograph of him and Remi on their wedding day. He stood up slowly, the photograph in his hand, and knocked on the door.
“Remi.” “Remi, open the door.” The window on the second floor opened. Mamaji leaned out, her face half shadowed. “Go away, delivery boy.” “Where is Remi? Please, let me talk to her.” “Remi has moved on. A lioness does not sleep with a goat. We have filed the papers. Do not come back or we call the police.” Tunde knocked harder. “Remi.
” “It’s me, please. I paid for your school. I worked the night shift so you could sleep. Please, just open the door.” The door did not open, but behind the curtain, a figure moved. He saw her silhouette, the shape of the woman he had crossed an ocean for, the woman he had pedaled through freezing rain for, the woman he had loved with every bone in his body.
Her voice came through the glass, cold as the sleet falling on his head. “Thank you for the help, Tunde, but we are in different worlds now. Please, just go.” He waited. He stood there in the rain, his knee throbbing, his hands raw, his bicycle gone, his wife on the other side of a door that would not open. >> [snorts] >> The curtain fell back into place.
The silhouette disappeared. Tunde looked at the garbage bags at his feet. He looked at the photograph in his hand. Their wedding day, his face full of hope, her face full of love, a lifetime ago. He bent down slowly, his body aching, and picked up the bags. Then he turned and walked away. He walked for 20 minutes through the sleet, the bags dragging at his arms, his limp worsening with every step.
He found a bus stop, a glass shelter with a bench and a flickering light, and sat down heavily. The shelter blocked some of the wind, but not the cold. He sat there, shivering, holding the photograph, watching the rain fall. He reached into his pocket for something, anything, and his fingers brushed against a piece of paper, a scratch off ticket.
He had found it earlier that week, stuck to the bottom of a delivery bag. Someone had started scratching it, gotten bored, and thrown it away. He had put it in his pocket without thinking. Now, he pulled it out, his fingers numb, and looked at it. He had nothing else to do. He took a coin from his pocket and began to scratch.
The first box revealed a number, then another, then another. His hand stopped shaking. His breath caught in his throat. He scratched the final box, and the numbers lined up exactly. 10 million pounds. He looked up at the gray London sky, the sleet falling on his face, the garbage bags at his feet, the photograph of his wedding day clutched in his hand.
He did not scream. He did not shout. He laughed until he cried. Tunde sat at the bus stop for a long time after the laughter stopped. The ticket was real. He checked it once, then again, then a third time, holding it close to the flickering light of the shelter, reading each number as if his eyes might be playing tricks on him.
But the numbers did not change. He put the ticket back in his pocket. He walked to a small hostel near the station and paid for a room with the last coins in his pocket. He took a shower, the first hot water he had felt in days, and slept for 12 hours. When he woke, the sun was out. He went to the address printed on the back of the ticket.
He walked into the office of the National Lottery, a building he had never imagined entering, and presented his ticket to a woman behind a glass window. She looked at the ticket. She looked at him, his torn jacket, his worn shoes, the limp he could not hide. Then she smiled. “Please, have a seat, sir.” Six weeks later, Tunde was a different man.
He did not become a different person. He remained quiet. He remained deliberate. But the weight on his shoulders had lifted. He bought a small apartment, not a mansion, not a penthouse, just a clean, warm flat with working heat and windows that let in light. He bought a car, a sensible one. He bought new clothes, not because he wanted to look rich, but because he had spent four years wearing shoes that leaked water.
He did not tell anyone about the money. He did not post on social media. He did not call Remi, but he watched. He watched from a distance as Remi and her mother continued to live in the Peckham flat, unaware that their fortunes had turned. He watched as they spent money they did not have on clothes and dinners and status.
He watched as Kwame began to pull away. Kwame had grown tired of Mama Gee, her demands, her interference, her constant presence. He had liked Remi, but he did not like her mother. When Remi asked him to commit, he hesitated. When Mama Gee began making plans for their wedding, Kwame disappeared. Remi was alone again, and now without Kwame and without Tunde, she had nothing but a mother who whispered poison and a job that was beginning to crack.
