I put the bread on the dining table when I got back inside. In the faint light, the gold ribbon sparkled.
“Can we eat it, Mom?” Kene inquired.
“No,” I answered quickly. Too sharply.
He stopped moving, and his smile went away. “Why?”
I made myself be more gentle. ” Not now.” We just had lunch. “Maybe later.”
But I knew deep down that we wouldn’t eat it. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
Later that afternoon, Naza came and knocked on the door for our customary short talk about preparing Sunday school. She was a bright, outgoing woman who brought vitality to every room.
“Ah-ah! Who bought this?” she yelled as soon as she saw the bread.
I told her everything: how the neighbor had handed it to me, how I felt uneasy, how much money she owed me, when it happened, and the peculiar feeling that something wasn’t right.
Naza started to laugh.
“Don’t worry, my friend. Nothing will happen!” Don’t be overdramatic,” she said playfully. Then she said in a mocking tone, “I’ll cover it with the blood of Jesus.” Give it to me. “It’s too good to waste.”
She laughed without a care in the world. Not guilty.
And I gave it to her since I would rather not squander it.
“If you’re sure…”
“Give it to me, jare,” she murmured, flinging her head back. “I’m already hungry.”
She departed with the bread under her arm and was still giggling.
I remained at the door for a long time after she left, watching her go down the dusty path in the courtyard. I didn’t know that I would keep seeing that picture in my mind and wondering if I had made the worst mistake of my life.
I was giving my kids a bath that night at 7:30 when my phone rang. I wiped my hands and grabbed it up.
It
This time, she wasn’t laughing.
She wasn’t calm.
She was yelling.
“Chinwe! Chinwe! Ogbonna is yelling, “My tummy! My stomach!” He’s rolling on the floor! “Throwing up! What was in that bread, Chinwe?”
My heart raced to my throat.
“What’s going on?””
“It started out small, like a normal stomach ache!” She cried, “”Now he’s sweating and throwing up all the time. Chinwe, he’s getting weaker!”
I could hear her son slightly screaming in the distance. A child’s desperate, painful scream.
Something inside me froze.
“We’re bringing him to the hospital now!” Naza yelled. “He’s not breathing well.”
The call ended.
My hands shook like crazy. I fell onto the bed, and my tears made it hard to see.
“God,” I said in a low voice. “God, please. Please don’t allow anything bad to happen to the boy. Please.”
Minutes felt like hours. I tried to contact Naza back, but her phone was busy. It felt like my chest was getting tighter.
My spouse then ran into the room. “What happened?””
I cried as I explained. His face transformed right away.
“We need to get to the hospital right away.”
We took the kids, locked the house, and drove quickly to the clinic next to her house.
When we got there, I noticed Naza and her husband outside, crying. The nurses were in a hurry. There was a stretcher inside. Tubes. Shots. Charcoal that has been activated. The doctor administered a saline solution.
The doctor said:
“Food poisoning.” This is a very serious case. Thank God you brought him early. If we had waited another thirty minutes, we might have lost him.
Naza fell to the ground and started crying.
Her husband clutched her tightly, and they both shook as their son lay there with wires and tubes all around him.
I stood there, transfixed, with remorse rushing over me like a hurricane.
If Ogbonna got hurt…
If he died…
I didn’t know if I would ever get well.
Ogbonna lay quiet in the ward. He wasn’t breathing deeply. A nurse cleaned his forehead. One person changed the drip. Naza sat next to him and held his little hand.
He would sometimes mumble, “Mummy,” and then he would go back to being in pain.
I couldn’t stop crying.
“I’m so sorry,” I said softly.
Naza shook her head slowly. “It’s not your fault. You told me. I didn’t pay attention.
I still felt the weight of my duty crushing my chest.
Hours went by. Then, little by little, he became better. The throwing up stopped. His eyes opened and closed quickly.
He muttered, “Mummy…”
Naza cried with relief.
The doctor finally came back and stated, “He’ll be fine.” You moved quickly.
Those words kept me sane.
When word got out in our compound, the people convened like a little council. There were questions everywhere.
“Who bought the bread?””
“What happened?”“
“Is the boy all right?””
In the end, the questioning led to Madam Christiana.
She flung her hands up as they informed her what occurred.
“Me? Ha! God forbid! I didn’t do anything! I swear on my life!”
“Where did you get the bread?” someone inquired.
She had trouble speaking. “A—a seller at the park.”
Not sure.
“You ate the other bread?” Someone inquired.
“Yes!” Yes! I got two! “I ate one myself.”
However, her gaze was scattered.
Her hands shook a little.
Thereafter, she sought to transfer the blame. “Maybe the person selling bread did something! The bread might have been awful!”
Naza pulled me away, her eyes on fire.
“Let’s make her eat the rest of the bread,” she said in a harsh whisper. “We’ll know if she eats it.”
But my husband got in the way.
“No,” he responded in a calm but forceful voice. “Let it go.” Let God be the judge.
I tightened my jaw. “But she might have killed a child.”
“Let it go,” he said again. “Leave it.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay.”
But that day, something cracked between me and my neighbor. Totally.
Thereafter, I broke all ties. I deleted, blocked, and removed her from all of my social media accounts. I let her go with the money she owed me. Almost three hundred thousand. Gone.
I determined that some losses were better than death.
Some wars were better left to God.
Life went on, but the recollection hurt me. When I saw little kids at Sunday school, I thought of Ogbonna’s small body lying on the hospital bed.
In the end, our family got bigger. More kids. This meant we had more activities to engage in. More dreams. We relocated to a bigger house on the other side of town. I left the old compound and tried to forget about it.
Years went by.
I got a note from an old neighbor one afternoon as I was folding clothes.
“Did you hear?” Madam Christiana has had a severe stroke.”
I froze.
“What happened?” I typed back.
“She’s in bed now.” She can’t move one side of her body.
I took my time sitting down. I felt many different things, but none of them were happy or surprised.
I remembered that nature itself fights some battles.
I let out a long breath.
“May God have mercy on her,” I finally typed.
Ogbonna turned eleven last week.
He ran around, laughed, and was full of life and knowledge at his birthday party. He was as brilliant as ever. His laughter was like music in the room.
When I saw him blow out his candles, something inside me changed from tender to strong.
Later, I leaned in close and said, “You are a miracle.”
He grinned, not really comprehending, but feeling something special.
I sit on our balcony at night and think about that day.
The giant loaf of bread was well-packaged.
My young child ran inside with it.
My gut is getting tighter.
Ogbonna, sickly and pale on the hospital bed.
And Naza, wailing like a mother who had seen death and fought it to the ground.
I shiver every time.
I say, “Thank you, God,” every time.
If my kids and I had eaten that bread…
If I had not listened to the quiet voice inside me…
If Naza had waited thirty minutes…
It would have been a tragedy if our narrative had happened today.
It turned into a lesson instead.
It serves as a warning that is often accompanied by kindness.
And that’s why my heart still skips a beat every time I recall it.
Being careful and misunderstood is sometimes preferable.
than careless and full of sorrow for all time.
