Chapter 12 - THE PAPER MY FATHER SIGNED BEFORE HE DIED
For the first time since this nightmare began, I was afraid of finding the truth.
Not because I wanted to protect Chief Madu.
Not because I cared about the reputation of the palace.
I was afraid because I had built my childhood memories around the belief that my parents were good people.
And now someone had placed my father's signature on a document that appeared to support the very injustice he had supposedly fought against.
I sat alone in our bedroom, holding a faded photograph of him.
Obioma entered quietly.
He sat beside me.
“You haven't eaten.”
“I'm not hungry.”
He looked at the photograph.
“That's your father?”
I nodded.
“He taught me to ride a bicycle.”
Obioma smiled.
“Did he?”
“He ran beside me for an entire afternoon because I was afraid to let go of the handlebars.”
I stared at the picture.
“He kept telling me that falling didn't mean I was failing. It only meant I was learning.”
My voice trembled.
“What if I didn't know him as well as I thought?”
Obioma took my hand.
“Finding out what he signed doesn't change the father you remember.”
“But what if he agreed to the land transfer?”
“Then we'll find out why.”
I looked at him.
He continued.
“Your father was a human being, Helen. You don't have to make him perfect to love him.”
Those words stayed with me.
The following day, Ifeanyi arranged a meeting with an elderly former teacher named Mrs. Ebele.
She had worked at Mercy House with my mother and had moved away after the fire.
Nkem helped us locate her.
Mrs. Ebele was seventy years old, with silver hair and a walking stick.
When she saw me, she covered her mouth.
“Grace's little girl.”
My eyes filled with tears.
She embraced me.
“You look so much like your mother.”
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then she invited us into her modest living room.
Books filled nearly every shelf.
A photograph of Mercy House stood beside the window.
I showed her the disputed agreement.
She adjusted her glasses.
“I remember this.”
My heart began pounding.
“You do?”
“Yes. Your father signed an agreement shortly before the fire.”
I swallowed.
“Why?”
She looked at me.
“Because the families were afraid their land records would be manipulated.”
I frowned.
“I don't understand.”
Mrs. Ebele leaned forward.
“The original arrangement was supposed to place certain parcels under temporary administrative protection while community ownership records were verified.”
“Temporary?”
“Yes. The land wasn't supposed to be sold. The purpose was to prevent unauthorized transfers until the trust documents were properly registered.”
I looked at Ifeanyi.
He was already taking notes.
Mrs. Ebele continued.
“Samuel agreed to a limited arrangement because he believed it would protect the families.”
“Who prepared it?” Obioma asked.
“The development office. Chief Madu's people.”
I felt sick.
“Did my father understand the terms?”
“He insisted that the agreement include restrictions against selling the land without the community trustees' approval.”
I looked down at the document.
“Those restrictions aren't here.”
Mrs. Ebele shook her head.
“Then you're not looking at the agreement I witnessed.”
Silence filled the room.
She rose carefully and walked toward an old bookshelf.
From a drawer beneath it, she removed a notebook containing meeting dates and brief handwritten summaries.
She turned to an entry from sixteen years earlier.
Temporary stewardship agreement accepted subject to community consent and preservation of educational use.
I read it twice.
My father hadn't been giving away the land.
He had been trying to protect it.
I closed my eyes.
Relief washed over me so suddenly that I began crying.
Mrs. Ebele placed a hand on my shoulder.
“He was a good man, Helen. Not because he never made mistakes, but because he kept trying to do right by people.”
I wiped my face.
“Thank you.”
She smiled sadly.
“Your mother was the same way.”
Before we left, she told us something else.
The original agreement had been prepared in several numbered sections.
The version attached to Chief Madu's documents appeared to have replaced the section describing the limits on the transfer.
Ifeanyi explained that the records would need independent examination and comparison with registry copies.
But if the terms had been altered after my father signed, it could become powerful evidence of document fraud.
On our way home, we stopped near Mercy House.
The construction vehicles had been removed.
Children were playing beside the community center's old courtyard.
I stood beneath the mango tree.
For the first time, remembering my parents didn't make me feel completely empty.
I remembered my father's laughter.
My mother's patient voice.
The way they had believed ordinary people deserved respect.
And I knew I wanted to carry that belief forward.
Then I noticed a man standing beside a parked car.
He was watching us.
When he saw Obioma turn toward him, he began walking away.
Something about him looked familiar.
The dark jacket.
The slightly rounded shoulders.
The nervous way he kept looking over his shoulder.
I had seen him before.
In the old photograph with Chief Madu.
“Obioma,” I whispered.
He looked at me.
“What?”
“That man.”
Obioma followed my gaze.
Then his expression changed.
“Felix Nwosu.”
The palace accountant.
Felix stopped walking.
For several seconds, he looked as though he might run.
Instead, he turned toward us.
“I need to speak to Princess Helen,” he said.
Obioma stepped slightly in front of me.
“About what?”
Felix swallowed.
“Mercy House.”
I looked directly at him.
“What do you know?”
His hands were trembling.
“More than I should.”
“Then tell me.”
He glanced toward the empty road.
“Not here. Please. I have documents, and I want your lawyer present.”
Obioma immediately called Ifeanyi.
Felix looked exhausted.
He sat on a low concrete wall and buried his face in his hands.
“I should have spoken years ago,” he whispered.
I stood a few feet away.
“Why didn't you?”
He looked up.
“Because I was afraid of losing everything.”
“And now?”
His eyes filled with tears.
“Now I can't sleep knowing what happened to your family.”
My heart began pounding.
“What happened to them?”
Felix looked toward the abandoned school.
May you like
Then he spoke so quietly that I almost didn't hear him.
“Helen, I was there the night Mercy House burned. And I know who ordered the back entrance to be chained.”
