Novels by Chinaza Nwabueze

Chapter 6: Boring Is How You Win"Seventeen days," I said, because the number refused to stay still in my head.Priya Nair folded her glasses and set them on the desk. "Ms. Whitfield, I'm going to stop you there.""The date...""The date proves your husband planned to end the marriage before the accident. That is all it proves." She said it without cruelty, but she didn't soften it. "It doesn't tell us who touched the brakes. It doesn't tell us whether he knew. Right now we have a five-year-old's account, a cut line in a wreck, and a deleted file. Any competent defense attorney would call that a coincidence wearing a trench coat."Adrian's voice came from behind my chair, low. "Then what do we need?""Paper. Witnesses. Money." She tapped the forty-three pages. "People get careless around money. Especially people who think they've already won."I stared at the envelope and felt the heat in my chest cool into something more useful."There's one more thing," Priya said. "You say you can'

Chapter 5: The Wife Who Wasn'tI have never dressed so fast in my life.Adrian was already pulling on his trousers, his face calm and hard, the laughter of five minutes ago wiped clean. "Stay here," he said, buttoning his shirt. "I'll meet him at the door.""No." I yanked the borrowed robe tight and knotted the belt with shaking fingers. "He thinks I'm a confused invalid who wandered off. If I hide, I'm a coward in a rival's bedroom. If I walk down those stairs looking lost and sleepy, he has nothing.""Nora.""He built this lie himself, Adrian. Let me watch him choke on it."Something dark and approving crossed his face. He took my chin in his hand and kissed me once, hard and quick."Then be good at it," he said. "I'll be behind you."The pounding started before we reached the landing. Three heavy knocks. A pause. Three more.Mrs. Bell appeared in the hall in her dressing gown. Adrian nodded. She sighed, tightened her belt, and went to answer with the weary dignity of a woman who ha

Chapter 4: Let Him Hear ItThe rain came down harder.It beat on the tall windows in silver sheets. The fire popped. I sat in that borrowed robe with my hands knotted in my lap, and something in me stopped bending.He knew.All the while I lay in that bed being fed orange slices and lies, Daniel had known who put me there. He had looked at the deleted footage, then looked at me, then picked up a pen and called a lawyer.I waited for the tears. They didn't come.What came instead was stillness, like the hush after a storm."Nora." Adrian's voice was low. "Say something.""Give me a minute."He gave me ten. He stood at the window with his arms folded and didn't fill the silence with comfort I didn't want. In anyone else, I'd have found that strange. In him it felt like respect.I stood. My legs were steadier than I expected. I crossed the rug in bare feet and stopped in front of him."How much do you hate him?"His brows rose a fraction. "Daniel?""Yes."He thought about it. I liked tha

Chapter 3: Take Me Out of HereFor one second, I forgot how to be a person.My lungs stopped. Every thought went white and silent. The only thing left in the world was a trembling five-year-old kneeling on my hospital bed with his fingers wound into my sleeve.I saw what Aunt Vivian did to your car."Ethan." The mask was slipping. I could feel it. "Say that again. Slowly."He glanced at the door, then back at me. His lip wobbled."The night before, I woke up thirsty, and the garage light was on. Aunt Vivi was on the floor under your car with a flashlight. She had Daddy's tools." He dropped his voice. "She saw me. She put her finger like this." He pressed one small finger to his lips. "She said it was a surprise for Mama. And surprises are secrets. And good boys keep secrets."The room tilted."And the next day?""You took me to school. We went down Marrow Hill, and you pushed the pedal and nothing happened." His eyes filled. "You pushed and pushed, Mama. You yelled hold on, Ethan, and

Chapter 2: What I RememberedI have never lain so still in my life.Eyes closed. Breath slow and shallow. In. Out. Every muscle in my body wanted to leap off that bed and wipe the smugness off my husband's face.Instead, I counted.One. Two. Three."She's really out," Vivian murmured. Her heels came closer. Jasmine, thick and sweet, settled over me. "Poor thing. Daniel, don't you feel a little bad?"A little. She said it the way you'd ask about stepping on a flower."No," Daniel said.One word. Flat as a plate.Something in me cracked, quietly, like ice on a pond when you're already standing in the middle."She's not our problem anymore," he went on. "She's a medical case. Once the papers are signed, she gets a settlement and an apartment far from here. And Ethan gets a mother who actually shows up.""Shows up," Vivian repeated. She sounded pleased. "I like the sound of that.""Come on. Ethan's alone in the garden with the nurse."My fingers twitched on the sheet. I forced them still.

Chapter 1: The Man Who Held My HandThe first lie they told me was that the man holding my hand was only a friend.I believed it for eleven days.I believed it when Daniel Hartley sat beside my hospital bed every evening with his tie loosened and his eyes tired. I believed it when he peeled an orange for me and handed me each piece like I might break. I believed it when he said, "Don't worry about anything, Nora. We're taking care of you."We. I should have noticed that word.The doctors called it retrograde amnesia. A car, a wet road, a screech of metal I couldn't remember. When I woke up, my life was a blank white wall. I knew my name only because a nurse said it. I could hold a spoon and read the clock above the door, but I had no idea who I was or who was waiting for me.Daniel said I was a close friend of his family. He said I had no one else in the city. He said he would cover the bills and I shouldn't think about it.I thought he was the kindest man alive.Yesterday afternoon,