I Cleaned His Office for Eight Years — He Never Knew I Was the Mother of the Boy He Abandoned in High School

We met at the cemetery, under the same mango tree where I had once buried my boy.

Nonso arrived silently, his shoulders heavy.

“Lucia…”

“Don’t say anything.”

He knelt beside the grave and wept like a child.

“Forgive me, son. You were never a mistake.”

We planted a tree beside the gravestone.

“What would you have wanted Chidera to become?” he asked.

“A good man,” I said. “Like the one you still have a chance to be.”