The Lie That Raised a Wall
When Zainab ran, she did not look back.
She carried only a small bag, a crying baby pressed to her chest, and a heart full of anger. The night she left the city, she told herself she was doing the right thing. She told herself she was protecting her child.
The village welcomed her with silence and dust. No one asked questions. No one cared to know the truth.
When people asked about the child’s father, Zainab answered without blinking:
“He is dead.”
And with that lie, a wall was built.
Years passed. The baby grew into a boy named Sami bright-eyed, curious, and full of questions. Every Father’s Day at school, every storybook with a hero father, every football match watched from a distance planted questions in his heart.
“Where is my father?” he asked one evening.
Zainab did not hesitate.
“He died before you were born,” she said.
Sami cried quietly that night not because he missed a man he never knew, but because he felt incomplete. He learned to bury his questions, but the ache stayed.
Zainab raised him alone. She struggled. She sacrificed. She worked until her hands hardened. But with every sacrifice came fear the fear that the truth would one day rise.
And truth always does.
One afternoon, when Sami was sixteen, he overheard a conversation not meant for his ears. Two women whispering under a mango tree.
“That boy’s father is alive,” one said.
“He even looked for them,” the other replied.
“But his mother refused.”
The world cracked.
That night, Sami confronted her. His voice trembled, but his eyes burned.
“You told me my father was dead.”
Zainab denied it. Then cried. Then finally broke.
“He wanted to take you away from me,” she said. “I was afraid.”
Sami did not shout. He did not insult her. He simply walked away carrying a wound deeper than any slap.
He searched. And he found him.
His father was not the monster Zainab described. He was a man who had waited, searched, and mourned a child he was told never existed. When father and son met, there were no words at first only tears.
For the first time, Sami felt whole.
But with that wholeness came anger.
He returned to the village changed. The boy who once clung to his mother now looked at her like a stranger.
“You stole my father from me,” he said.
“You stole my truth.”
Zainab watched her son drift away, not to another woman, not to rebellion but to truth. The lie she thought would protect him had turned her into the enemy in his heart.
Now, she sits alone most evenings, listening to silence the same silence she once chose.
She saved her child from pain, or so she thought.
But in hiding the truth, she raised a wall that love could not climb.
Moral
A child may forgive poverty.
A child may forgive hardship.
But a child never forgets a stolen truth.
