Writers 
Before that fateful December, Mrs Chinedu was the life of our compound. She was the woman of smiles and loud, infectious laughter that could wake a sleeping street. If you were sad, you went to her. If you needed a joke to lighten your spirit, she was there with a gap-toothed grin and a warm plate of food. We all loved her. We thought she was the kindest soul among us, just a woman waiting patiently for her own miracle.
Then she went to the village and returned with Emeka.
The change was like a candle being snuffed out in a dark room. The small, spindly boy was quiet and far too intelligent for a seven-year-old, with eyes that seemed to see right through the walls of our compound. He was the kind of boy who would see you carrying a heavy bucket of water and run to help before you even asked. But for some reason, his presence turned Mrs Chinedu into a stranger.
The smiles vanished, replaced by a permanent scowl. It did not take long for the walls of our yard to echo with the sharp, wicked sound of a cane and Emeka’s muffled cries. The woman we thought we knew began to treat that boy as if he were an enemy she had brought home to punish. There was no day we did not hear the sound of cane. We would stand outside her door, pleading and shouting for her to have mercy, but she would only bark back that we should mind our own business.
Then there was Aunty Sarah.
Aunty Sarah was the one we called the Audacious Angel. While the rest of us stayed by our windows, shocked by Mrs Chinedu’s transformation, Sarah was the only one who would burst into that parlour, grabbing the whip from her hand. She would pull Emeka to her chest, whispering to him while she stood up to Mrs Chinedu’s fury.
“Do you want to kill this boy for his parents?!” Sarah would scream. “Is this how a human being behaves? Have you no sympathy in your blood?”
Both women were looking for the fruit of the womb. It was the common talk of the compound. We all believed that Sarah’s sympathy for Emeka was a prayer to God, a way of saying, “Look, I am ready to be a mother.” And when both women became pregnant at the same time, we thought the heavens had finally answered.
But the atmosphere in the compound grew dark. Mrs Chinedu did not change. If anything, her pregnancy made her more resentful of Emeka. She saw him as a burden, a reminder of the years she had spent waiting. One rainy evening, the beating was louder than usual. We heard a heavy thud, a silence, and then a scream that did not sound like a child’s.
Mrs Chinedu had tripped while chasing Emeka with a heavy wooden spoon. The fall was bad. By the next morning, the news went round that she had lost the baby. We felt a cold shiver go through the compound. People whispered that it was the weight of her own cruelty that had pulled the child from her.
Aunty Sarah, however, remained the beacon of hope. She took Emeka in fully after that, feeding him and caring for him while Mrs Chinedu wallowed in her bitterness. We waited for Sarah’s joy to balance the scales. We waited for the celebration.
But the day Sarah went into labour, the music did not play.
There were complications. The doctors did their best, but by sunset, the word reached us. The baby was gone, and Sarah followed shortly after. The compound went silent. It was a silence so heavy you could taste it.
I went to the hospital with some of the other neighbours to pack Sarah’s things. Mrs Chinedu was there too, looking pale and ghostly. She was sitting on a bench, staring at the wall. I expected to see remorse in her eyes. I expected her to finally understand the cost of a heart without sympathy, to see that while Sarah had given everything, she had left a legacy of love behind. I expected to see a glimmer of the woman who used to laugh with us.
Instead, Mrs Chinedu looked at me, her face twisted into a small, bitter smile.
“You see?” she whispered, her voice like dry leaves. “She played the saint. She took that boy in to show God she was better than me. And what did it get her? The same empty arms I have. All that sympathy was for nothing.”
I looked at her, at the woman who had watched her own neighbour die after years of friendship, and saw that there was absolutely nothing left inside her — no grief, no pity, just a cold satisfaction that she was not the only one suffering. The woman of smiles was gone, replaced by something alienic and terrifying.
I turned away from her, my voice barely a whisper as the memory of our old friend shattered into pieces.
“I thought I knew you,” I said to her. “I thought you were a good person, but I guess I was wrong.”
