The Longest Night

The officers left empty-handed.

It had taken Damian twenty minutes, three phone calls and a lawyer's voice on speaker to send the Chief back to his car with a warrant that turned out to be missing a signature. Ada watched from the upstairs window as his taillights disappeared down the road.

"He will try again," Damian said behind her.

"I know."

"Tomorrow is Zainab's surgery."

"I know."

"Whatever else happens between us." He paused. "I will be there."

She turned. He was standing in the doorway with his tie loosened and his hair disordered, the same man who had told her she was a tool and a clause and a convenience. The same man who had brought her sister a first edition.

She did not know what to do with him.

"Fine," Ada said.

* * *

The hospital at dawn was a landscape of pale corridors and low voices.

Zainab was wheeled away at six-fifteen, small and brave against the white sheets, her last words a joke about the hairnet. Ada held her hand until the doors closed between them. Then she sat in the waiting room with her fingers laced in her lap and her heart beating somewhere around her throat.

Damian sat beside her.

He did not speak. He did not touch her. He simply sat, back straight, eyes fixed on the clock, and as the minutes crawled by, Ada realised he was counting.

"Eight hours," he said quietly. "The surgeon said it could be eight."

"You asked him?"

"I asked everyone."

At the third hour, Ada could not sit anymore. She stood, walked to the window, and watched a group of nurses laughing in the car park. Behind her she heard the soft scrape of a chair.

When she turned, Damian was no longer in his seat.

He was kneeling in the corner of the corridor, one hand pressed flat against the wall, forehead bowed. His lips moved without sound. It took her a moment to understand what she was watching.

He was praying.

The most feared man in Lagos, on his knees on a hospital floor, whispering over and over a name she could not hear.

Ada's chest ached.

She crossed the corridor and sat on the ground beside him, on the cold tile, in her good dress. She did not say anything. After a minute she reached out and laid her hand over his.

He went very still.

"My mother," he said, his voice scraped raw. "She died in a hospital like this. I was not here."

"I'm sorry."

"I was in a meeting. My father said it could wait." A short, terrible laugh. "I have not forgiven him. I have not forgiven myself."

"Damian."

"Do not tell me it was not my fault." He lifted his head. His eyes were wet. "I will not be able to bear it."

"I was not going to." She turned her hand under his and held on. "I was going to say that I'm here."

For a long time they stayed like that, two people on a floor, holding on.

* * *

At 2:47 p.m., the surgeon came out.

Ada was on her feet before she knew she had moved.

"It went well." He was smiling, tired, a man at the end of a long shift. "Better than we hoped. She will need rest. But the operation was a success."

The world dissolved. Ada made a sound that was half sob, half laugh, and then there were arms around her, hard and certain, and her face was pressed against a white shirt that smelled of rain.

"She is fine," Damian said into her hair. His voice shook. "She is fine."

"She's fine."

"Ada."

"I know. I know."

She did not let go. Neither did he. For one long, helpless moment the contract, the clauses, the deadline and the lies did not exist.

Then a nurse cleared her throat.

"Mr. Okafor? This arrived for the patient. It was left at the desk."

A basket of white lilies, wrapped in cellophane. A heavy cream card tucked into the ribbon.

Ada took it. Her smile died as she read the handwriting.

Heal quickly, little Bello.

Accidents happen in hospitals.

Your father-in-law.

Her blood froze.

She passed it to Damian. She watched his face go from open to unreadable to something colder than she had ever seen, a quiet, lethal stillness that made the air in the corridor seem to drop ten degrees.

"Tobi," he said, not raising his voice.

Tobi appeared at his elbow as if conjured.

"Put four men on this floor. Two outside her door. Two at the lift. Nobody comes through without my name."

"Yes, sir."

"And Tobi." He crushed the card in his fist. "Find out who delivered these."