Yusrah had never imagined where Kulthum lived with her family. In fact, she would say she had never imagined someone else's family apart from hers, and her own family was only inclusive of Abla, that's all. Even her mother had never mentioned her own family for Yusrah to think of having being related to someone. She was just alone in this world. And today, she was in a part of Lagos she had never been to.

Yusrah used bolt to bring them there, for when they came out, her car was already gone and she wondered how Musa got his hands on the key. She stared at the houses and turned to look at Kulthum that was staring at her with tentative eyes. "I'm sorry, Yusrah..." She began, but she barely smile at her and shook her head.

"Which among the houses is yours? I need to lay down, I've never been so tired in my life." In terms of physical energy, she had some left. But if there was a chance to show emotional strength, Yusrah knew she would never want to look at hers twice.

It was one big house with lots and lots of rooms that seemed endless. While they stayed in the middle of the long courtyard, all Yusrah saw was doors that lead to rooms and people going about their business in the house. No one seemed to care that she was there, standing while she knew she shouldn't have been there.

She watched as Kulthum walked toward a room that was locked and after unlocking it, she walked in with one of Yusrah's luggage. She walked inside too and found that there was a small living room and two doors. One door was from where Kulthum came out and the other, she assumed was the kitchen. She sat down on the sofa she saw in the living room and sighed.

"Thank you for letting me stay with you for the time being, Kulthum." She said and closed her eyes, leaning in softly. She knew she would-no, she had to look for a place to stay as fast as she could. Because it didn't have to be mentioned, but she was going to inconvenience Kulthum a bit.

Kulthum had disappeared into the kitchen and when she came back, she was bearing water that looked so soothing. Yusrah took it from her and gulped it down in a breath. "Do you have children?" She asked and Kulthum nodded with a soft smile.

"The sun is going down. They'll be back in a few minutes, I'm sure."

And after she had taken the water and laid there silently, something struck her again. "So, what about your job? Since no one stays in the chamber now?" She asked and that made Kulthum smiled softly.

"He said that I should continue to come to work, clean and make sure everywhere is tidy everyday. I don't know why, but maybe he's going to use the chamber again. Maybe he plans to get married."

That cracked a chuckle out of Yusrah even though the mere suggestion hurt her enough. "He's not serious. The day he gets married will be the day his precious little wife will desert him and I think he loves her enough to reconsider doing that."

"Not all wives hate their husbands after they get married again. Your mother is an example." Kulthum said with a forlorn smile in her eyes. "She was hurt. I, for a fact, caught her countless times crying alone in her room, but she always smiled and told him the things he wanted to hear. She had never wrecked a havoc because of that, even though she knew that would be the end of her not so happy marriage."

That peaked Yusrah's interest a bit. "You've worked with Abla since when?"

"Shortly after she got blinded."

"Do you know how she lost her sight, Kulthum?" She asked, hoping that she would know. Because she wanted so badly to know what had happened that made Abla lost her sight. It was surely an accident, but accidents vary and happened differently, right?

Softly, Kulthum shook her head. "I really don't know. You know she was a very conservative person when it comes to things she doesn't want to discuss about. I've never had the chance to ask her and she never said a word."

Indeed, Abla died with lots of secrets only herself knew. And she had promised to tell her everything, if only they knew she was dying. That last night they had shared, the last time she had seen her alive. Ate with her, cried with her, held her hands, kissed her forehead. The last time she had hugged that woman as a mother, they wouldn't have slept that night if they knew. They would have spent the remaining hours she had left together on earth and told each other all the things they wanted to hear.

The door got banged and someone barged into the door, panting for breath. Kulthum immediately got to her feet and rushed to the young lady. She looked up with tears in her eyes and shook her head at Kulthum. "Iyami," she wailed and threw herself on Kulthum, breaking into tears.

"What happened, Aisha?" She asked, as she felt the way her entire life was instantly drenched out of her body. "Did something happen to Iya Agba?" It was hard trying to console Aisha to be stable enough to tell her what had happened and when she was stable enough, that's when she noticed Yusrah.

She looked nothing short of 15 years of age and was quite a beauty. "Good evening, ma." She slightly bowed her head, still wiping the tears off her eyes.

"Good evening to you too, Aisha." Yusrah answered. Eager, just like Kulthum was, to know what has happened to this Iya Agba of a person. "What happened to your grandmother?" She asked with a soft cajoling smile and the tears were back to her eyes.