The hospital discovered a discrepancy in Remi’s paperwork. Her visa sponsorship came under review. The apartment where Remi lived was sold to a new investment firm, and the rent tripled. She could not afford it. She could not afford anything. Mama Gee stopped whispering. She sat in the flat, her sharp tongue finally still as the eviction notice arrived and the sponsorship was revoked.
They had nothing, no money, no future, no one to call. Kwame had left. The colleagues who had smiled at Remi’s parties did not answer her calls. The status she had chased so desperately had abandoned her the moment she needed it. Six months after Tunde was thrown out of his own home, Remi and Mama Gee sat in a luxury office building in Mayfair waiting to beg for mercy.
The office was beautiful, marble floors, leather chairs, fresh flowers on every table. Remi had never been inside a place like this. She wore her best dress, the one she had bought for the hospital gala, and Mama Gee wore her finest Ankara. They had come to ask for more time on their rent, for a reconsideration of the hospital’s new policies, for anything that might save them from what was coming.
The chair turned. Tunde sat behind the desk. He wore a bespoke charcoal suit, cut perfectly to his frame. His shoes were polished leather. His hands, once stained with grease, were clean. His face was calm, his eyes steady, his posture relaxed. He looked at Remi the way one looks at a stranger, without anger, without longing, without anything but quiet recognition.
Remi’s legs went weak. >> [snorts] >> She grabbed the back of a chair to steady herself. Tunde? Her voice came out as a whisper. Mama Gee’s dead. Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. No sound came out. Tunde did not smile. He did not gloat. He simply sat there. “The apartment building where you live,” Tunde said, his voice even, “was purchased by my company six months ago.
The hospital where you work was acquired three months ago. I own both.” Remi’s hands began to shake. Tunde reached into his pocket and pulled out a small object. He set it on the desk between them. It was his reflective delivery jacket, the same one he had worn the night they threw him out. It was worn, torn, the fabric faded. He had kept it.
He had brought it here for this moment. “You said we were in different worlds now,” Tunde said quietly. “You were right. In my world, loyalty matters. In your world, people are thrown away when they are no longer useful.” He looked at Remi, and for the first time, something flickered in his eyes. Not anger, not vengeance, but the ghost of a pain that had not fully healed.
“I did not buy these things to punish you,” he said. “I bought them because I could, because I worked for them, because I pedaled through the rain for four years while you slept, and I am not ashamed of what I built.” He turned to his assistant who stood by the door. “Cancel the sponsorship. If she wants to stay in this country, she can find a job that matches her character.
I hear they need people to clean the streets in the rain. It is hard work, but it builds the soul.” He stood. “Security will escort you out.” Remi rose from her chair, her face wet with tears. “Tunde, please. I made a mistake. I was confused. My mother.” Tunde held up a hand. “Your mother did not put the garbage bags on the sidewalk.
Your mother did not change the locks. Your mother did not tell me to go away while I stood in the rain with my knee broken and my bicycle gone. You did that, Remi. You.” He picked up the reflective jacket from the desk and held it out to her. “You said thank you for the help. Now I am saying the same. Thank you, Remi. You showed me exactly who you are, and because of that, I am free.
” She took the jacket. Her hands were shaking so badly she nearly dropped it. “Goodbye, Remi.” He turned away. Remi and Mama Gee walked out of the office building in silence. The London rain had started again, a soft steady drizzle that soaked their clothes and dripped from the awnings of the buildings.
Remi clutched the reflective jacket to her chest, her finest dress soaked through, her mother walking beside her without a word. They had nothing, no apartment, no jobs, no visa sponsorship. Mama Gee stopped walking. She looked at her daughter, her sharp eyes now soft with something that might have been regret. “I only wanted what was best for you,” she said quietly.
Remi looked at her mother. Then she looked at the jacket in her hands. “You wanted what was best for yourself. You saw a doctor son-in-law and a house in Lagos and a life you could brag about to your friends. You did not see Tunde. You never saw him. And I, I let you blind me.” She began to walk, leaving her mother standing on the pavement.
She walked for a long time.
