Episode 1

I’ve sold my body for the past thirteen years—not because I enjoy it, not because I was cursed or possessed, but because life doesn’t always ask what you want before it crushes you. My name is Ruth, but in this world, clients call me anything they want—Peach, Sexy R, Baby Mama, Honey. They don’t know my past. They don’t care about my tears. They pay for pleasure and leave me emptier every night than the last. I wasn’t always like this. I was a final-year student once. Studying Microbiology. Engaged. Full of hope. Then the accident happened—my fiancé died on our way to introduce me to his mother. I lost the baby. I lost my scholarship. I lost everything.

I returned to a city that didn’t remember me, to relatives who shut their doors because no one wants to feed a girl with no degree, no womb, and no future. I slept under bridges. I begged. I worked in a buka where the owner tried to rape me. Then one night, a woman named Stella took me in. She said, “If you can survive hunger, you can survive anything.” She cleaned me up, gave me a name, and introduced me to a man who paid me ₦30,000 for my first night. I cried all the way home. Then I did it again the next week.

That was thirteen years ago.

Since then, I’ve changed cities, changed names, changed clients. I became numb. Until I met a man who gave me more than money—he gave me hope. I didn’t know I was pregnant until five months later. I wanted to abort. I had nothing. But when I felt that kick, that first flutter of life, I knew God was giving me a second chance. I left Lagos and moved far away. I gave birth to a boy—my prince, my miracle. His name is David. I told people his father died before he was born. I raised him in a one-room apartment, sold food in the afternoon, and cleaned offices at night just to give him something better. I never returned to prostitution. For twelve years, I was clean. I raised him with all the dignity I had left.

Then cancer happened. Not to me—to my mother.

The same mother who once told me to never return home after I got pregnant out of wedlock. But she was still my mother. And when I got the call that she had stage 4 cancer and the surgery would cost ₦3.5 million, I tried everything—church, loans, begging. Nothing worked. And so, after twelve years of fighting to stay clean, I went back. Just for a while, I told myself. Just until I paid the bills.

Now, I do it quietly. I use a fake name. I cover my face in makeup and wigs. I work in hotels, not on the street. I tell David I’m working at a restaurant. He’s in university now—smart, kind, full of promise. The only good thing I’ve ever done right.

But nothing prepared me for tonight.

I was waiting in the room. Standard hotel room, candle scent, wine chilled. The door opened. I stood up, smiled the way I’ve trained myself to smile.

And then I froze.

Because the man who walked in wasn’t a stranger.

It was my son.

My David.

In a blue shirt I bought him last year.

With a nervous smile.

Carrying a small envelope.

I stared.

He didn’t recognize me. The wig. The lashes. The dim light. He looked at me like I was just another “first-time” thrill.

My mouth dried.

My knees shook.

He spoke: “Hi… are you Peach?”

My world collapsed.

I wanted to scream, to run, to vanish into thin air.

But I couldn’t.

I stared at the boy I carried for nine months, the boy I labored for seventeen hours to bring into this world, the boy I sacrificed my soul for—and I realized I was standing in front of him as nothing more than a product he had unknowingly bought.

He stepped closer. “You don’t look like the picture,” he said.

I didn’t respond.

He smiled nervously again and rubbed the back of his neck like he used to do as a child when he was guilty. “It’s my first time. My friends dared me… I wasn’t going to, but I saw your profile and…”

I broke.

Tears fell.

He froze.

I turned away and whispered, “Please leave.”

He paused. “Are you crying?”

“Leave,” I begged. My voice cracked.

I couldn’t tell him. Not there. Not like that.

He turned to go but stopped at the door. “You remind me of someone,” he said. “Someone I love.”

And then he left.

And I collapsed to the floor.

And for the first time in thirteen years, I screamed like a woman who had lost everything again

Episode 2

I didn’t sleep that night. I lay on the cold hotel floor long after David left, my wig tossed aside, mascara stained across my cheeks, staring blankly at the ceiling as though it could offer answers. Every breath felt like punishment. How did I get here? How did I become the kind of mother whose own son unknowingly tried to buy her for pleasure? I replayed the moment again and again—his voice, his nervous laughter, the way he said I reminded him of someone he loved. What if he had touched me before I stopped him? What if I hadn’t turned away fast enough? What if I had spoken too late? The thought alone made me throw up twice before morning.

I didn’t go home that day. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to look at David and pretend everything was normal. I switched off my phone and sat under a bridge until the sun went down again. I cried like a woman mourning a living child.

When I finally got home the next night, he was sitting at the door, looking pale and confused. “Mummy,” he said softly, standing up. “Where did you go?”

I stared at him.

At the same innocent eyes that once stared at me from his cot.

“I had an emergency,” I said, voice dry. “Work.”

He didn’t look convinced. But he didn’t ask further. He just said, “I made okra soup. There’s still some left.”

I nodded and walked past him into the house, into the small, dim kitchen that had once been filled with laughter, radio music, and the sounds of his baby feet. I couldn’t eat. I just stood there, pretending to be okay.

