Chapter 3

Chapter 3

REIGNS

The roof leaked again that night.

I woke up at five in the morning because water was dripping on my foot. I moved the bucket, lay back down, and stared at the brown stain on the ceiling. It was bigger than last week. Everything in this flat was getting bigger except the money.

I didn't go back to sleep. I got up, washed my face with cold water because the heater had been broken since March, and put on my uniform. It still had the stain on the sleeve from yesterday. I didn't have time to wash it.

Before I left, I looked at the picture on the wall by the door. It was my mother and me at the beach when I was seven. She was laughing with her head thrown back. I was holding an ice cream bigger than my face.

"I'll see you after work, Mama," I told the picture.

Then I locked the door and ran for the bus.

---

For one year, my mother had been in room 12 at St. Catherine's Hospital. It was a private room with a window that looked out on a mango tree. She liked to watch the birds in it. She named them. She said the fat one looked like my old headmaster.

I never asked how the bills were paid. That was a lie I told myself. I knew. I just never said it out loud.

It was him. My father. Every month, the money came from somewhere I couldn't see, and every month my mother got her medicine, her clean sheets, and her window with the birds.

I hated it. I hated taking anything from him. He visited us four times a year, in secret, like we were something to be ashamed of. He brought my birthday gift two weeks late every year. He never once stayed for dinner.

But my mother's kidneys were failing, and pride doesn't pay for dialysis.

So I took his money, and I hated myself a little bit every month.

---

The hospital called at eight in the morning. I was wiping tables at the restaurant.

"Miss Reign? This is the billing office at St. Catherine's."

I stopped wiping. "Is my mother okay?"

"Your mother is stable. But I'm calling about her account." The woman's voice was polite and flat, the voice of someone who made calls like this every day. "The payments for her care were cancelled last night."

"Cancelled?"

"Yes. By the account holder's family."

I sat down on the nearest chair. "No. No, there has to be a mistake."

"I'm sorry, Miss Reign. Unless a new payment is arranged, your mother will be moved from her private room to the general ward today. And her dialysis sessions will be cut from three a week to one, until the balance is cleared."

"One? She can't live on one."

"I'm very sorry."

"How much? How much is the balance?"

She told me.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. It was more than I made in two years.

"Miss Reign? Are you still there?"

I hung up.

My hands were shaking. I looked down at them like they belonged to someone else.

The account holder's family.

There was only one person in that family who hated me enough to do this. And she didn't even wait one full day.

---

"Reign."

I looked up. My manager, Mr. Okoro, was standing over me with his arms folded.

"Sorry, sir. I'm getting up."

"Don't bother." He held out an envelope. "This is your pay for this week. You can go."

I stared at the envelope. "Go where?"

"Home. You're finished here."

"Finished? Sir, I've worked here for three years. I've never been late. What did I do?"

He wouldn't look at me. He looked at the window, at the floor, at anything but my face.

"It's not about what you did," he said quietly. "Please. Just go. I have a family."

That was when I understood.

She didn't just take my mother's room. She was taking everything.

I took the envelope. I took off my apron and folded it and put it on the table. My hands were still shaking, but I folded it neatly, because I refused to let anybody see me fall apart in that place.

I was on the bus when my phone buzzed. The cracked screen made the words hard to read. I had to tilt it.

It was from my landlord.

Building sold to new owner. All tenants must leave in two weeks. Sorry.

I read it once. I put the phone in my lap. I looked out the window at the city going past, the traffic, the hawkers, the people who had no idea that my whole life had just been taken apart in one morning.

I didn't cry. I was too angry to cry.

---

When I got to the hospital, my mother was already in the general ward.

It was a long room with thirty beds and one fan that barely worked. The air smelled like sweat and medicine. A baby was crying somewhere. A man in the bed next to my mother was coughing like his chest would break open.

My mother was sitting up against a thin pillow. Her face was grey. When she saw me, she smiled anyway.

"There's my girl."

"Mama." I sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand. It was so thin. "I'm sorry. I'm going to fix this. I promise I'm going to fix it."

"Shh. It's all right." She squeezed my fingers. "It's not so bad here. Look, I have friends now." She nodded at the coughing man. "That's Mr. Bassey. He tells terrible jokes."

"Mama, they cut your dialysis."

Her smile faded a little. "I know."

"Do you know who did it?"

She was quiet for a long time. Then she said, very softly, "I can guess."