"The doctors said they have to operate on her today, it's getting to her heart, Iyami." She looked up helplessly at her mother while her tears streamed down to her cheeks. "This is the last chance to save her, she may not make it to the next five hours."

Kulthum slumped on the floor and broke into tears. As Yusrah watched her, she didn't have to speak to her about the pain she was going through, she needn't. It was there, palpable for anyone willing to see. Or rather, for anyone that had known what loosing a mother could make of someone. She stood to her feet and stared at Aisha that cried along with her mother.

"Can you take us to the hospital, Aisha?" She asked and while nodding her head as she cleared her tears, taking in the figure, the clothing and the charisma Yusrah exuded, she knew help had finally came to them.

A young lad of about 19 years walked into the living room looking so exhausted. He stared at them wide eyed and noticed the way Kulthum was still bawling her eyes out. "What's wrong, Iyami?" He asked, instantly forgetting his own problem as he walked and took her into his arms.

She smiled at him, "It's Iya Agba, nothing to worry about, Rasheed. We're going to the hospital now." And when they walked out, for the first time in her life, Yusrah entered the bus.

She thought she'd be scared. That she'd scream her lungs or maybe, freak at the dirt of having too much people stacked into one place. But since she got the window seat, she pulled her head out of the window and felt as the speedy wind rushed onto her face. She closed her eyes, because it was calming enough. She heard as Kulthum's children asked her who she was and while she recounted her recent life to them, she felt the pain in her heart that forced her not to open her eyes.

She hadn't forgotten everything Kulthum had casually mentioned to them. But if she had known that hearing someone referring to her as an orphan, that she had lost her mother three days ago and in such an unbelievable way; she wasn't sick, she said. For days, she could only take water and she still hadn't been able to cry yet, they gasped at that. It seemed horrific to them, she knew. It was horrific to her as well.

She knew what her tears were doing right inside her heart instead of them to flow through their natural exit. She could feel the way they were hardening her heart, painting it black in a way that if she wanted to kill someone and that person had angered her to a point, she could do it without an iota of remorse, so long as she'd be able to escape the corps.

They arrived at the hospital and when she watched Kulthum paying, that's when it all dawned on her. That she was so broke. She had the habit of hating cash, she always roamed around with her card and her phone, incase transfer didn't work, she'd use the POS and vice versa. She knew if she were able to have some cash with her, she'd have something left. But for now, she only had that one million check Musa gave her as severance fee.

She felt the squirm of her heart and had to close her eyes to be able to curb the pain. Kulthum and her children ran to the room Iya Agba was and she followed them silently. She thought of how Kulthum could afford such an expensive hospital and made a mental note to ask her about everything later on. The first time she saw the old woman laying frailly on the bed, she had to take her eyes off her.

The surgery was urgent, that was the first thought that crossed her mind. She watched as Kulthum and her family cried so hard as the woman told them not to bother, she knew they didn't have the amount demanded by the doctors to perform the surgery. They should just take her home so she could die in the warm confinement of a room. They hated it when she said she'd die, but then they knew expect she was operated on, she'd really die.

She watched how hopelessly Kulthum slumped on the ground, away from the bed, as she cried so hard, her face in her hands. And then she thought, if she were the one in this situation, there was absolutely nothing she wouldn't do to make sure Abla continued to live. And right when the nurse came in, she walked up to her.

"How much is required for the surgery, please?" She inquired.

"It's eight hundred and fifty thousand Naira, ma." Yusrah didn't know when a sigh escaped her lips. She had never been so thankful of having money until today. Secretly, she thanked Allah. She knew if her account wasn't frozen, she wouldn't have fazed to withdraw such amount. But now that she only had a million, without a second thought after how she watched the family grieved a living person, she smiled at them.

She was going to pay for it. And she didn't feel sorry that she was going to be penniless as shortly as she hadn't even foreseen it. But that didn't matter, she knew what loosing a mother was, how it felt and how it took forever to stop aching; and she wouldn't want even her biggest enemy to experience that.

And when she was sent to the cashier, she paid the amount. It happened in a flash, Kulthum's mother being rushed out of the hospital room, with a surgical dress on her as the nurses yelled to give way so she could be taken to the theatre room on time. It was already dark and she wanted to pray. She asked for the mosque and was directed to a secluded area the muslim's used to pray and she performed her ablution.

