The Paris skyline was softer now.
Maybe it was the way spring arrived—with rain that didn't rush, and trees that blossomed like they had nowhere else to be.
Amaka moved through the city without hurry. No press. No headlines. She was a shadow walking among other seekers, attending quiet lectures, sketching in cafés, sometimes speaking—but mostly listening.
She was learning what silence could teach.
Back in Lagos, Tunde's days grew full.
The Makoko mural was finished. The children named it "Our Sky, Our Hands."
He launched a traveling workshop, started mentoring a boy who reminded him too much of who he used to be—restless, full of fight, unsure where to place it.
He missed Amaka in waves. Not as absence, but as echo.
Like music you once danced to, still playing in the bones.
Amaka stayed three months.
She didn't take the fellowship.
She took something quieter: clarity.
One morning, on a bench outside the old Montparnasse cemetery, she realized she hadn't thought about legacy in weeks. Only love. Not the romantic kind—but the enduring kind.
She bought a ticket home.
No announcement.
No plan.
Just longing.
When she landed, the sky over Lagos was a soft gray—neither storm nor calm.
She returned to the flat she used to share with Tunde.
It was still half hers. He hadn't moved a thing.
A single note on the counter:
"When you're ready, come to the mural."
She found him standing beneath it, barefoot on concrete, paint on his hands.
He didn't say anything when she approached.
She stood beside him, quiet for a beat.
Then: "I didn't find answers in Paris."
He nodded. "Maybe you weren't supposed to."
She turned to him. "I missed you. But I don't regret going."
"I wouldn't have loved you right if I wanted you to."
They stood that way a while.
Between art and memory. Between departure and return.
Then she reached into her coat, pulled out the same postcard she had sent him—creased now, weathered at the edges.
"Still learning how to fly steady."
He smiled, took it, tucked it into his pocket like a vow.
"Then let's learn together."