𝓜𝔂 𝓫𝓪𝓫𝔂, 𝓶𝔂 𝔀𝓲𝓯𝓮

8 # MOVING OUT

ABOWA, NIGERIA.
DECEMBER, 2020.

Within the Abubakar mansion, it was tense.

For Bola and Jamilah, they enjoyed the peace of mind they'd been granted. Neither Safiya nor her husband uttered a word to them, save a few livid glances thrown here and there.

Jamilah had never spent that much time being away from the foot of the bed, shackled.

With her newfound freedom, she was at a loss for what to do. Usually, she would find herself being drawn towards the hefty books at the top of the shelf.

She would stare at them, and feel things she couldn't place well up within her. Her hands would stroke the spines of the books, some new looking and others throughly worn.

When she would open the books and stare at them, her head would throb.

Initially, she couldn't understand any words, she'd dig her hands into her hair in frustration and scream into her pillow, fearful of her mother's reaction.

For a while, she'd satiated her need to explore the books by getting Bola to read them for her.

Her mother would only glance at her and hiss whenever she requested her to read them, so she stopped asking.

And while Bola was willing to help, the woman had barely finished her primary education. And so she would struggle with words like 'clamour' and 'empowerment'. And from the little she could read, she couldn't get her words to flow quite fluently.

And so with a look of deep embarrassment, she would ask Jamilah to try her hardest to remember the words, since she couldn't do much justice to them.

Jamilah had come quite a long way in remembering how to read, the arduous task had been in learning to spell again, but once she got a hold of that, the words started to flow.

At present, there wasn't a word in her books she couldn't pronounce. For some, she didn't quite remember what they meant without the aid of her dictionary, but for most of them, he understood them quite alright.

After the man, governor Yahya— Bola had called him—had come, she found herself being less drawn to her books and more drawn towards pestering Bola to tell her about him.

She didn't know why she felt the way she did, but she felt very happy when she'd seen him the previous day.

And even after he'd left, she kept on remembering him. She couldn't help but feel confused when she remembered the man, her head swarming with numerous thoughts she tried hard to catch but couldn't.

She could vaguely remember the man, with two blurry figures, one much taller than her, and the other, just a few inches taller than her.

But thinking about it, they couldn't have been as tall as she was presently, so Jamilah deduced it must have been some childhood memory.

She'd asked Bola about it too and Bola had confirmed that the governor had two sons, but wasn't sure if she had been close with them.

Jamilah couldn't ask her mother too, because everytime she'd go near either parent, they'd send her glare filled with so much animosity, one far greater than their usual one.

Fearfully, she'd walk away from them to her room.

Bola had told her they'd be leaving by the weekend, when she'd asked where, her only reply was, "To meet the governor".

Once she said that, Jamilah didn't pry anymore, she'd come to associate the governor with a feeling of security.

On Friday morning, while Bola folded clothes into a large bag, Jamilah only sat on the bed, lost in thought.