Then he lay down, stared at the ceiling, and eventually slept.
The next morning, he opened the shop as usual.
This was Daniel’s way.
You feel the pain completely, and then you get up and keep going.
His mother had raised him that way.
So he opened the shop, set up his tools, and sat down in his plastic chair with a cup of tea. But his mind was elsewhere.
He was sitting like that, quiet, still looking at nothing, when a neat silver car pulled up.
The driver wound down the window and smiled.
“Daniel? Daniel Okafor?”
He looked up. Then he blinked, and for the first time in days, something in his face softened.
It was Grace Ellis.
Grace was from his university days. They had been in the same department, sat in some of the same classes, and fallen into an easy friendship during group assignments and long afternoons in the campus library. She was smart and funny and completely unpretentious, which surprised most people when they found out her family was one of the established wealthy families in Lagos.
She drove a nice car and lived in a nice house, but she never once made anyone feel small because of it.
She parked the car and came out. She was dressed simply: jeans, a neat blouse, natural hair pulled back.
She looked at Daniel for a moment, taking in the shop, the overalls, the tiredness around his eyes.
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