But the shame followed me like a shadow.

I started watching him closer. Was he acting differently? Did he suspect anything? Had he gone back and searched my profile? Had he looked closer at the picture and realized what he’d done?

Three days later, I got my answer.

He came back from school and stood quietly by my bedroom door. “Mummy,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

He hesitated. “Do you… have someone who looks exactly like you? Like… I don’t know… maybe a sister or something?”

My heart dropped.

I pretended to smile. “No. Why?”

He looked away, shuffled his feet, then said, “No reason. Just thought I saw someone.”

I nodded. “Well, maybe you were tired.”

He forced a smile and went to his room. But I knew he knew something.

I locked myself in the bathroom and cried silently into my towel.

That same evening, I got a message on my fake profile. It was him.

“Who are you? Your voice… your face… I need to know. Please.”

I froze. My hands shook. He knew.

I deleted the account immediately.

That night, he didn’t sleep in his room. I heard him pacing the sitting room. I didn’t come out. I couldn’t.

The next morning, I woke up and found him gone.

No note. No text. Just gone.

Panic hit me like thunder.

I called his school—he hadn’t arrived.

I called his best friend—he hadn’t seen him.

I rushed to the one place I hoped he wouldn’t go: the hotel.

He wasn’t there.

I searched bars, parks, even the bridge where I used to sit and cry.

Nothing.

Then I saw him.

At the bus stop.

Sitting alone.

Head bowed.

Tears on his cheeks.

I didn’t call him. I walked slowly and sat beside him.

He didn’t look at me.

“Did you know it was me?” he whispered. “That night?”

I swallowed hard. My chest felt like it was ripping in two.

“Yes.”

He nodded, still looking away.

“So it’s true.”

“Yes.”

Silence.

He wiped his face.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth about your life?”

I blinked fast, holding back tears.

“Because I wanted you to believe I was someone better than I really am. I wanted you to be proud of me. I wanted to protect you from the ugliness that raised you.”

He turned slowly to face me, and his eyes broke me.

“I thought I lost my mum that night,” he said, voice cracking. “I thought I saw a ghost in that hotel. But now I realize… maybe you lost yourself long before I was even born.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He stood up.

And then he did something I never expected.

He hugged me.

Tightly.

He cried into my shoulder like a child again.

And whispered, “Let’s go home.”

Episode 3

The walk home from the bus stop felt like a second chance I didn’t deserve. David held my hand—not like a child clinging to his mother, but like a man choosing to hold up the woman who once gave him life. The silence between us was not empty—it was heavy with understanding, filled with words neither of us had the strength to say yet. I watched him from the corner of my eye. He looked older. Wiser. Hurt—but not broken. And for the first time in years, I didn’t feel like his shame. I felt like his mother again.

At home, I cooked for him for the first time in a long time—his favorite, white rice and peppered fish. We didn’t talk much that night. But he stayed close. Sat beside me while we watched an old Nollywood film. Even laughed once. But the air still carried that quiet pain—the question we hadn’t answered.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of clattering in the kitchen. David was cooking. I blinked away tears as I watched him humming quietly—like nothing had changed. But everything had.

Later, as we ate together, he said it.

“You don’t have to do it anymore.”

I froze. “David—”

“I mean it. No more hotel rooms. No more pretending. I know I’m just eighteen, but I’m not a kid. I can get a job. I’ll take fewer classes. We’ll survive.”

I looked at him, really looked at him. He wasn’t my little boy anymore. He was offering to carry the burden I had carried alone for nearly two decades.

“But your dreams—”

“My dreams won’t die, Mum. But I don’t want to live them on top of your sacrifice.”

And I broke again.

Because I never knew I had raised such a strong man.

“I want to help you too,” he added, softer. “We’ll do small business. Legit ones. I’ve even been learning graphic design. We’ll build something. Just please… don’t go back there. I can’t bear it.”

“I won’t,” I whispered. “I promise.”

He reached for my hand.

And for the first time in over a decade, I believed I could be whole again.

Weeks passed.

I deleted every fake profile, burned every old wig, and threw away every trace of the life I had lived in the shadows. It wasn’t easy. Money was tight. We ate once a day sometimes. But we smiled more. We talked more. We cried together. We healed.

David got a remote job designing flyers for small businesses. I started selling fried plantain and sauce by the roadside. A small start—but clean.

One day, as we sat counting coins after a long day, he looked at me and said, “You’re the strongest woman I know.”

And in that moment, I forgave myself.

Not just for the pain. But for surviving it.

THE LESSON

Sometimes life pushes us into shadows so deep, we forget there’s light waiting at the other end. Ruth was a mother who gave up everything to protect her child, even her dignity. And though the world judged her, it was the love of that very child that brought her back to life. We often hear about fallen women—but not about the strength it takes to rise again. Everyone has a past. But no one is beyond redemption. And sometimes, the very person we think will reject us, is the one who helps us become whole again.