“Sometimes, the dust you clean is the same dust you swallow to survive. And silence, the only legacy you leave to an invisible child.”

My name is Lucia. This is the story of how, for years, I swept the office of a man who never knew his biggest mistake had a name, a face, and a grave.

I was seventeen when I found out I was pregnant. It was in my final year of high school, in Enugu, when all I wanted was to finish my studies and dream of a better life. He was my deskmate: Nonso Okoye. Funny, always eloquent, the son of a well-off family. I, the daughter of a shoemaker and a banana seller, barely dared to look him in the eye.