Chapter 16: A Call From Home
The quiet hum of my life in the city had begun to feel almost normal. Mornings were for work, afternoons for language classes and grocery runs, evenings for solitary study or the peaceful tending of my windowsill plants. I had even started to recognize faces in my neighborhood, exchanging hesitant smiles with a bakery owner or the woman who walked her small, fluffy dog every evening. These were the tiny threads weaving me into the fabric of this new society.
But no matter how many threads I wove, the cord connecting me to my past, to my family in Nigeria, remained taut. Weeks turned into months since I'd last managed to speak with my mother. Communication was sporadic, expensive, and often fraught with static and dropped calls. Each attempt was a gamble, a desperate reach across oceans and continents.
One evening, as I sat poring over a German grammar book, my phone, usually silent, buzzed with an incoming call from an unfamiliar international number. My heart leaped into my throat. It could be anyone, but a deep instinct told me otherwise. I answered, my voice a nervous whisper.
"Hello?"
A crackle of static, then a voice, thin and distant, yet instantly recognizable. "My child? Is that you, my child?"
It was my mother. The sound of her voice, imbued with the familiar cadence of home, struck me with an intensity that buckled my knees. I sank onto the floor, clutching the phone as if it were a lifeline. "Mama? Yes! It's me."
Tears streamed down my face, hot and unstoppable. It wasn't just the relief of hearing her, but the sudden, overwhelming realization of how profoundly I had missed her, how deeply I had buried that longing beneath layers of survival and new beginnings. We spoke in short, breathless bursts, trying to cram months of absence into precious minutes.
She asked about Europe, about my life. I tried to paint a hopeful picture, carefully omitting the desert, the sea, the fear, the isolation, the survivor's guilt. I spoke of my small apartment, my job, my improving German. I heard the tremor of pride in her voice, and it swelled my chest, even as the deception weighed on my heart. How could I burden her with the true cost of my journey? She had already paid so much.
Then, her voice softened, losing some of its initial excitement. She spoke of home, of the village. The rains had been good, the harvest decent, but the quiet undercurrent of her words told another story. Prices for goods were rising. The younger ones were struggling. Life was hard. And then she asked the question that hung in the air, unsaid, for so long. "When will you send money, my child? Your brother needs new books for school. Your sister's fever..."
The unspoken plea was a physical blow. I had been sending what little I could, but my part-time cleaning job, my rent, my food – it barely stretched. I had convinced myself I was building my future, but the reality was, my future was inextricably linked to theirs. The weight of their expectations, a burden I had willingly taken on, now pressed down on me with renewed force. My freedom, my new life, felt suddenly fragile, built on the shifting sands of their needs.
"I will, Mama," I promised, my voice thick with emotion, though I didn't know how. "I will find a way. Soon."
The call ended, leaving behind a silence far heavier than before. The small victories of my European life suddenly felt insignificant. My new routine, my language skills, my quiet apartment – they all paled against the urgent needs of my family. I had escaped the physical dangers, but the emotional ones, the burdens of responsibility and expectation, had followed me across continents. I looked around my room, at the plants, at my German textbook. This new world, this new life, was not just for me. It was for them. And the weight of that truth, in the quiet of my new home, was almost unbearable