To those who comment, you're motivating me and it's what's keeping me going🤍

Imaan (16 years old)

Kano.

Amaani and I got to meet Zainab and Ikilima's fiancés. Both were nice, Zainab's was a married man while Ikilima's was young. That night Abba gave us each a box with several ankara fabrics, laces and materials, we also got shoes and bags of matching designs but different colours, he gave us more for Lina and even a few for Munee, her mother and Daddy. We were most appreciative and expressed our gratitude.

On our last night in Kano, Umma singled me out, requesting that I come to her room. Amaani encouraged me to go and made a texting gesture with her hand and phone. I got the message loud and clear.

Text me if there's trouble.

That was what she meant.

When I got into Umma's room the woman was deeply engrossed in her thoughts.

"Salaam, Umma I'm here." I began, twisting my fingers in a display of nerves.

"A'ishatu," her voice cracked as she said my name, she raised her head up and I found tears streaming down her face. Worried, my legs took me to her instinctively. "I'm so sorry for what I did to you in the past, I'm ashamed, I'm so ashamed of myself for treating a young child who lost a parent the way I did." I let her hold both my hands in hers as she wept. "At first I thought I was doing the right thing, I thought the love Alhaji had for your mother was going to be transferred to you, he wanted to marry her way before she got married to her first husband but Allah's plans are different from ours sometimes. Inna and I knew, even before they got married I was jealous of her, I was more jealous of her than I was of Inna who was his own wife at that time. I was blinded by the envy I felt towards her that when he married her I wished death upon myself. When she gave birth to you I felt overwhelmed with grief." She paused, letting me take it all into my head.

She helped me sit beside her without letting go of my hands, "I taught my children to hate you and your mother, A'ishatu I competed with you over Alhaji's attention. I made sure he didn't have time for you, didn't think too much about his orphaned daughter. I behaved like a witch all in the name of jealousy. I thought I was going to feel better, lightheaded after you left but any and every happiness I felt over you leaving was short lived. I regretted my actions before you moved out of the country but I was too ashamed of myself and you were too young to understand." She sniffed loud and hard. "A'ishatu I prayed hard to my Lord to forgive me and to let me see you one last time and beg for your forgiveness before I leave this world, I would grovel, I'm not above anything."

Then she went down on her knees with her hands in mine and her face ravaged with tears. "Forgive me A'isha, forgive me my dear child."

I felt tears stream down my own face as I went down with her, "there's nothing to forgive Umma," my own voice came out in sobs.

I was finding it hard to wrap around my head that this was Umma, the Umma of my childhood.

"I need to hear you say the words and then I'll feel better. I know it's too much to ask but please and please A'ishatu na." She sobbed noisily.

With a nod, several nods I worded out the words from the deepest part of my heart, "I forgive you Umma, forgive me too for everything I did wrong."

"There's nothing to forgive, your mother would have been so proud of you. You're still young but there's so much wisdom in you. May Allah bless you A'ishatu."

"Ameen ameen Umma. Thank you for everything."

"No, thank you A'ishatu, thank you very much." She gave me one last squeeze, wiped my tears away before moving to the bathroom to right herself.

I walked out of the room in a daze, came into contact with Amaani who demanded to know why I was crying. When I told her about all that just transpired between Umma and I she too cried tears of joy, hugged me and whispered, "I told you everything was going to be alright.

The next day, on Friday my eldest brother, Umma's son Ya Sani came from Jigawa and took Abba, Amaani and I to Zaria in one of Abba's cars.

...

Zaria, Kaduna State.

We got to Zaria earlier than Amaani and I expected, we thought it was going to be a long journey. Yes, we might have slept on the way there but the distance still felt short. Just like in every other place we've been to we were accepted with open arms. Our maternal grandmother was late and so we only got to meet our Grandfather and his other wife whom I was named after and who raised both our mothers. Amaani was named after our maternal grandmother herself.

