Part 3
Ada loosened her fingers around her mother’s cane. The assistant beside her offered an arm, and she shook her head.
“Would you hold this instead?”
Through the glass, she could see Marcus smoothing his tie.
Ada touched the worn place on the cane’s handle before letting go.
“Come with me, Mommy,” she whispered.
The door opened. She crossed the threshold without looking down.
Marcus’s smile remained in place for a moment after the rest of him had gone still.
Lydia pushed back her chair. “No.”
Ada walked to the head of the table.
“Good morning. Ada Ezeani, executive chair of Kadara.”
Marcus stared at her shoes. “You’re walking.”
“Sit, Marcus. Your proposal is waiting.”
Lydia demanded security. One of Kadara’s representatives closed his folder and looked directly at her.
“You’ve asked us here for investment. This is the person making that decision.”
Marcus lowered himself into his chair.
“That man who collected you,” Lydia said. “Did he buy you all this?”
“My father is Benedict Ezeani. He founded Kadara.”
Marcus gripped the edge of the table. He tried the surname once under his breath.
“You never said.”
“You never asked about my family.” Ada opened her briefcase. “You asked whether the drawings were finished.”
“Listen, we could put everything behind us.”
She turned toward Lydia. “Why does the building turn nine degrees at the fourteenth floor?”
Lydia looked at the screen. “It improves the appearance.”
“The turn opens the upper terraces to the inlet breeze,” Ada said. “My mother loved that breeze.”
Marcus spread his hands. “Knowing a detail doesn’t prove—”
Ada set the sketchbook in front of Kadara’s representatives. Under the first study were four-year-old dates, followed by months of revisions.
Peter stood so quickly his chair struck the wall.
“I prepared the submissions. Ada designed the tower. She designed our other projects, too.”
“Sit down,” Marcus snapped.
“The replacement drawings were backdated. I watched it happen.” Peter’s voice shook, but he stayed on his feet. “I should’ve spoken sooner.”
Marcus pointed at Lydia. “She arranged the new drawings.”
“You told me what to do,” she shot back.
Ada waited until both had stopped speaking.
“Kadara won’t fund stolen work. The false documents will go to the tender board and the fraud investigators.”
Marcus leaned across the table. “The bank will take my house.”
“The one you made me leave?”
He glanced at the others. “We had six years, Ada.”
“I gave you six years. You gave me papers.”
She gathered the originals. “My name goes on that tower. Kadara will appoint a qualified construction partner.”
Lydia reached for her handbag.
“Where are you going?” Marcus demanded.
“To find a future I can afford.”
Ada paused at the door. “Tell your mother I walked in.”
Peter followed her into the hall, struggling with the clasp of his folder.
“Ms. Ezeani,” he said. “I’m glad I can finally call you that.”
“Come to my office Monday, Mr. Nwosu.”
She took the cane from the assistant, not needing to put it to the floor.
At home, Marcus found his mother waiting beside the bank’s final notice.
“Tell me it’s settled.”
“The chairwoman was Ada.” He sat without removing his jacket. “She walked into the room.”
A bank representative arrived before his mother could answer. The foreclosure was complete; they had to surrender the house the following day.
“You received the warning last month,” the man said when Marcus protested.
Lydia returned for the bags she had left in her car. Marcus caught her near the stairs.
“You’re leaving? After everything? After the baby we lost?”
She turned with her keys in her hand.
“There wasn’t a baby.”
His mother rose slowly from the sofa.
“I needed you to marry me,” Lydia said. “You did.”
“You let me mourn my grandson.”
Lydia gave a short, tired laugh. “Ask your son what he was doing before the crash.”
Marcus stepped toward her. “Don’t.”
“He was writing to me. That’s why he missed the red light.”
His mother looked at him.
“One second,” Marcus said. “I looked away for one second.”
Lydia opened the door. Rain was starting again, darkening the front steps.
“Good luck with the weather.”
After she left, Marcus tried to take his mother’s hand. She drew it into her lap.
“We sold the orchard for weeds,” she said.
Lydia had barely reached the driveway when two investigators approached her. One showed identification and asked about the drawings submitted to Kadara.
“Those were Marcus’s idea.”
“Then we’ll need to speak with both of you.”
By the following evening, Marcus and his mother stood outside Benedict’s gate with two suitcases between them.
Samuel came out beneath an umbrella.
“You work here now?” Marcus asked.
“Yes, sir.”
His mother held the wet handle of her suitcase. “Please tell Ada we need to see her.”
“She saw you arrive.” Samuel looked toward the house. “She’s coming.”
Ada crossed the covered terrace with Benedict a few paces behind. Rain had plastered Marcus’s hair against his forehead.
“We’ve nowhere to sleep,” he said.
Benedict spoke quietly beside her. “You don’t have to do this.”
Marcus’s mother stepped forward.
“Before you decide, there’s something you must know.”
“Mama.”
She ignored him. “He was texting Lydia when he drove through the light.”
Ada’s fingers curled against her palm. “I knew about the signal. Not the message.”
His mother bowed her head. “Can you forgive me, my daughter?”
For a while, the only sound was rain drumming on Samuel’s umbrella.
“Uncle Samuel,” Ada said. “Give her that.”
He moved the umbrella over the older woman.
“I’ll arrange a small apartment for you,” Ada told her. “One year.”
Marcus lifted his head. “And me?”
“You’ll have to support yourself.”
Ada waited until Samuel had helped his mother through the gate, then turned back toward the house.
Months later, a gust off the inlet rattled the microphones at the tower’s groundbreaking. Peter, now working for Kadara, hurried across the temporary platform to tell Ada the press was ready.
“Not quite,” she said. “Where’s Denise?”
“Down here,” came the answer. “Arguing with your ramp.”
Denise waited at its foot, arms folded over the wheels of her chair.
Ada sent Peter for the site gauge. He crouched beside the incline, checked twice, and looked up apologetically.
“Nine degrees.”
“That angle belongs in the building,” Ada said. “Rebuild the ramp.”
When Denise was safely beside her, Ada stepped to the microphone.
Every floor would meet accessibility requirements, she explained. Ten floors of residences would go further, with generous turning space, wider doorways, and kitchens designed for people who used wheelchairs every day.
Denise leaned toward the microphone after her. “Now I’d like a tour.”
Benedict joined Ada beside the ceremonial shovel.
“Your mother would’ve loved this.”
Ada pressed her shoe against the blade. “For her. And for you.”
Her father put his hand over hers.
“God bless this ground.”
That evening, in the little apartment Ada had provided, Marcus’s mother set a plate before him. Cement dust lay in the creases of his hands.
“Where were you working?”
“Carrying blocks by the inlet.” He stared at the food. “At her tower.”
His mother reached for the umbrella drying beside the door.
“We laughed when she was soaked through,” she said. “She still sent this out to me.”
Marcus rubbed at a pale streak on his wrist. It would not come off.
“An orchard for weeds,” his mother murmured.
At Benedict’s house, Ada was putting her mother’s cane back into its case when he stopped beside her.
“I don’t need it now,” she said.
“Keep it nearby.”
She rested her thumb in the worn hollow of the handle, then laid it beside the portrait instead.
Benedict watched her straighten the photograph on the table beneath it.
“Are you still angry with him?”
“No. I’ve spent enough time outside that gate.”
He nodded, but she stayed beside him another moment.
“I mattered in the chair, too, Daddy.”
Benedict kissed her forehead. Ada took his hand, and they walked toward supper.