It was past six. The air was less dense with the chatters of market women. The market women had started leaving. Some had started gesturing to their kids to place some of their market wares on their heads; some had started counting their profit for the day, and smiling at themselves at how it had increased compared to other times; while some simply stayed put scavenging with their eyes, like a starving vulture, for late customers. Mama Uju was already closing the umbrella that acted as a makeshift shade to her “shop”. It was the big yellow umbrella branded with the MTN logo she had won during one of their promos. She sold bend-down-select: fairly-used dresses of all kinds, for kids, men, and ladies. She was packing the remaining clothes that were not sold that day. She packed them into a big Ghana-must-go, with so much slowness, that one staring at her from afar would be quick to know that she was in her late 70s. 

The amount she had gotten for that day, Naira notes carefully bundled and safeguarded with two string of rubber rings and a black nylon, fell off from the knot she had made with the loose end of her wrapper, to hold the nylon. She hissed, as she placed the bundle between her cleavage. She sat on the wooden stool that she came with, as she brought out the nylon and untied it to get out its content. It was Ahia Nkwo that day, she knew she would get more sales that day. As she counted each note, mouthing the value of each note as she flipped through the notes, she noticed, halfway, that the amount was more than the sales of the previous week by threefold. She raised her head high, in thanksgiving to God when she noticed that lone star.

That lone star that above in the sky that twinkled more than any she had ever seen. It was a lone star because, on dark nights, when neither the moon nor the stars refused to come out for their night duties, it was the only star that did. She called that the star Hope the first day she saw it, because it was the only thing that consoled her when her dear husband died; when her in-laws threw her and her three kids out of her late husband’s house; when she and er kids had to sleep in a Catholic church for weeks until her parish priest found a place for them to stay; when she had to borrow money from a lot of people to get some funds for her new business; when she suffered losses; when her third child, Gozie died from malnutrition.

She now smiled at the present: Uju, her first child was now happily married to a successful business man based in Lagos; Dozie, her second child was now in the University, and doing well. She quickly shook herself into reality, and stared into her phone. It was past seven. Dozie was coming back from school that day, he would soon be home. She stood up, smiling at herself. She would cook for him ofe nsala, his favorite meal and welcome him with an embrace, when he arrives. Then, they would talk at length far into the night, till one of them, probably herself, gets tired.