"Yes," Temi answered.
"Did you ask him to leave me?"
"I asked whether he was happy. I asked whether there was any possibility of correcting what happened between us."
"Six months into my marriage."
Temi lowered her eyes. She explained that she had married Deji after her engagement to Tobi ended, that Korede had been born during that marriage, and that Deji had loved the boy without asking for any explanation she was not prepared to give. She had tried to leave the uncertainty untouched, she said, until the dates began bothering her more than the risk of disclosure. Nkiru did not let the confession become an appeal for sympathy. Fear explained a decision, she told Temi, but it did not turn somebody else's marriage into a place where old questions could be answered privately.
"What happened in the suite?" Nkiru asked.
"I told Tobi the dates didn't make sense. I asked whether he would ever consider us again. He said no."
"Immediately?"
"Yes. He said he loved you. Then my father came, because I had told him I was frightened of what might happen if this became public."
"And your father arranged the DNA test?"
Temi nodded. She said Chairman Folarin, whom she still called Dapo in the privacy of family conversations, wanted the matter settled before it reached Deji or the family's business associates. He arranged for a report to be delivered to both her and Tobi. She never visited the laboratory to obtain original records, and she had not seen the signed chain-of-custody forms. The same summary result was given to everyone, and she accepted it because it allowed her to return to her child without telling Deji she had questioned the foundation of their marriage.
Nkiru sat with that answer for a long time. She had come expecting a woman determined to defend her own choices and instead found another person who had allowed somebody else to determine which version of the truth was survivable. She asked whether Temi had ever examined the original laboratory result. The executive shook her head. Nkiru looked through the glass wall at the city beyond, then turned back to her.
"There seems to be no correct way anybody in this family tells the truth," she said. "But there is a very simple way to stop adding lies. We begin by admitting what we do not know."
Chairman Folarin agreed to meet Nkiru the next afternoon at a modest office he kept away from the group's glass headquarters. He had used the room years earlier when Meridian was still a small hospitality business, before executive assistants began arranging every hour of his life. The furniture was old enough to look ordinary, and a photograph of his late wife stood beside a row of ledgers. Nkiru wondered whether he had chosen the place because it reminded him of honesty or because its familiarity might make a difficult conversation feel less threatening. She remained standing when he invited her to sit.
"I know why you are here," he began.
"I doubt you know all of it."