He felt it—recognition, admiration, silent respect. It fed his ego even as it disturbed him.
“They know you,” Vanessa said.
“They remember,” Nana answered.
“That must feel good.”
He did not answer, but yes—it did. He remembered leaving with one worn suitcase and a desperate promise to himself: if he ever came back, it would be as a man no one could ignore.
What he had never imagined was that this return would crack open the very life he had built.
The SUV passed the old market square, and Nana looked away quickly. He had once stood there for hours, hoping someone would buy the little goods he tried to sell. That man no longer existed.
Or so he thought.
Vanessa adjusted in her seat. “You never really told me about your ex-wife.”
Nana’s jaw tightened.
“There’s nothing to say,” he replied. “It’s over.”
Vanessa smiled faintly. “People don’t go from nothing to everything without scars.”
“She made her choices,” Nana said. “I made mine.”
What he did not say was how deeply those choices had once wounded him. In the version of the story he had told himself for years, Alice had betrayed him. She had not believed in him. She had been disloyal at the moment he needed faith the most.
In that version, leaving her was justified.
Vanessa slipped her hand into his. “Well, I’m glad you moved on. You deserve better now.”
Nana squeezed her hand lightly, but his eyes remained on the road.
Then it happened.
Up ahead, on the roadside, he saw a woman bent beneath a heavy bundle of firewood tied across her back. Her clothes were faded. Her steps were slow but steady. Behind her walked two small girls—so close together they seemed to move as one. Thin arms swinging in the same rhythm. Heads slightly lowered. Faces serious in a way that struck him hard and without warning.
Something about them hit him instantly.
“Stop,” Nana said sharply.
The driver braked in surprise.
