More Than Closure

In More Than Closure, Patience is a pregnant restaurant manager. A customer complains about too much pepper, and Patience defends her cooking, but her boss, Mrs. Peace, fires her. Mrs. Peace says Patience is unstable because of the pregnancy and her absent husband. Patience goes home and tells Mrs. Peace about Chuka. Chuka was a bank teller who talked her into using her savings for his move to Milan for a warehouse job. The job turned out to be a scam, his visa expired, and he hid from authorities before turning to drug dealing. Patience begged him to return, but he refused. Four months later, a friend tells her Chuka was pushed off a roof by his associates. Patience is left pregnant and nearly penniless. Ten months later, Patience has an infant daughter named Adora, and she is still struggling. A stranger named Efe arrives at her door with a letter Chuka wrote the day before he died. Afe says he knew Chuka briefly in Milan and felt obligated to deliver the letter. The letter is a heartfelt apology, and it gives Patience closure, but it also reopens the hurt. Efe starts showing up: he brings groceries, gives her a ride, gets her a large catering order, and arranges a nanny. Patience's tenant, Bukola, turns hostile because she has long resented that Chuka chose Patience over her. Patience and Efe grow close, but she stays wary. She does not know Efe is the surgeon who operated on Chuka in Milan. He carries guilt because he believes a moment of distraction during the surgery caused Chuka's death. In a phone call with his hospital, he admits his mistake, and a woman overhears him and decides to expose him. The woman confronts Efe in Patience's home and tells Patience that Efe killed Chuka. Patience demands the truth, and Efe confesses. He was heartbroken when his fiancée ended their relationship, and during the operation he missed a mesentery tear. But after hearing Patience describe Chuka's symptoms, he had the autopsy re-examined.