Once in a Lifetime

2.

THEN

It was the first time she was seeing him after five years. 

After his parents divorced, his mother took him and his sisters away. They were with her in Jimeta for three years; no calls, no visits.

When she decided to remarry, their uncles wanted them back home as they didn’t want ‘a stranger’ to raise their nieces and nephew. It was a long battle before Inna let them have him, but she held on to the girls because they were still young and there wasn’t a mother figure yet in their father’s house. 

She was in boarding school when he finally returned to stay with them, but every time she came home during the holidays, she was told he was in Jimeta visiting his mother.

The reason why she was seeing him today was because they were mourning their grandmother; the woman who birthed their fathers.

He had come in with the rest of her male cousins and their friends who wanted to offer their condolences to the women that were sitting in the courtyard, which were mostly her Aunts and cousins.

He’d grown so tall and slim; she’d thought. He looked nothing like the fat kid she and her brothers used to play with. She doubted if he still had memories of them climbing the mango tree in their grandmother’s backyard or fetching water from the well and wetting the ground so they could play ‘yar gala gala on the wet sand. A smile pricked her lips at the thought of that but she quickly discarded it because she wasn’t supposed to be smiling while mourning her grandmother.

She didn’t know that she missed him that much until she saw him standing a few feet away from her.

She wanted to talk to him so bad, ask him about his mother and sisters and all the other things that were roaming around in her head. But there was no chance for them to talk because she spent the whole day in that courtyard while him and the rest of the men stayed outside accepting the condolences.

She eventually saw him the following day at home.

It was six in the morning and she wanted to have Oats for breakfast before they leave for their grandmother’s house when he walked into the kitchen in a faded arsenal jersey shirt and sweatpants. His eyes were puffy from sleep and his voice was deep and husky when he called her name.

Her heart had never palpitated so much at the sound of someone saying her name like the way it did that day.

‘Good morning Ya Salim’ she muttered.

‘Yaushe kika dawo?’ he asked, ignoring her greeting as he turned on the kettle.

She swallowed hard as she tried to focus on stirring her oats that was foaming in the small sauce pan. He was so close to her and the proximity was making her head spin. 

‘On Friday’ she replied cooly, or so she thought.

All the lists of questions she had lined up the previous day completely vanished at the mere sight of him. She couldn’t remember being so flustered in front of anybody, ever.

He opened the cabinet atop her head and retrieved a can of Milo.

‘I didn’t see you yesterday’

She stirred his words around in her head.

Was he looking for her? Or did he just say that because everyone was present and he thought she was the only one missing?

‘I was in the main house all day’ she replied referring to their granny’s house. 

He nodded and proceeded to take a mug from another cabinet.

He made his tea; which consisted of hot water and milo in silence while she served her oats in a bowl.

As she turned to head out of the kitchen with her breakfast in hand, she bumped into her brother Walid who was also coming in. 

Everything happened so fast.

The bowl slipped from her hands in nanoseconds and crashed unto the tiled floor.

As if watching her breakfast getting ruined wasn’t enough, Walid started shouting at her.

‘Wannan wani irin hauka ne? Can’t you watch where you’re going?’

Her eyes stung with tears as she bent to pick the broken pieces off the floor.

‘Don’t’  Salim stopped her gently. He was already standing beside her with a broom and scoop in his hand.

She couldn’t look up at him because she didn’t want him to see the tears in her eyes, so she just muttered a ‘thank you’ and ran upstairs.

Salim’s eyes were on her when she left the kitchen. He didn’t know why, but he found himself making a fresh batch of oats in the same saucepan she’d used earlier.

When he went upstairs to look for her, he found her in the living room cuddled on the couch and sulking.

‘Here’ he said as he placed the steaming bowl on the side stool and turned to leave.

She sat up and watched his retreating back, dumbfounded. Why would he go through the trouble of making her a fresh bowl?

‘Ya Salim’ she called after him just as he was about to descend. He turned to look at her.

‘Thank you’ she said with a smile on her face. He nodded and left. He didn’t return her smile, but she saw the light in his eyes.

She stared long and hard at the bowl even after he’d left. So many things happened to her all at once and she felt her heart flutter. 

A laugh escaped her lips as she took the first bite. The oats were undercooked, but it’s the thought that Ya Salim had made this specially for her that warmed her heart and all other crevices in her soul.

She lapped every bit of that god awful Oats and was happy throughout the day despite the fact that she had some bowel issues later on.

Unknown to her, that was the day Muhammad Salim Sani Saleh found a spot in Ummul Khair Ibrahim Saleh’s heart.