The rain had not stopped for three days. It fell softly on the cracked rooftops, dripping through broken gutters, soaking the earth until it smelled of grief. Beneath a dying mango tree, Ada sat, her chin resting on her knees, watching the small clay house that once held laughter. Now it held silence.

Inside, her mother’s body lay wrapped in white cloth. The candle beside her had burned low, its wax puddled like tears. Ada had cried until her eyes burned, until her body felt too hollow to make more sound.

She remembered her mother’s hands — rough from years of washing, cooking, holding — hands that always found her in the dark when thunder frightened her as a child. Those same hands were still now, folded neatly on her chest, fingers forever curved into rest.

People came and went through the small yard. They said things like, “Be strong, my child,” and “God gives and takes.” Ada nodded, but their words slid off her like rain on glass. Strength felt meaningless when the person who taught her to smile was gone.

At night, the house felt larger than before. Every creak, every sigh of wind reminded her of her mother’s humming. The mat where she used to sit was empty. Ada sat there instead, clutching the old wrapper that still smelled faintly of palm oil and wood smoke.

She thought of the last morning they had shared. Her mother had coughed for days, refusing to rest. “There’s no time to be sick,” she had said, pounding yam with trembling arms. Ada had begged her to see the doctor, but the roads were flooded, and the nearest clinic was miles away. By nightfall, her mother’s breathing had slowed like a tired drumbeat, until it stopped altogether.

The next day, the villagers came with shovels and a small wooden coffin. The rain had made the ground soft, and when they lowered her mother in, mud splashed onto Ada’s feet. She did not move. She wanted to jump into the grave, to hold her mother one more time, to tell her she wasn’t ready to be alone. But her uncle’s hand on her shoulder held her back.

When the last handful of earth fell, the sky opened again, heavy with grief.

For weeks, Ada wandered through days that felt shapeless. She forgot to eat, forgot to speak. The world carried on — women fetched water, men mended roofs — but she moved as if underwater, the sounds of life muffled and far away.

One evening, the rain stopped. The sky cleared, and the mango tree dropped its last fruit. Ada sat beneath it, staring at the mound of earth behind the house. Fireflies blinked like tiny lamps, and the air smelled of wet leaves.

She remembered something her mother once said when Ada broke a clay pot and cried, terrified of punishment. “When something breaks, my child, it doesn’t disappear. Its pieces still tell its story.”

Ada rose and went inside. She took her mother’s old bowl — the one with a crack running through it — and washed it gently. She lit a small candle and placed it beside the bowl. The flame flickered, fragile but steady.

That night, for the first time, Ada whispered into the quiet, “I’ll be all right, Mama.”

Outside, the wind stirred through the trees, soft as a breath. The house still felt empty, but not as cold. The rain did not fall again for a long time.

And when it did, Ada listened — not with fear or sorrow, but with the understanding that even the heaviest rain must one day pass.