The house was modest and tidy, filled with the quiet rhythm of everyday life. The faint aroma of stew drifted from the kitchen, where Ada stood by the stove, stirring carefully. A radio murmured softly from the corner, and a framed family photo hung slightly askew on the wall. The sofa showed gentle signs of use, the curtains swayed lightly with the afternoon breeze, and sunlight filtered in through half-drawn blinds, painting soft lines across the tiled floor.
"Ada, I'm heading out. I should be back before evening." Mazi's voice tried for lightness as he stepped into the kitchen doorway.
She didn't look up from the pot she was stirring; the spoon moved in small, precise circles. "Mind telling me where you're headed?"
"It's… uhm…" He chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. "Just somewhere around."
Ada let out a short, bitter laugh. "Bye." She waved him off without turning.
Mazi paused at the door, reading the sarcasm like a gust of wind. He looked back. "Is something funny?"
She said nothing.
Later that night, the compound slept in small fits and starts. Then—knock, knock, knock.
"Ada! Ada, open the door!" Mazi's call fractured the quiet, urgent and small. "Please, why did you lock the door? Did I do something wrong?"
The knocks hit harder. "Open the door for Chri—" he corrected himself mid-plea. "I mean… for my sake!"
Ada sat on the edge of the sofa, still as a stone, the flicker of the lamp throwing hard lines across her face. She walked to the door and stood behind it like a gatekeeper holding a grudge.
"You seriously don't know what you did?" she asked.
"I… I don't. We didn't have any issue when I left, right?"
"You went to church." The words were small and precise, a verdict dropped in the dark.
A beat. "I—I…" Mazi faltered.
"You want to lie?" Ada's laugh was a knife. "This is a small village, Mazi. You thought I wouldn't know?"
He gave a long, weary sigh. "Alright. I'm sorry. Just open up. Please."
"Never." Her voice turned to iron. "You turned deaf ears to my warning. For that, you're sleeping outside tonight."
He tried to soften it with a chuckle that didn't reach his eyes. "You wouldn't do that to me… your husband. It's cold outside. It even looks like rain."
"You think I'm bluffing?" she snapped. "You know I don't bluff. Good night."
"Ada, please…" His knocking continued while she walked away, and the sound of his hand against wood became a quiet, pleading drum that faded into the house's other small noises.
Ada had once been the ushering captain at the church — a woman whose name was spoken with respect. That was before the flood. Before Golden drowned on her way back from rehearsal. Before the tragedy, she had finally gotten pregnant after sixteen long years of waiting — a miracle everyone celebrated. But the joy of that pregnancy soon turned into pain. Now, eight months pregnant, Ada carried her baby with a heavy heart, as if the new life reminded her of everything she had lost.
When women from the church came with folded hands to pray for her, she chased them away with a kettle of hot water. When the pastor stepped over her threshold, she spat at him. Evangelists who walked the road toward her gate were met with a machete and a stare that told them to turn back. The village did not blame her; it watched, afraid.
*************
A few days later, during dinner, Ada noticed her husband rubbing his chest. The small room felt even smaller, filled with the soft clatter of cutlery and unspoken words.
"Mazi, are you okay? You've been holding your chest a lot lately." Her voice was casual, practiced.
He blinked, surprised as if hearing concern was a strange kindness. "Wow. When last did I hear you worry about me?"
She hissed playfully. "Just answer."
"It's nothing." He smiled and reached out to touch the roundness of her belly. "And how's my little one doing in there, uh?"
"She's fine." Ada let a light giggle escape. "She's been kicking a lot."
"True child of her father," he said, and laughed. "But how sure are you it's a girl?"
"Well, I don't care." Her smile was faint. "Boy or girl, the name will be Golden. Again."
He watched her then, and some old tenderness flickered behind his grief. "Alright, darling. Any name you choose."
They ate while the house held its breath, laughter thin and brittle, a truce sealed only by food cooling on their plates.
Later, Ada stepped into the yard to bathe. Mazi, thinking to steal a moment of quiet, knelt beside their bed and whispered a prayer. Ada walked in, saw him mid-prayer, and said nothing. She hissed and went into the room, the sound like a page turned in a book they no longer read together.
Morning came with birds and a rooster's call, but the room felt too large for the two of them. Ada's groggy voice tapped him: "Mazi, wake up. Help me, I want to pee. Mazi?"
No answer. She shook him once, twice, harder. "Stop this nonsense, Mazi! Wake up!!" Her shaking moved into panic. When she grabbed his shoulders and screamed his name—a raw, animal sound—he did not move.
She froze. The warmth she expected was gone. She pressed her ear to his mouth for breath and found only silence. His hand was cold.
Her scream pierced the compound. Neighbours came, voices overlapping with shock and the clatter of hurried feet. But it was too late. Mazi was gone.
Word spread like an ember: Ada, eight months pregnant, widowed and no one to call hers. The town gathered, not with the awkward distance that follows small griefs, but with the heavy, uncanny hush reserved for those calamities that make people look away. Folks remembered the warning: do not mention God around Ada. Still, someone did, the words spilling out of them before thought could stop them: "Only God knows best…"
Ada's head snapped up. She stood, lighter than her swollen body should allow, and walked outside with a purpose that stripped the air thin. She grabbed a rusted steel rod from the yard and broke into a run toward the church. Voices rose behind her as a few people ran after her, trying to stop her.
Mid-service, the congregation swelled with hymns until a scream cleaved the music. Ada burst through the doors, steel in hand, a woman who moved like someone stitched from grief. "You love taking everything from me, don't you? You enjoyed it!" she shouted, voice raw and wild.
She swung. Chairs split. Benches splintered. Flower stands toppled and glass exploded in glittering rain. People fled, some sobbing, some frozen as if they had been nailed to the spot by the force of her fury. The pastor stood stunned, spine bowed by disbelief.
"You took my daughter, you took my husband—what more do you want?! You want this child in my womb too?! Come and take her! Come!!!" She hammered the altar like a bell with no sound, like a heart striking at a locked door.
They whispered then, "Has she gone mad?"
But it was not madness. It was a thing far older and harder than that—grief rendered into a weapon, unsoftened by mercy.
The church emptied into the veranda, and Ada kept swinging until her arms trembled and the anger inside her had nowhere left to go but collapsed into silence. She stood in the wreckage, breathing hard — her belly heavy with life, but her heart burning with fury.