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“Daddy, I got into university.”
“What is this?”
“You didn’t ask, so I wanted to surprise you.”
“You can’t go to university, Grace. A woman’s education ends in the kitchen.”
“Look at her, still selling peanuts. No degree for you. Bye, peanut seller.”
Grace Johnson did not scream when she saw the envelope. She just stood there at the gate, staring at her name as if it might disappear at any moment.
“Madam, will you collect it or not?” the postman said impatiently.
She quickly took it from him. “Thank you. Thank you, sir.”
Her hands were shaking as she walked back inside. Her mother was in the kitchen preparing dinner.
“Mummy,” her voice came out low at first, then louder, “Mummy, come and see this.”
Mrs. Johnson wiped her hands on her wrapper and hurried out. “What is it?”
Grace couldn’t even speak. She simply handed her the envelope.
Her mother read it once, then again. Then her eyes widened.
“Grace!”
“I got it, Mummy,” Grace said, her voice breaking. “I got admission.”
“For real?”
Grace nodded quickly. “University of Lagos.”
Mrs. Johnson pulled her into a tight hug. “God has done it. God has done it.”
Grace laughed and cried at the same time. “I told you, Mummy. I told you I would make it.”
Not long after, Deborah Williams, her friend, rushed into the compound without knocking.
“Grace, is it true?”
Grace turned, smiling through tears. “We’re going to Lagos.”
Deborah screamed and grabbed her. “I got mine too.”
The two of them jumped and held each other. “We made it. We actually made it.”
From the doorway, Mr. Johnson stood watching with a hardened expression.
“So this is what all this noise is about,” he said.
Grace turned and said excitedly, “Daddy, I got admission.”
But Mr. Johnson said nothing. He only nodded once and walked away.
That night, Grace could not sleep. She placed the letter beside her pillow, touching it from time to time just to be sure it was still there.
“This is my life,” she whispered to herself. “Nobody will take it from me.”
But sometime in the night, her door opened quietly.
Mr. Johnson stepped inside and stood over her for a moment, then slowly picked up the admission letter. He looked at it under the dim light, folded it, went outside toward the back of the house, and burned it.
By morning, Grace was already searching for her admission letter.
“Mummy, have you seen my letter?”
“No. You kept it yourself.”
“It’s not here,” Grace said, checking under her pillow again, then inside her bag.
She rushed to the sitting room. “Daddy, did you see my admission letter?”
Mr. Johnson did not look up from his newspaper. “Which letter?”
“My admission letter. The one from UNILAG.”
He slowly dropped the paper he was reading and looked at her. “You were not admitted,” he said flatly. “Stop disturbing yourself.”
Grace stared at him in shock. “That’s not true. I saw it. Mummy saw it.”
Her mother stood at the doorway, silent.
“Mummy, tell him,” Grace said, her voice shaking.
Mrs. Johnson looked down and said nothing.
Grace looked back at her father. “You’re lying.”
Mr. Johnson didn’t argue. He simply lifted his newspaper again as if the conversation meant nothing to him.
“Face your life,” he said coldly.
For a second, Grace just stood there, staring at him, hoping he would look up, hoping he would change his mind. But he didn’t.
Then she walked away in tears.
Grace did not give up after the first time. She filled another form, sat for another exam, and waited again. When the next admission came, she did not celebrate loudly. She kept it quiet, almost as if she were afraid of her own joy.
“Mummy, this time I will hide it,” she told her mother one night.
Mrs. Johnson looked worried, like someone who had so much to say but couldn’t. “Just be careful,” she said.
Grace hid the letter inside her Bible, under her clothes. She checked it every night before sleeping, but three days later, it was gone.
She turned her room upside down. “No, no, no, no. It was here.”
That was the second time.
By the third time, she didn’t tell a soul, not even her mother. She gave the letter to her friend Deborah for safekeeping.
“I don’t trust this house anymore,” Grace admitted.
Deborah nodded and even offered Grace a place to stay when it was time to leave.
But somehow, her father still found out.
One evening, he called her into the room. Grace stood in front of him, trembling as he accused her of hiding things from him. When she tried to play it off, his voice turned sharp and dangerous.
The next morning, Deborah came running to the house, breathless.
“Grace, your father came to our house,” she whispered. “He took the letter.”
Everything went silent for Grace.
That was when her Uncle Peter finally stepped in. He shouted at her father one afternoon, demanding to know why he kept stopping his own daughter from bettering herself.
Mr. Johnson’s face tightened as he told Peter to stay out of his family business.