Chapter 3 The Unraveling

Six months into her new reality, Tiara had learned the routine of a servant. Wake at dawn. Fetch water. Prepare breakfast. Clean the kitchen. Wash clothes. Scrub floors. Prepare lunch. Wash more clothes. Sweep the courtyard. Prepare dinner. Wash dishes until her hands cracked and bled.

The rhythms were relentless, but they had the perverse benefit of keeping her mind occupied. When you are thinking about the temperature of bathwater and the correct way to fold a man's shirts, you cannot think about the unfairness that consumes everything.

It was a Monday morning when Tiara truly understood the extent of the theft. She was sweeping the study-now Uncle Bidemi's domain-when she noticed something: the wall where her father's university degree had hung was bare. The wooden frame where her parents' wedding portrait sat was gone. Even the small bronze sculpture her father had won for "Outstanding Young Entrepreneur" had vanished.

She mentioned it to Mrs. Okafor that afternoon.

"Gone to a dealer in Lagos," the older woman said quietly, not meeting Tiara's eyes. "Your uncle needed money. Quick money."

Tiara felt something harden in her chest-not anger exactly, but a crystallization of understanding. They were not temporarily managing her inheritance. They were erasing it entirely, piece by piece, converting her future into their present.

That night, she added a new section to her attic diary:

The Inventory of Loss:

- Father's university degree (1985)

- Mother's wedding portrait

- Bronze award

- Three oil paintings from the sitting room

- Mother's diamond earrings (left in the jewelry box)

- Leather chair from Father's office

- Half the silverware

She kept meticulous notes, documenting dates, descriptions, approximate values based on overheard conversations. It was the only currency she had-information, memory, truth written in careful script.

~~~~~

In the first months after her parents' death, Tiara held onto the hope that she would return to school like a life raft. She studied her old textbooks, borrowed Tola's notes, tried to keep her mind sharp. But as weeks became months, the hope melted into bitter certainty.

"There's no money," Aunt Jola said flatly when Tiara asked for the thousandth time. "Be grateful we're feeding you at all. Some orphans end up on the streets."

The threat was simple and clear: accept your fate or face something worse.

Her cousins seemed to sense the shift in hierarchy. Tobi, at fourteen, had taken to ordering her around with the casual cruelty of the newly empowered. "Tiara, my uniform isn't ironed. Tiara, I need new shoes. Tiara, you missed a spot on the floor."

Tola had been almost kind once, almost treating her like a sibling. Now she simply ignored her, as if Tiara had become invisible-or worse, lower than dirt. Young Tayo, at six, had learned to mimic his parents' disdain perfectly. He would point at her and announce to visitors, "That's our servant. Her real family died."

What hurt most was the casual confirmation: Your real family died, so you belong to us now. And you belong at the bottom.

One afternoon, Tiara was scrubbing the kitchen floor when she overheard Uncle Bidemi on the telephone:

"...yes, the girl is fine, no trouble... mostly keeps to herself... we're raising her properly, teaching her humility... the house will be hers eventually, when she's old enough to understand its value... for now, we're protecting it for her, yes... managing the funds... you understand, times are difficult..."

Lies. Every word was a lie. There were no funds being managed. There was no eventual inheritance. There was only the gradual tearing apart of everything her father had built, executed with the speed of vultures picking clean a carcass.

~~~~~

But Tiara had learned something crucial: silence could be weaponized. If she spoke, they punished her. If she protested, they increased her workload. If she cried, they mocked her. So she learned to be invisible in a different way-present but unremarkable, obedient but untouched.

She became expert at reading rooms, at sensing shifts in mood, at moving through the house like a ghost. She learned to smile when required, to accept criticism without flinching, to make herself small.

And in the spaces between, in the stolen hours and the secret attic nights, she lived a parallel life. A life of fierce internal resistance.

