Nkiru knew Temi had a son by that name, a boy whose photographs appeared in family events and whose father, Deji, had died some years earlier. She asked what the child had to do with a private meeting in Abuja. Tobi explained that Temi had told him the dates around Korede's conception were uncertain, that their relationship had ended near the time she became pregnant, and that the boy might be his biological son. The words arrived slowly but rearranged everything Nkiru thought she knew. Korede was eight now, which meant he had already been a small child when Tobi stood beside her and promised to share a life.
"You went to meet your former fiancée," Nkiru said, "because she told you she might have given birth to your son."
"Yes. I should have told you."
"You came home that night. You slept beside me. You went to work the next day as if nothing had happened."
Tobi covered his face with his hands. "There was a DNA test. The result said I wasn't his father."
"Show me."
"That was years ago. I don't even know where the copy is."
"Then find it. Show me the result that allowed you to come home and erase an eight-year-old child from our marriage."
He opened an old email archive and eventually found a scanned report attached to a message from an Akinwale family office. Nkiru had no medical expertise, but she could read the names at the top of a form. The listed collection contact was Oluwakemi Akinwale, a relative who sometimes managed family correspondence, and the report gave no clear signature confirming Tobi had supplied or verified his own sample. He explained that a family representative had arranged the collection and told him everything was handled professionally. Nkiru asked why a supposedly independent test had passed through the private office of the very family whose reputation depended on the answer.
"I never submitted those samples through the clinic myself," he admitted. "They said it could be handled through the family physician."
"Then what exactly did you accept?"
"A negative result. I wanted to believe it."
"You wanted to believe it because believing was easier than telling me what had happened."
That night Nkiru slept in the sitting room, though neither of them could truly claim to have slept. She listened to traffic beneath their window and thought about the child at the center of a secret he had never agreed to keep. She was angry with Tobi and Temi, but she also found herself thinking of Korede's ordinary life: school mornings, lost pencils, birthdays, a father he remembered through photographs. If the old report was wrong, the truth would not be a simple gift to him. It could also fracture the world that had taught him where he belonged.
Nkiru demanded a meeting with Temi, and this time she did not allow the executive to choose a private suite or familiar office. They met in a quiet conference room with a legal adviser nearby, though he remained outside until needed. Temi arrived looking composed, but Nkiru noticed her fingers tightening around the strap of her handbag. She asked a single question before sitting. "Did you tell my husband that Korede might be his son after we were already married?"