“She was real,” he murmured. “I’ve heard of her.”
“There are articles,” Dr. Kunle said, scrolling. “Cases. Testimonies.”
“My grandmother taught me everything,” Adanna said. “She said some injuries are not only in the flesh. Sometimes the body remembers guilt. Fear. Rage. And until those things are touched, healing cannot fully begin.”
Abubakar stared at her.
Five years earlier, a helicopter crash had shattered his spine. Since then, he had spent a fortune on specialists, imported therapies, and machines. He had become bitter, proud, and cruel. His private suite at the rehabilitation centre was a monument to money and resentment.
Yet now a child was looking at him as if she saw something beneath the wheelchair.
“Can you truly help me?” he asked.
“You must want to be healed,” Adanna said.
His businessmen friends watched him closely. For the first time in years, Abubakar lowered his gaze.
“Please,” he whispered.
That night Ngozi did not sleep. She sat beside her daughter in their cramped staff room, staring into the dark.
“You do not have to do this,” she said. “We can leave.”
Adanna shook her head. “Grandmother would not have run.”
Before dawn, they returned to Abubakar’s suite.
The room was full now—business partners, doctors, nurses, and the centre’s lead physician, Dr. Chike Obi, who insisted on monitoring everything.
Abubakar sat in his wheelchair wearing only a T-shirt and shorts. His thin, lifeless legs were exposed.
Adanna walked to him quietly.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” she said. “The accident. The pain. Everything.”
Abubakar drew a breath.
“The helicopter fell. I was flying it myself. I shouldn’t have been.” His jaw tightened. “I wanted to save money. The pilot should have been there, but I sent him home.”
He swallowed hard.
“The crash killed him.”
The room went still.
“No one knew that?” Chief Emeka asked.
“I paid his family,” Abubakar said harshly. “House, school fees, pension. I paid everything. But I killed him.”
Adanna stepped closer.
“That is why you are not healing.”
Abubakar stared at her.
“You do not believe you deserve to recover,” she said. “Your body is holding your guilt.”
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