A Promise to Aabidah (#1 Natives series) #ProjectNigeria

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

          "I KNOW IT'S NOT WHAT we had planned, but do you think you can wrap up the work by next tomorrow?"

"Next tomorrow?" AbdulAzeez thought about it carefully. He would be able to wrap up fixing the kitchen pipes and toilet today, but painting the house was where the real challenge was. If it rained he wouldn't be able to keep to the dead line, but if it didn't he could handle it.

"I'm sorry but the person moving in decided to come early since her belongings are already in town." Mallam Kabiru pleaded from the other end of the small torchlight mobile in AbdulAzeez's hand.

He looked up and caught his mother staring at him. At the crack of dawn he had made sure to break the huge chunks of wood she usually bought into the smaller pieces she sold out daily as a way to ask for forgiveness. She had only thanked him and prayed for him, but after much cajoling on his part, she had laughed and chased him out of her room when he'd kept on bothering her and lavishing her with praises.

Banafsha who could hear the other end of the conversation pleaded silently with her son to take it easy on the elderly man.

Suppressing a sigh, he told the man that he would try his best to wrap up everything. Mallam profusely thanked him and muttered something about talking to the owner to add something to his paycheck. He refused, not eager to have any relationship whatsoever to do with whoever the person buying the old Alhaji Ali's house was.

After ending the call, he craned his neck to look at his mother. "I see you're happy." He pointed out, a small smile on his own face.

She turned around to face him, a big stainless steel spoon with rubber handle in her hand. "Of course. I'm so proud of you, yarona." The edges of her eyes wrinkled as she smiled.

In her late fifties, Banafsha had aged considerably during the time she had mourned the loss of her son.

"Well," he stood up from the wooden stool he had been sitting on in the kitchen, pressed his hula down on his head and picked up his bike keys, his baby blue kaftan wrinkling with each move he made. "I'll take my leave now. There's a lot of work to do today, so I'll come back late." He directed his last sentence to his mother who waved him off.

"Toh, I'll send -"

"Mamana, dan Allah if you want me to eat please just call me. I'll come and take it. Dan Allah." He pleaded instantly, cutting into what his mother was about to say.

She looked stupefied. "Ahn-ahn, what happened?" She queried in her tribal tongue.

"Don't act like you don't know what I mean. Yesterday, it was Fauziyah's turn. Dan Allah, do you want everyone in this town to gossip about how Alhaji Dawud's son does not want to marry?" They were already talking sef.

It was either Maryam today or Shamsiyah the next. Banafsha Abdullahi had already selected a few eligible young women she saw fit for her son, all of them kids of her friends or kids of her friends friends. The third daughter of her long time friend, Hajiya Salamotu was one of them.

Fauziyah was a graduate of Microbiology from Nasarawa Federal Polytechnic with both ND and HND degrees. She was religious, a niqabi and she had no intentions of leaving her hometown -something he appreciated because he didn't find leaving the town on his lists of things to do. She talked less, diverted her gaze often, and answered wisely to only what she was asked. She had brought him lunch of kosai and kunu gyda yesterday when he was at work. A handiwork of his mother's, he was certain.