Being in sujud was the safest she had ever felt in her life. She felt a certain form of peace, the pain was stronger at that time because she was having a few words with Allah. She had never been so real to anyone but him, after all. She told him of the pains even though she knew he knew what she was going through and he'd come through with her, certainly. She stayed longer than she had ever stayed in her sujud and after she was done with the prayer, she brought her knees to her chest and just stared at space.

She was there until she prayed her isha and just sat there, because it was peaceful. And because realistically, she had no where to go and no one to run to. She knew she shouldn't overstay in Kulthum's house, and having just one hundred and fifty thousand to her name? She couldn't think of finding an apartment for herself, or to even furnish and be able to live in it. She shook her head, help will come from Allah, it always did.

After all, her name was Yusrah. She was ease, and surely, Allah promised for ease to come after hardship. She knew this was such a terrible and the most painful tests she had ever been tested with, but she'd walk through this and come out unscathed. She just wanted to have a good cry, she really did.

Knowing so well recollecting her life long memories will do nothing but make her heart ache more painful than it was, and there would be no tears shed, she got to her feet and began to walk back to where Kulthum and her children were waiting for the theatre to finish. But something else caught her attention, someone had had an accident and was rushed to the hospital.

There were tons of nurses above his head and two doctors, yelling out orders on what to do and things to do. She was just staring, seeing the way two cleaners were following them and cleaning the mess his never ending blood was making. Will they make a damn attempt at stopping that blood loss or until he freaking lost his life?! She screamed internally.

It was a man, from the kind of clothing he had on his dangling hand. But she wasn't ready for the face that got in direct contact with her eyes when a nurse ran to get something. It couldn't be. She began to shake her head and instinctively, her feet began to walk her there.

"Hammad?" She called out. She was shocked to her bones, but it didn't pain, she realized. And to say she wasn't relieved to see him in this condition was proof enough that her heart still had a bit of humanity left in it.

"Do you know him, ma?" Sharply, the nurse turned and ask and when Yusrah nodded her head at them, she sighed out of relief.

"We confirmed his identity and he's Hammad Idi Labo, we've been trying to reach his personal secretary or that of his father or anyone in their company but none were going through. And in his phone..." Yusrah watched as he began coughing and spewing out some blood from his mouth and one of the doctors yelled out an order.

The holter monitor made a sound and when she turned her eyes to the rate at which his heart was moving, a thin line had began to form and she turned to the nurse, wide eyed. "Do something!" She screamed, staring between his face that was covered in blood and the holter screen that seemed to be filled with a long straight line that said only one thing; death.

"That's what we're trying to do ma." Above their heads, the doctor shouted at the nurses to charge the defibrillator as he thumped it over his chest. "But we need a signature from his family members, and none of them could be reached. We need to perform such an urgent surgery on him, it could lead to him loosing or saving his life. We can't risk our hospital doing that without a signature from any of them."

As she looked over at them, she felt the way her heart was beating wildly that it may even jump out of her chest. She watched the way the doctor asked for the charge to be increased and thumped it again, more blood was coughed out, and life began moving again on the holter monitor screen. She didn't know when she sighed and palmed her face.

"I'm his relative." She found herself saying and when she thought of what she was trying to do, she felt her heart loosing a beat. She may save or kill him, but she was going to be positive today, she would save him. She knew if they were going to examine the truth of her words with their looks, no one would deny that she was related to Hammad Idi Labo, they looked so much alike, even to her own dismay.

"What's your name, ma?" The nurse asked as she began to fill a form.

"Yusrah A. Bawa." She answered, and thought, what the hell was she doing? She could be sued for this! And right now, she didn't have a penny to even go to the court, not to talk of getting a lawyer for herself.

"And what's your relationship with him, ma?" She asked, filling again. She looked up and found Yusrah oddly staring at her without forming a word in her mouth. And then she decided to help, maybe she was beaten with shock, she thought. "Are you his wife, ma?"

"Pardon?" She knew she sounded weird and that may even make her suspect she was lying and call the security for her.

"I asked if you are his wife, I need to fill this form and then, you'd sign."

"Oh," Yusrah began, staring at the way his blood covered face looked before she turned away. "Yes, I'm his wife." That was easy to say, and the nurse seemed to believe her, right? "Where can I sign, please?"