Written

He was around ten when one day, without telling her kids or husband where she was going or when she would be back. Maybe she believed that they were too young to understand or that she was truly mental as people were suggesting. They were five in the family then, two boys and three girls and okwudili the oldest was just ten then. He was to hear his mothers voice again twenty something years later.

Their father mr. onyema was a motor parts dealer, not poor, not rich. He was okay in Nigerian standard. They were just normal family like many others and seems to be happy one to outsiders. Their mother was selling food in the same market their father works in. Eating three times a day was never their problem, so, what exactly went wrong, no one knows.

It was two weeks after she disappeared that she was located at Enugu central market selling the same food she was selling at onitsha city. She eloped with her boyfriend, a man that has his own family like hers. He left his wife and children as the woman left hers and both went to start afresh at Enugu city. No sign, no notice, no quarrel or things of such nature. They just parked their things and charged city and became brand new couple over there.

The day she left, she cooked food as usual whether to confused the husband or she was truely concerned about the kids, no one knows. The kids went to school as usual and it was when the husband went to her shop for afternoon food and saw the place closed that the sign of all not being okay came to the fore. He was suprised and thought that he had finished selling her foods and went back home. When he enquired from her neighbours, he was told that they have not seen her since morning. He became disturbed and went back home. He was surprised to see his kids playing in their flat and their mother no where to be found. He noticed that most of her clothes were missing, he asked their neighbours and were told that they saw her carrying her suitcase heading towards Lagos park.

 It happened that she arranged with her boyfriend to meet near the park where he was waiting for her in his car. Both had gone to Enugu on numerous occasions to hire flat and furnished it, hired shops at the Central Market, waiting for the D day. Whether using Lagos park as meeting point was to throw their pursuers off course or not, no one knows.whichever, that was exactly what happened. Everyone believed that they went to lagos while they were at Enugu. The lead led to the park which they never entered and ended there. The workers there never saw the person being described to them that very day.no one like that entered that park that very day.

Her husband decided that it was time to get police involved in the issue, he first contacted her family to intimate them on what was going on and what has been done since morning. They advised him to contact the police.

Ogidi police station was a storey building that was erected in 80s. Standing adjacent to the main building was a long blocks of rooms used as offices for female officers acting as information recorders, by the left of the main building was the the same rooms fortified with iron bars used as holding cells for miscreants and other minor offenders that found their way into the station. The overall look of the place was nothing to write home about. Grasses had over grown the place and behind the buildings, litters of every kind accumulated everywhere. Reasons behind the untidiness is what one could not understand. Nothing but corruption, it manifest in many ways.

That was where mr. Onyema came to report about his missing wife.

" What do you say was your missing wife name?."

" Amara"

"Amara who?"

"Amara Onyema"

" What happened, you having family problems?"

"Family problems how?"

" Are you two fighting?"

" No, nothing like that"

"Have you reported your wife to the priest or her parents before?"

"No, nothing like that ever happened"

" You said that both of you have been married for eleven years now right?"

" Yes, of course"

"Have you ever said something like: 'I regret ever marrying you' in anger to her before?"

"No" 

" Your neighbors saw this woman yesterday evening and this morning, as you claimed, right?"

"Of course"

"You said that you has five kids from this lady, right?"

"Yes"

"When you contacted her parents, what do they said?"

" They asked me to come here"

"Did she have records of mental illness?"

"No, nothing like that"

"Okay, we will like to talk to your neighbors"

All these were events of two decades ago, the officer later traced the woman and her lover to Enugu city after subjecting the husband to all manners of stress. They calimed he murdered his wife, hid her body and were talking nonsense. 

When she was located at Enugu city, one hour away from Ogidi, she refused to return, telling officers that the man she was living with then was the husband she know. When the husband were taken to her, he recieved the same answer from the lady, she told him to move ahead, that she had moved ahead.

Twenty-one years later.

Okwudili Onyema 31, about 5'8, hair black, he have been practicing his profession in his private hospital since four years now he returned from Canada after education. He had just finished seeing the last patient when his personal line ringed, he picked the phone wondering who it might be when voice he had heard in distance era floated on the line, demanding about his and his siblings well being. It took him time to recall that the voice on the line was that of his mother he last heard about twentysomething years ago. He told the voice that everybody including his father was okay.