It was this heat that made the air vibrate: July in Jos. The city stood still in protest, fanning itself with folded newspapers and distant dreams of rain. In a small house behind a dilapidated church, Mary carefully folded a white blouse and packed it in her suitcase. Her last possessions.
Across town, Esther stood barefoot in the kitchen, staring at a pot of rice that had long since burned to the bottom. Her thin, trembling hands rested on the counter. Her phone vibrated again. Another message from Richard. She didn't read it. She didn't need to.
They had met in an unromantic place: a funeral. Esther's uncle. Richard, a distant family friend, had offered her a bottle of water and a handkerchief. "You shouldn't cry too much," he had said, smiling with a sweetness that seemed comforting. "Sometimes grief opens the heart to other things."
Esther, heartbroken and indifferent, had believed him.
A week later, he brought him home.
And Mary had waited.
Richard was never hers, not as truly as she'd once dreamed. But he had been first. Two years of dinners, shared prayers, shared plans. They talked about opening a pharmacy, about living in Gombe, where the air was better for her asthma. He took her hand in church. He promised.
When Esther appeared, it wasn't with scandalous intentions. It happened with her silence. With her laughter at Richard's wry jokes. With her too-close position on the sofa. With her way of making herself unavoidable.
Mary noticed everything.
"I think you're too sensitive," Richard said once when Mary mentioned him. "Esther is your friend."
Mary smiled then. A small, radiant smile. "Was she mine before she was yours, or was she yours before she was mine?" He didn't answer.
The romance was never confirmed. It didn't have to be confirmed. Mary saw it in the distance Richard took and in the way Esther's eyes stopped meeting hers. Love, when it dies, speaks loudly in silence.
The final straw came one night when Mary walked into the living room and found her laughing over old photos. Richard's hand brushed Esther's knee, too casually to appear innocent. Esther looked up and froze. Richard didn't even notice.
That night, Mary packed her things.
Now, in her small room, she zipped up the suitcase. Her mother's rosary hung from the handle. She had intended to leave quietly. But grief demanded an explanation.
She dialed Esther's number.
"Hello?" Esther answered uncertainly.
"I'm leaving," said Mary.
A pause. "Where to?"
"Somewhere where not every chair has your perfume on it."
Esther swallowed. "I didn't mean to..."
"Yes, yes," said Mary quietly. "And that's the worst part."
The conversation ended. Neither of them cried. They had spent their tears in different rooms, on different nights, alone together.
Richard was between two women and chose neither.
He loved them both in different, selfish ways. Mary was the dream he thought he should aspire to. Steady, calm, faithful. Esther was the fire he never expected: she burned through his routine and made him feel young and unpredictable again.
But he was a coward.
He had let Mary go without stopping her. And he had let Esther stay, only to hold a grudge against her in moments of guilt.
Weeks passed. Mary moved to Bauchi. She started working at a small clinic. She took long walks. She smiled more often. On Fridays, she bought herself flowers. She wrote herself letters and never sent them. She found a peace that needed no permission.
Meanwhile, Esther stayed. She tried to salvage what was left of Richard, but Mary's shadow remained like incense on old curtains. Richard no longer kissed her goodnight. He looked at her like a clouded glass.
One night, Esther asked him, "Do you love me?"
He didn't answer quickly.
Silence filled the room like a flood.
"I think I love the idea of you," he said finally.
Esther nodded. "And what am I, really?"
"I don't know," she whispered.
That night, Esther was moved too.
Months later, they met again.
In Jos, the city of beginnings and endings.
A cousin's wedding. The kind of event where old wounds are covered with gele and gold lace. Mary arrived first, radiant in coral and blue. Esther arrived an hour later, thinner, more elegant, but no less beautiful. Richard stood uncertainly by the drinks table.
They saw each other. And for an instant, the past hung over them like dust in sunlight.
Mary smiled first. "Esther."
"Mary."
They hugged. With love.
Richard approached, guilt dripping with cologne. "I'm glad to see you both."
Maria turned to him with the grace of someone healed.
"Oh, really?" she asked, but without malice.
Esther looked away. Her hands were shaking again.
They fell silent. Three people who had once loved and hurt each other now only nodded politely and spoke incomplete sentences.
Later that evening, Maria found Esther sitting outside in the garden light.
"I've forgiven you," Maria said.
Esther blinked. "Why?"
"Because hate binds you to someone as strongly as love. And I needed my hands free."
Esther lowered her gaze. "I never wanted to lose you."
"You didn't," Maria said. "You gave me back who I am."
There was a long silence. But it was peaceful.
Esther wiped her eyes. "He was never worthy of our hearts."
Mary laughed softly. But we had to lose her to know that.
The story of Mary, Esther, and Richard didn't end with marriage or revenge.
It ended with two women who once loved the same man learning to love themselves more.
And Richard? He stayed in Jos. Alone. A man haunted not by lost love, but by the women who found strength without him.
Some stories aren't about who conquers the man.
Some are about who emerges with their soul intact.
Thank you so much for reading 馃檹
