When Zikora group-called Omelogor and me, and we hadn’t planned on a call, I knew it was about Kadiatou, and I knew it wasn’t good news.

“The charges will be dropped,”

she said.

“They said she’s lied about too many things and they can’t trust her.”

“What?”

I heard my own screaming voice, as though from someone else. “What?”

“They will drop the case? Just like that? It’s over?”

Omelogor asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe this,”

Omelogor said tightly.

“They said she lied?”

I asked.

“How can they know she lied?”

“Not about the assault.

They said there is compelling evidence to support her version of events, but because she wasn’t honest and forthcoming about her past, they can’t trust her and don’t think a jury will trust her.”

“So nobody in that prosecutor’s office has ever lied in their lives,”

Omelogor said.

“I saw the press release,”

Zikora said.

“They’re really throwing her under.

It’s almost as if they’re exasperated with her.

It’s so odd.”

“She didn’t lie about the rape but because she lied about something else in her past, a jury of normal people will not believe her about the rape,”

Omelogor said.

“But Kadi didn’t lie,” I said.

“I’m saying even if she did lie about her past, it means she’s lying about everything else? Why can’t they just focus on what happened in that room, what she actually accused him of?”

Omelogor said.

“What will I tell Kadi?”

I asked.

I was stunned, unsteady; a thousand dots swayed in my vision and Kadiatou’s voice in my head, saying, He will send people to kill me! He will send people to kill me!

“There’s still the option of a civil case.

She will almost definitely win a civil case, and she’ll get some money and she can start her restaurant,”

Zikora said.

“But it’s a shabby consolation prize,”

Omelogor said.

“What is?”

“A civil court win.

I hate how Americans think money is justice.

Winning money in a civil case isn’t justice.

How can the government drop the criminal charges? Goodness, everybody in America has lost their bravery.

So what is their alternative story? If you reject a story, then you should tell us what the real story is.”

“They’re not saying her story isn’t true.

They’re saying they can’t prove it because of what she’s said in the past,”

Zikora said.

“But what does the past have to do with what happened?” I asked.

“The prosecutor is just a self-serving coward afraid to do some real work.

America is so messed up!”

Omelogor’s voice was cracking.

“Yes and Nigeria is better,”

Zikora mocked.

Omelogor looked almost hurt, as if this wasn’t an appropriate time for their baiting.

“Zikora, Nigeria doesn’t call itself the land of the free and the brave.”

“I don’t know how to tell her,” I said.

“Chia, you need to go and see her.

To tell her yourself, before her lawyer does,”

Omelogor said.

“Yes, it will be easier for her,”

Zikora said.

“I can come by after work.”

“Chia?”

Omelogor said.

“Yes, okay,” I said.

And so I called Kadi, an audio call because I did not want her to see my face.

“Kadi, I have to come and see you.

I have something to tell you.

Zikora found out some information.”

There was an intake of breath, a brief strangled silence, and then she said, “They will deport me? But Binta can stay.

Binta can stay.”

“No, Kadi, it’s not that.

Nobody is deporting you.

I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay.”

What did it matter what I wore to Kadi’s to tell her? But I changed three times.

My dull black-gray dress felt right, somber enough.

Her apartment’s entrance smelled of mushrooms.

Binta opened the door wearing a white mask and hugged me, our papery masks brushing against each other.

Her eyes looked sad, this lovely young girl who should not be cooped up with her mother in a small apartment waiting for justice.

I held her tightly for a long moment.

Kadi had been cooking, the smell reminded me of my kitchen when she cooked folere.

The old wood floors of her apartment had the sheen of frequent scrubbing.

Old-fashioned scrubbing, with a brush.

Kadi once told me that Amadou joked about how she didn’t need to bother with plates in his apartment in New York, he would eat his food from the floor, because it was too scrupulously clean to waste.

A clanging sound of a heater.

It was warming up outside but the heater was on. The living room sat half in shadow, the windows ungenerous with light, and Kadi was in the shadowy corner, on an armchair, and she was gripping one arm of the chair. A well-worn chair, it looked like something she sank into after a long day at work to watch her beloved Nollywood. A fringed lampshade stood on a side table, looking out of place.

“Kadi,” I said.

“Miss Chia,”

she said.

She looked wary, and almost impatient; she knew it was bad news and she wanted it done with straightaway.

If the air were made of fabric there were crinkles in it.

Binta was hovering, her anxiety palpable, as if I could reach out and feel the air thickened from it.

I took a deep breath, feeling so utterly sorry for Kadi.

After all the interviews she had suffered through, the questioning and requestioning, after it all, to end with this nullity.

“Kadi, they will dismiss the case.

They’ve dropped it.

They won’t go to court.”

“What does that mean, Aunty?”

Binta asked.

Kadi looked puzzled, her brows knitted.

“They dropped it?”

“Yes, it’s ridiculous but they said they can’t prove your case, but it’s also because he has very big lawyers.”

I paused, feeling inept.

I was not explaining this clearly.

“So no court? No court case anymore?”

Kadi asked.

“Yes, but Kadi, there is something called a civil court—”

She cut me short.

“So Miss Chia, no court case? They dismiss everything?”

I had a sudden niggling feeling that something was not right, that the rising pitch of her voice was wrong, a stirring energy unsuited for the news.

Did she not understand?

“Yes.

They have dismissed everything.

Nothing will happen now.”

Kadi’s eyes flew wide in disbelief, but not in dread; it was that other kind of disbelief, tentative, asking, Do I dare believe?

“No court case?”

Kadi asked.

“No.”

And then Kadi smiled.

I stared as her face changed, like those reverse animations that show a wilted flower slowly returning to bloom.

She stood up to her full statuesque height and in a flash she and Binta were in each other’s arms, clasped together, Kadi making a sound that was neither crying nor laughter, a low-toned keening.

I felt suddenly limp, my own tension draining away.

“Oh, Aunty Chia,”

Binta said.

“She’s been dreading the court case.

She’s been praying that it won’t happen.

She didn’t want to stand there and answer all these questions about her private life, and sometimes when her lawyer calls she doesn’t answer because she’s so tired of practicing the questions, and she gets scared when the prosecutors call, and she hasn’t been sleeping, she just cries and cries at night.”

Binta was crying now and smiling through her tears.

Kadi paced around the room and then lowered herself onto the sofa, near the window, and Binta sat next to her, holding her hand.

I felt that I was observing something remarkable, the unfolding of Kadi, a woman becoming anew before my eyes.

How in a moment despair was flung away.

“Oh, Miss Chia,”

Kadi said.

My phone was ringing.

Omelogor calling, but I didn’t pick it up.

Later, driving home, I would call her back, the phone barely beeping before her harried voice asked, “Chia, how did it go? She must have been shattered.”

And I would reply, a little triumphantly, “Actually, no.

She wasn’t, at all.”

But now I let my phone ring.

I wanted to savor this moment for just a little bit longer, Kadiatou and Binta, these two thoroughly decent people, mother and daughter, sitting on a sofa holding hands, their faces bathed in light.

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