Part 2
My mother rushed back into the room while I stood frozen beside my father outside. The baby’s cries filled the small house, loud and alive, but something in Iya Abiye’s voice had changed. It no longer sounded joyful.
My father looked at me nervously.
“Ayo… stay here.”
But I couldn’t stay still.
I moved closer to the door and heard whispers inside.
Then suddenly—
My mother gasped.
“Ha… God forbid!”
My heart started beating faster.
A few seconds later, my mother stepped outside slowly. The smile she wore earlier had completely disappeared.
“What happened?” my father asked immediately.
She looked at him with trembling lips.
“The baby…” she whispered.
“What about the baby?”
My mother swallowed hard.
“The child has the exact same birthmark as Ayo.”
Silence.
Everything around me suddenly felt heavy.
My father stared at her.
“What are you saying?”
I touched my shoulder unconsciously. Since I was little, I had a dark crescent-shaped birthmark near my collarbone. My mother always called it “God’s signature.”
Now she was saying the newborn baby had the same mark.
My father rushed inside.
I followed behind quietly.
Omolola was lying weakly on the mat, sweating heavily, while Iya Abiye wrapped the baby carefully in white cloth.
Then she turned the baby slightly.
And there it was.
The same mark.
My father stepped back in shock.
Omolola looked frightened.
“What is wrong?” she asked weakly.
Nobody answered immediately.
Finally my mother spoke softly.
“Omolola… who exactly is your husband?”
Tears gathered in her eyes instantly.
Then she whispered—
“He is not my husband.”
The room went silent again.
“He kidnapped me,” she cried. “The man I was living with belongs to a ritualist group. When he found out I was pregnant, he said the child would bring them wealth because of the mark.”
My mother held her mouth.
Omolola continued crying.
“He said children born with this mark are special in his family. He wanted to use the baby for rituals after birth. That was why I ran away.”
My father frowned deeply.
“But what does that have to do with Ayo?”
Omolola slowly turned toward me.
Then she said the words that changed my life forever.
“Because… the mark belongs to your bloodline.”
I froze.
My mother almost fell to the floor.
“What are you talking about?” my father shouted.
Omolola took a shaky breath.
“Years ago… before I met that man… I worked for a woman in Ibadan. She once told me a story about a missing child from a wealthy family. A little boy stolen during a village crisis. The child had a crescent birthmark.”
She pointed at me.
“The exact same one.”
My father looked confused.
But my mother suddenly started crying.
Real tears.
Then she whispered—
“Ayo is adopted.”
The world stopped.
I stared at her in disbelief.
“What?”
My father closed his eyes.
My mother cried harder.
“We found you during the riot twenty years ago. You were wandering alone near the roadside. We searched for your family for months… but nobody came.”
I couldn’t breathe properly.
Everything I believed about myself suddenly felt uncertain.
Omolola looked at me sadly.w
“That child your parents found… may belong to the same family as my baby.”
I sat down slowly, completely numb.
Outside, thunder rumbled across the night sky.
And for the first time in my life…
I realized I didn’t know who I truly was.
Part 3