The biggest surprise was finding Ya A waiting for us in our Grandfather, Dr. Abdulhameed Yusuf Dantsoho's living room.

Amaani refrained from hugging him in solidarity with me, I pinched her when she whispered that to me. Abba didn't act like a guest over here and neither did anyone treat him like a guest. It was after they left that Amaani and I found out from Ya A that Abba was fostered by Dantsoho himself, that was what everyone referred to him as, until Abba moved to Kano after he married Umma.

It was funny that I'd never heard about my parent's love life until now and even so, there are so many plot holes that need to be filled. I was aching for the whole story.

Hajiya Aisha, or Goggo as she insisted we refer to her as was more jovial than any other person we met during this break. She was funny, clued us on a traditional relationship between a grandparent and their grandchild. We fell into the explanation hook, line and sinker and teased her at every chance we got.

She named Amaani "Ladidi" and named me "Jummai" because Amaani was born on Sunday and in hausa language, those born on Sunday were called Ladidi for the female and DanLadi for the male, I was born on Friday hence my Jummai while for the male born on Friday was named DanJuma.

We laughed hard at the ridiculous names and asked on behalf of Ya A, she refused to tell us his because she didn't want us teasing him. As if we were going to do that in her presence. We would've let it rest until we were gone already.

Lina though was named Apiruwa because of her petite stature, when we shared that bit of information to her she threatened to cut off our tonsils and hair in our sleep when we got back. We zipped our lips and threw the keys in an imaginary ocean.

Apiruwa means tiny by the way.

"Ya A you're so lucky to be here where there's so much family." I sighed wistfully as we sat in Dantsoho's living room after having our dinner.

"That's the reason why I can't imagine moving out of Nigeria permanently. You girls were young when you left so the memories you have weren't strong enough to keep you back." He explained, "but i'm not as lucky as you think I am."

"Why is that?"

"Because while I have everyone else I don't have those closest to me. You, Amaani, Lina and Daddy. I would've chosen to be with you all but my profession won't give me that chance." He smiled at me. Ya A isn't one to smile unnecessarily but whenever he's with us, those he holds close to his heart it comes as natural as breathing.

"I've never liked your profession. Like, it always astonishes me that you went for it knowing what comes with it. I'm scared for you, for Ya Sadiq and Ya Umar and Ya Maleek had to literally join forces with you. All the men in our lives went for the most dangerous careers out there." I sulked, pushing my lips out.

He gave me a lopsided grin and shook his head, "Well, there's Abba, Daddy and Mujahid. I heard you were fascinated by everything that came out of Mujahid's mouth related to his course of study."

That lit me up, "Ya A, are you kidding me? He wants to be a pediatrician and I want to be a dentist."

"You're such a nerd." He poked me on the head through my veil in a playful manner.

I grinned, unlocked his phone and snooped through his gallery. He gave me leave to do that. In fact, there's no secret between us.

"Don't blame me, I took after DanTsoho. Amaani must have missed his genes somewhere." We laughed at that.

"Ouu, Ya A has a girlfriend," I wiggled my brows at him and turned the screen so he'll see whom I was talking about.

"She's beautiful isn't she?" He asked, letting his eyes slide close as a small smile played on his lips.

My upper lip curled at one edge. Not really beautiful per se. "Well, her eyes are beautiful." That was all that was beautiful about her. She wasn't really beautiful in a conventional way. So I skipped out on her two other pictures. The other few I found afterwards were mostly pictures of us and all the nonsense we send to him via email and whatsapp.

He keeps them.

Shocker.

Even we delete some of the stuff at times.

...

Hello Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullah Wa Barakatuh.

Ramadan Mubarak Lovelies 🌙. Alhamdulillah!

May Allah accept our Ibaadah, ameen ya rabb.

Sooo, how are we liking ToTH so far?

There'll be a very important Author's Note I'll be posting, so I guess you should check it out when I do publish it.

Thank you.

🤍