Her diary grew pages faster than ever. She wrote letters to her parents, asking questions she'd never had time to ask:

Dear Daddy, did you know that bitterness could taste like dirt? I thought bitterness was sharp, like lemons. But it's duller than that-it's the taste of swallowing things you didn't choose.

Dear Mummy, you wrote about finding light in dark places. I'm looking, but I don't see it yet. Is it okay to be angry? Is it okay that sometimes I hate them so much I want them to be gone? Can you ask God if they can switch places with you and Daddy?

She also wrote to herself, creating a future self to inspire her present self:

Dear Tiara Who Survived,

I know you're suffering now. I know every day feels like drowning in slow motion. But I want you to know-this isn't the end of your story. It's barely the beginning. Hold on. Write everything down. Remember every injustice. One day, you'll be strong enough to change this. One day, you'll walk out of this house with your head high and never return as anything less than a conqueror. A starlight

At thirteen, she was still a child in body, but something ancient and stubborn had taken root in her soul.

~~~~~

Mrs. Okafor however, was the exception. While everyone else had adjusted to the new hierarchy, the older housekeeper maintained her kindness. She left extra food in Tiara's portion when no one was looking. She spoke to her like a person, not a servant. She taught her things-how to negotiate with market vendors, how to stretch food budgets, how to understand the mathematics of survival.

"Your mother," she said once, while they were cooking together, "was a good woman. Strong. She wouldn't recognize what's happening to you, but she'd recognize your strength. It comes from her."

"I don't feel strong," Tiara admitted, chopping onions. "I feel like I'm disappearing."

"That's where you're wrong," Mrs. Okafor said firmly. "Every day you survive without becoming like them-cruel, grasping, hollow-that's strength. Every time you refuse to let bitterness spoil your character, that's victory. They're stealing your childhood, but they cannot steal your soul unless you let them."

These conversations were lifelines. Tiara clung to them, wrote them down, repeated them to herself on the worst days.

One evening, Tiara found herself alone with her uncle in the kitchen. He was drinking beer, loosened by alcohol. She took a risk.

"Uncle, when can I go back to school?"

He looked at her with mild surprise, as if he'd forgotten she could talk. "School? Why do you need school, Tiara? You think you'll become something? Your father had grand ambitions too. See where it got him?"

"He got it honestly," Tiara said quietly. At least he was successful enough for you to be jealous of him.

Uncle Bidemi's expression hardened. "Careful, girl. I'm feeding you out of charity. Don't mistake that for affection. Your education is over. Accept it."

"But Daddy-"

"Your Daddy is dead," he said coldly. "And his business was a failure. Everything he built will soon be sold. You should focus on becoming useful, not ambitious."

The cruelty was so complete, so deliberate, that Tiara understood finally: there was no appeal to compassion. There was no justice within this house. The only way forward was through.

~~~~~

That night, Tiara made a decision. She stopped asking. She stopped hoping. She stopped behaving as if she belonged in this house and might one day reclaim her place.

Instead, she became strategic. She learned the value of information-listening to conversations, understanding financial matters, watching how the world worked for people with power. She studied her cousins' textbooks in secret, teaching herself algebra and history and English. She devoured every book she could find, building a fortress of knowledge inside her mind.

And she wrote. God, how she wrote. Her diary became her only honest companion, the only place she could be wholly herself-angry, scared, determined, defiant.

She was fourteen when she finally wrote the words that changed everything:

I will leave this house. Not today, not tomorrow, but one day. And when I do, I will have taken back everything they stole. Not because I'm waiting for revenge-but because I refuse to let their theft define my life. I will build myself from nothing. I will prove that lemons, even bitter lemons, can create something sweet. I am not their servant. I am their victim learning to become their equal. And I would come out victorious.

She underlined the last sentence three times.

Looking out at the lemon tree from her bedroom window, Tiara felt the first tremor of a truth that would sustain her through everything to come: The fact that they held her down didn't mean she had to stay down.