I was carrying the Christmas cake when I overheard my mother say, “Don’t bother asking her. Let your sister have the apartment for free.”
“I’m proud of you,” she whispered. “Not for the apartment. Not for the money. For this. For what you’ve become.”
I hugged her back.
“Thank you, Mom.”
My father shook my hand.
Then he did something I had never seen him do before.
He apologized.
“Your mother was right,” he said gruffly. “We shouldn’t have decided anything without you. It was wrong. I’m sorry.”
I nodded.
“I forgive you.”
He looked surprised.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. Because holding onto it would hurt me more than it would hurt you.”
He nodded slowly.
Then he walked away.
It wasn’t a fairy-tale reconciliation.
My family still had flaws. My parents still played favorites. Chioma still sometimes struggled.
But we were trying.
And that was enough.
As for me, I finally had something I had never had before.
Peace.
I still lived in my apartment in GRA Phase 2.
I paid off the mortgage three months later.
And for the first time in my life, I invited people over without feeling like I had to earn their presence.
The house was mine.
But more importantly, so was my life.
And I would never let anyone take either away from me again.
