The Hand I Lifted
JULIE never forgot where she came from.
Even after life changed her name, her clothes, and the kind of house she lived in, her heart still carried the red dust of the village roads she once walked barefoot. That was why, when she returned home one Christmas and saw Jennifer thin, tired, and forgotten by life she did not hesitate.
“Come with me,” Julie said. “You will not suffer here again.”
Jennifer cried that night. She held Julie’s feet and called her a sister, a savior, a blessing sent by God.
Julie brought her into her home in the city. She clothed her, fed her, taught her how to live in a world Jennifer only heard about in stories. She introduced her to her husband, Kunle, with pride.
“This is my sister,” she said.
Jennifer smiled softly. Too softly.
At first, everything seemed fine. Jennifer helped in the house. She laughed with Julie. She called Kunle brother. But slowly, things began to change.
Kunle started coming home later. Jennifer started dressing differently. The laughter in the house shifted quiet, secretive, heavy. Julie noticed the looks, the pauses, the sudden silence when she entered a room. But she dismissed it.
“She is my sister,” she told herself. “She would never.”
Until the night she heard whispers behind a locked door.
The truth shattered her like glass.
Jennifer the girl she rescued from hunger had taken her husband. Not by force, but by patience. By pretending to be grateful. By studying Julie’s life and quietly stepping into it.
When julie confronted them, jennifer did not beg. She did not cry. She smiled.
“You had everything,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I have something too?”
Kunle left. Just like that. Years of marriage erased by betrayal.
But the pain did not end there.
Jennifer feared julie’s voice. Feared the truth Julie carried. One night, jealousy turned into hatred. She tried to silence the woman who gave her life poisoning her drink, hoping to erase her forever.
But God intervened.
Julie survived.
Today, julie walks with scars some on her body, most in her heart. She no longer brings everyone close. She no longer calls everyone sister. But she lives.
And Jennifer?
She lost everything. The husband. The comfort. The protection. Betrayal gave her temporary gain, but it stole her soul.
Moral
Sometimes, the hand you lift can become the hand that strikes you.
Not everyone you save will be grateful.
And not everyone who calls you sister wishes you well.
#truestory #relationship #buchinwa
