My Husband's Other Phone

Folake Bankole found the second phone on a Thursday, while looking for a pen.

It was a slow, ordinary afternoon. Her own car was in the garage, so she had borrowed her husband's: a silver Camry, a little dented, smelling of old coffee and the lavender air freshener she had hung from the mirror on their first anniversary. She was running late for a client meeting. She patted the glove compartment. No pen. She felt along the door pocket. A receipt, a packet of tissues, a half-eaten roll of mints.

Then she bent and felt under the seat.

Her fingers closed around something flat and hard, wrapped in tape.

She frowned. She tugged. It came away with a rasp of adhesive, and she held it up to the light.

A phone. A cheap black one, the kind sold at roadside kiosks for five thousand naira. Its screen was cracked. A strip of silver duct tape was wound round it, as though someone had meant to keep it hidden.

She stared at it for a long time.