She felt something inside her go very still. She had spent the first six months of their marriage learning his habits, adjusting to living with him, building small rituals and trusting that they were beginning something neither had lived before. She remembered the night of the photograph because he'd come home with airport biscuits and told her his meeting had run late. He had kissed her forehead while she slept. He had lain beside her and been affectionate the next morning. She had no memory of suspicion because she hadn't known there was anything to suspect.
"Did you sleep with her?" Nkiru asked. "No." "Did she ask you to?" "She asked if I was happy in my marriage. She asked whether there was any possibility of correcting what happened between us." Nkiru pressed a hand to her chest. "And?" "I told her it was over. I told her I loved you." She looked at him. "That's the answer to what happened inside the hotel. Now tell me why you went in the first place."
Tobi sat down slowly. "She called me because of a child." Nkiru waited. "Temi had a son. Korede. He's eight now." "I know she has a son. I've seen the photographs." Tobi's eyes filled. "She told me the timing of her pregnancy meant he might be mine." Nkiru heard herself ask, "Yours?" He nodded. She looked at the photograph again. The neat little boy with the football trophy appeared in her memory beside the executive's office window. Suddenly the corporate investigation seemed far away.
"You went to Abuja because your former fiancee told you she might have given birth to your child," Nkiru said. Tobi nodded again. "And you returned home without telling your wife." "We had a test." "What test?" "A paternity test. The result said he wasn't mine." Nkiru held out her hand. "Show me." Tobi looked helpless. "That was years ago." "Show me the document that made it possible for you to put a possible son out of your mind and come home to sleep beside me."
He found a scanned copy in an old email folder after nearly an hour. The document carried a laboratory name, a case number, and a conclusion excluding Tobi as the biological father. Nkiru read it slowly. She had never studied genetics, but she could understand a chain-of-custody form. Beside the field for sample collector was the name Oluwakemi Akinwale. The collection address was an office used by Dapo Akinwale, Temi's father and Folarin's younger brother. The signature field where Tobi should have acknowledged sample collection was blank.
"Who is Oluwakemi?" Nkiru asked. "A relative of Temi's. She helped arrange it." "Did you give a sample at an accredited collection center?" "Dapo's people collected it in a private office." "Did you sign anything?" Tobi frowned. "I gave them identification and a swab. They said the paperwork would be handled." She looked up. "Did you ever speak to the laboratory yourself?" "No. Dapo sent me the result." She pushed the papers away. "Then you trusted another person to tell you whether you had a son. Just as you trusted Temi to tell you what you were approving."