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

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

         FOR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, Aabidah found herself busy with work. She had been warmly welcomed by her new colleagues and had been asked by the manager to inform him right away if she found anything stressful.

She found the new work setting difficult to bare without losing her mind. It was a totally different thing talking to customers who wanted to know about the new cut in their bank balance, than cashing in slips.

Aabidah was nearly at her wits end.

So when Basmah had brought up the idea of eating lunch together, she had hungrily agreed to it. Even she was in need of a couple minutes to get out of the cold box, catch her breath and recuperate.

It was still a few minutes to her lunch break but she was already counting the seconds, watching the hands of the clock as it ticked softly away.

Her phone buzzed on the table. She looked down expecting the message to be from her friend but it was from her brother, Aminullah.

In their last call he had promised he would be in town in a few days time with her car. Finally. Since she was a lady with a little kid, her father had refused to let her drive the unsafe and long journey. In her brother's message, he was asking if there was anything she needed before he left Lagos the next day. She made a list and sent it to him.

Aabidah couldn't be more thrilled to have her car at her disposal.

Honestly, she might sound like a spoilt brat, but she was getting tired of commuting from home to work via bike. Plus it would save her the extra time she used in waiting for the personal going man she had hired to take Bilal to his maternal great-grandparents.

Aabidah had never gotten to know her paternal grandmother, the woman had died years before her parents had even thought of birthing her. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun. As for her father's father, the Fulani man had lived in seclusion after his wife's death for so long that even during the years he was sick he had stubbornly chosen to stay in his house rather than move in with them.

Aabidah had been so young then and so scared of his obsidian and blank stares — she'd always felt like he could see the depths of her soul and pinpoint the mischiefs she had done. Because of this she had preferred going to her maternal grandparents house instead.

Her paternal grandfather had died when she was fourteen and although she had avoided going to his place, she had been heartbroken from the news.

Aabidah sighed wistfully. Thinking of her grandparents had her thinking of the years when she had been younger and free to do as she pleased. Free from the responsibilities her maternal grandmother had always warned her would come.

She sighed again, this time with realization that the old woman had always been right.

Aabidah missed her. Maybe she would make time in her busy schedule to go visit her maternal grandparents, she pondered, calculating the days in her head as she stamped a withdrawal slip. She might even get to eat that sweet miyan taushe the woman so wonderfully made.

"Is something the matter, Hajiya?" a voice asked in Hausa.

Aabidah nearly shrieked in freight, she spun her head around to look behind her where the voice had come from. "SubhanAllah!" She breathed.

The man laughed. He was in his early thirties, going bald, round in the middle, and a head shorter than Aabidah was. "I asked if there was something wrong," Sheriff Ahmed, the manager repeated.