What we hold

The unknown number’s message sat on Benjamin’s screen like a dropped plate. Please. My mother doesn’t know she’s gone. Can you help?

He read it twice, then a third time, as if repetition could turn it into a puzzle with edges. Louis leaned against the bedroom doorframe, T‑shirt soft from a dozen washes, eyes steady in that way that made decisions feel less like cliffs.

“Are you going to answer?” Louis asked.

“Yes,” Benjamin said, and typed: I can try. Who is this?

A beat, then: Kojo. From Nungua. We’re at my auntie’s. Odorkor. Please.

Christel popped her head in. “Everything okay?”

“Someone needs a bridge,” Benjamin said. “Tonight.”

Christel frowned. “We said daylight.”

“We did,” he said. The red thread from the dream tugged at his palm though his hands were empty. “But some doors won’t wait for morning.”

She held his gaze, measuring the risk against the boy she’d raised. “You don’t go alone,” she said finally.

“I wasn’t planning to,” Benjamin said, looking toward Louis, who had already slid on his sandals.

Nathaniel and Ciska were half-dressed by the time they hit the hallway, muttering about ominous texts and the injustice of night. The tro‑tro ride stretched the city between them and the sea. Odorkor’s streets wore sleep badly, too much unsaid in the corners. They found a low compound house with a flickering security light and a courtyard that smelled of smoke and plantain. Kojo waited by the gate, shoulders squared around worry.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, voice rough from too much quiet.

They followed him inside. The living room had the careful tidiness of grief. On the wall, a calendar a month out of date. On the table, a plate of biscuits untouched long enough to taste like air. In the bedroom, an older woman sat upright on the bed, hands folded, eyes fixed on a corner where nothing visible happened.

“Auntie,” Kojo said softly. “I brought help.”

The woman did not look at them. “Your mother is late,” she said to the corner, and her mouth smiled the way a house smiles when you paint only the front. “She always forgets her keys.”

Kojo’s face twisted, then steadied. “She’s been… talking like this since the funeral,” he whispered. “Like she never went to it.”

Benjamin stood at the threshold. The night felt dense, as if hours had pooled here. He set the bell on the dresser but did not touch it. The red thread in his chest hummed. Do not pull. Hold.

He did not speak at once. He looked at the room. On the chair, a wrapper folded with love. On the wall, a photograph: mother and son grinning too big, the camera catching joy mid-laugh. On the nightstand, a small dish with hairpins and a single torn movie ticket.

“May I sit?” Benjamin asked the older woman.

She blinked for the first time. “Are you a neighbor?”

“I am someone who will keep you company,” he said, and sat, palms open on his knees. Louis slipped into the far corner, leaning near the window. Nathaniel took up a position by the door, a sentry who believed in both physics and miracles. Ciska perched at the edge of the dresser, all edges hiding a soft center. Kojo hovered like a question that had forgotten how to be answered.

“Auntie,” Benjamin said, keeping his voice as gentle as the red thread felt. “Tell me about her keys.”

“She loses them,” the woman said, huffing. “Always losing and finding. She will knock and knock. But she forgets I am old now. I cannot get up fast.”

Benjamin nodded. “It must have been hard the last time she left.”

“She didn’t leave,” the woman said, with the certainty of dawn. “She just forgot the way back.”

He breathed in. Do not tug. Wait. “Sometimes,” he said, words finding their footing one by one, “we have to help the way back find us.”

He glanced at Louis. Louis’s eyes met his and held, a bridge of their own. The strength in that look was warm, not heavy. Benjamin lifted the bell into his palm, felt the metal’s cool patience, and set it down again. Not summoning. Inviting.

“Auntie,” he said, “may we hum her favorite song? So the way can remember.”

The woman’s mouth softened. “Ah,” she said. “Always that old highlife. ‘Yaa Amponsah.’ She plays it too loud.”

Louis’s quiet voice began, a little shaky, then sure. Nathaniel joined, surprising himself, finding the melody like a book he’d read once and loved. Ciska tapped a beat on her knee. Kojo’s voice came last, broken but brave.

They hummed. The room received the sound. The corner where the woman had been looking eased its grip on air. A warmth folded over Benjamin’s shoulders. He felt the edge, the place where the world is almost two worlds. He did not step onto it. He stood beside it and lifted the red thread with his attention, not his hand.

“Auntie,” he said, never looking away from her face. “She’s at the door now. She doesn’t need the keys. You can open for her.”

Tears gathered and did not fall. The woman’s hands trembled. She turned, finally, toward the actual door. “Eh, you,” she scolded, voice shaking into laughter. “Always knocking like a police.”

In the hum, in the house, something yielded. Benjamin did not see a figure. He felt relief move through the room like rain through heat. The bell did not ring. It turned the idea of a note in his palm. The older woman’s shoulders dropped. She leaned back against the pillows, eyes closing with the permission she had denied herself.

“Thank you,” Kojo whispered, knuckles pressed to his mouth.

“Keep singing to her for a while,” Benjamin said. “Not to make her stay. To help her rest.”

They stepped into the courtyard. Night caught its breath and carried on. Kojo hugged them like a man who had been carrying a too-heavy bag and was surprised to find his arms empty. “Come for jollof on Sunday,” he blurted, grief turning into hospitality the way night turns into morning if you keep your promises.

Outside the gate, the road was long and quiet. Nathaniel and Ciska went ahead to flag a ride, voices colliding in relief. Louis lingered under the almond tree.

“You held,” Louis said softly. “You didn’t pull.”

“I wanted to,” Benjamin admitted. “There’s a part of me that wants to fix everything with a hammer. Bridges, taps, hearts.”

Louis stepped closer. The streetlight made a second moon out of the curve of his cheek. “You don’t have to fix me,” he said. “Just hold.”

The night thinned around them. The city was still awake somewhere, but here the only sound was the tree practicing old secrets. Benjamin’s pulse slowed to meet it. He reached, and Louis met him halfway, as if they had rehearsed this in another life.

The first kiss was careful, a question asked in the language of warmth. Louis’s hand came up to Benjamin’s jaw, thumb resting where breath begins. Benjamin’s hands found the back of Louis’s neck, the edge of a laugh waiting there. The world, so wide a minute ago, narrowed to skin and shared air and the tiny surprises of being this close to someone you’ve known for years and are meeting again for the first time.

“Hi,” Louis whispered, forehead to Benjamin’s. Ridiculous, after a kiss, to say hello. Necessary, too.

“Hi,” Benjamin whispered back, smiling into the word.

They kissed again, not because stories demanded it, but because their hands, their hearts, chose it. No rush. No performance. The kind of kiss that knows mornings will come with groceries and hard conversations and the joy of buying the right light bulbs. A kiss that was a promise to make space for every ordinary miracle to follow.

When they parted, they stayed close, foreheads touching, laughter threading through their quiet like a fine red line.

“Twenty chapters,” Louis murmured. “We have time.”

Benjamin thought of bells and bridges and a goddess with six faces, of Christel’s tea and Ciska’s jokes and Nathaniel’s lantern gaze. He thought of shoes he could trust and doors he would learn to wait beside. He thought of the way Louis had said hold and meant a life.

“We’ll walk it,” Benjamin said.

A tro‑tro rattled to a stop, its door yelping open. Nathaniel leaned out, grinning. “Lovebirds, the meter of fate is running. Move.”

Benjamin laughed, fingers slipping into Louis’s. They climbed in. The city, generous and unruly, carried them home.

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