They say a mother always knows. That instinct sharpens with motherhood—that a mother can sense when something is wrong. But Grace Adeyemi didn’t know. Not even when the signs began to surface in little, heartbreaking ways.
She had always believed her life was blessed. Her husband, Tunji, was responsible, kind, and respected. He was the kind of father who didn’t miss school plays or PTA meetings. He braided his daughter’s hair on weekends, helped her with homework, and even packed her lunch when Grace had early morning orders to meet. A man who didn’t just tolerate parenting, he embraced it. Neighbors admired them, and friends envied them.
Grace had two children, but Misan was her first. Her only daughter. She had noticed changes in Misan. She had begun wetting the bed just before her seventh birthday. She had sudden outbursts of rage, followed by long silences that frightened even her younger brother. She flinched at certain touches. She refused to be left alone in the house with her father—something Grace found unusual, yet brushed off as childhood moodiness. And one night, Misan broke down, mumbling something incoherent about her body hurting. Grace assumed it was a fever. But it wasn’t.
Everything came to light one rainy afternoon. Grace had returned early from the market. Her children weren’t expecting her for another hour, and Tunji certainly wasn’t either. She walked in and heard noises—not loud, not screaming—just strange. Then she opened the door to her daughter’s room. What she saw broke her.
Tunji’s eyes widened in shock. Misan looked frozen, her small frame shaking. She pulled down her dress, eyes darting between her parents. In that moment, Grace’s soul left her body. A cold clarity swept through her as the realization sank in: her husband, her lover, her best friend, the father of her children, had been defiling their little girl. Violating the same child he had cradled in his arms on the night of her birth. Her world collapsed.
Misan couldn’t even speak properly in the days that followed. But the forensic report confirmed everything. Tunji had been abusing her for almost two years. Two years of stolen childhood, shame, confusion, and silence.
Grace couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep. And she couldn’t breathe under the weight of what she had allowed—unknowingly, under her own roof. The evidence came: medical reports, a therapist’s evaluation. Then Tunji was taken into custody and released on bail pending trial. He denied everything. He wept in front of police officers. He insisted Grace was mentally unstable and that Misan was making it up.
Three days later, Grace killed him.
It wasn’t premeditated. She said she walked into the living room and saw him sitting there drinking tea, flipping through a newspaper, looking so unremorseful and something in her snapped. He looked too comfortable. Too unbothered. Too free.
She went to the kitchen, picked up a knife and stabbed him seventeen times.
By the time the police arrived, she was still there, sitting beside his body in a pool of blood. People debated her actions. Some called her a hero. Others said she should have let the law take its course. The court didn’t see a hero. They saw a woman who took the law into her own hands. Her defence argued that it was a trauma-induced breakdown. The judge was sympathetic but unyielding.
Grace Adeyemi was sentenced to thirty-three years in prison.
Misan, just eight years old, was relocated to Calabar to live with extended family. Her younger brother went to another household. And so, what had once been a family disintegrated—each person cast into their own form of exile.
Years passed.
Misan stopped talking about her mother. Her relatives told her it was best to forget, to let sleeping dogs lie. “She did what she thought was right,” her aunt once said. “But she killed your father. You must never forget that.”
At thirteen, she wrote a letter to her mother and tore it up. At sixteen, she nearly overdosed. And then, at twenty, she decided to visit. The prison was cold. Her hands trembled as she passed through the gates. She waited, her heart pounding. And then Grace walked in. Older. Smaller. Greyer. For a few seconds, they just looked at each other.
Grace reached forward. “Misan…”
Her daughter didn’t flinch. She didn’t even smile.
“You killed him,” Misan said flatly.
Grace blinked. “Yes. I did.”
There were no tears from Misan. “I hated him. But you had no right to kill him.”
“He destroyed me,” Misan continued. “And so did you. You took away any chance I had of confronting him. You made me an orphan. You let your rage speak louder than your responsibility.”
Grace trembled. Her voice cracked. Her mouth opened, then closed. “I failed you. I didn’t protect you when I should have. And then I did the only thing I could think to do.”
“No,” Misan said. “You did what felt good. Not what was right.”
Grace started crying. “Every day I’ve been here, I think about what I should’ve done differently.”
Misan nodded slowly. “And how has that helped or changed what you did?”
Silence sat between them like a third person.
“I’m not here for closure,” Misan said. “I’m here because I needed to look at you. To see what’s left of my mother.”
“I’m sorry,” Grace whispered. “Truly.”
“I forgive you,” Misan said. “But that doesn’t mean I understand you. Or that I want you back.”
Grace nodded. A tear slid down her cheek. “Thank you for coming.”
Misan stood. And then she turned and walked away. Neither of them looked back. They were both prisoners. One behind steel and bars. The other behind the memory.
What Tunji did could never be erased.
What Grace did in a fit of rage cannot be understood.
And Misan? She carried the weight of both their choices on her back. But was her attitude towards her mother justified?
There are no clear heroes here. Just pain, choice and consequence.
And in the end, what was left of this family wasn’t justice… only mixed feelings.
