Ibadan, 2009 The clock on the decoder said 11:47 p.m. Dayo remembered because he looked at it when the lamp hit the wall. The lampshade broke first. A thin cream thing his mother had bought at Dugbe and complained was overpriced. It struck the wall beside the television and collapsed onto the floor. The bulb survived. For years, that detail offended him. The house was not supposed to contain anything ordinary after a sound like that. But the bulb stayed on. His father stood in the middle of the sitting room, breathing hard. His mother was beside the dining table. Dayo was in the corridor, one hand still on the banister. He had come downstairs because he heard voices. He should have stayed in bed. At seventeen, he still sometimes believed there was a right decision that could prevent the wrong night. “What did I ask you?” Baba Afolabi said. His speech was not slurred. That made him worse. Mama Afolabi's voice was low. “And I answered you.” “You answered nonsense.” “I told you where the money went.” “You think I am stupid?” “No.” “Then stop speaking to me like I am.”
“I am not.” He struck the back of a chair with his palm. Dayo flinched. His father saw him. Something changed in his face. “What are you doing there?” Dayo's mouth went dry. “Nothing.” “Then go upstairs.” His mother turned. “Dayo, go.” He should have. He looked at her wrist instead. His father's fingers had left red marks there. Not bruises yet. Just the beginning of them. Dayo stared. Baba Afolabi followed his gaze. The shame that crossed his father's face lasted less than a second. Then it became anger. “I said go upstairs.” Dayo did not move. His heart hammered so hard he could feel it in his throat. “You held her.” His mother said his name. “Dayo.” His father stepped toward him. “What did you say?” The boy in Dayo wanted to retreat.
The seventeen-year-old was exhausted with the boy. “You held her.” “Go upstairs.” “No.” Everything stopped. It was the first time he had said no to his father in that tone. Baba Afolabi came closer. He smelled of whisky and sweat and the aftershave he had worn since Dayo was small. “Do not involve yourself in things you don't understand.” “I understand enough.” Behind his father, his mother's face changed. The sentence was hers now too. Baba Afolabi pointed toward the stairs. “Go.” Dayo stayed. His father grabbed his upper arm. Not hard enough to injure. Hard enough to remind. Dayo's back hit the wall. Cold paint through his T-shirt. His mother's voice sharpened. “Leave him.” Baba Afolabi released him immediately. Immediately. He stepped back as though surprised by his own hand. For one second, Dayo saw the man from the rug. The man who taught him shoelaces. Then his father looked away.
“Both of you should leave me alone.” Mama Afolabi moved toward Dayo. He recoiled from her without meaning to. Not because he feared her. Because he could not bear being comforted while his father watched. He went upstairs. In his room, he closed the door without locking it. Locks made his father angry. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall. His hands shook. Downstairs, voices resumed. Lower now. Worse because he could not hear the words. He looked at his school calendar pinned above the desk. March. WAEC in three months. He counted the cash hidden inside an old chemistry textbook. ₦4,650. Not enough. He had been saving without admitting what he was saving for. At 12:06 a.m., the house went quiet. Dayo remained on the floor. He did not know where he would go. He did not know how he would pay school fees or rent or transport. He knew only one thing with the clarity of a structural line drawn in ink. He would leave. Not tonight. Not recklessly. But he would leave.
Three months until WAEC. Then whatever came after. He would not become a man who learned to live by the temperature of another man's footsteps. He would not marry a woman and teach her to move carefully through her own house. He would not make a child stand in a corridor and calculate danger. At seventeen, Dayo believed escape and transformation were the same thing. The mistake would take fourteen years to reveal itself.