𝓜𝔂 𝓫𝓪𝓫𝔂, 𝓶𝔂 𝔀𝓲𝓯𝓮

54# AFTER

CENTRAL MOSQUE,
ASOKORO, ABUJA.
JUNE, 2022.

Everyone in the Khalil family had been bracing themselves for the past couple of months for Zaynab's death. It had been a thing that had been lingering for a while; and so unconsciously, they'd come to expect and dread the way the news of her death would reach them. It would be in the house, they'd thought. Just the way Zaynab herself had wished it'd be. She'd hated the thought of dying away from her family, doing chemotherapy that'd only prolong her life for a month longer.

When they'd thought of her death, it'd be with the image of the entire family and staff being at her bedside, or someone finding her dead the morning after a laughter-filled night . Not once had Jamilah ever imagined that she'd be on the ground, writhing in pain as she watched the figure of a murderer fading into the distance. Not once had she imagined that she'd watch blood pool around the head of a woman who'd only just been teasing, and joking, and laughing.

 Jamilah crawled the distance between herself and her mother-in-law. She fought the heavy thing in her chest that wanted to be released. Letting the thing out, or letting the prickling sensation behind her eyes give way felt like an acceptance... a resignment! Jamilah would not accept this situation...she couldn't. Accepting it meant admitting that Zaynab wasn't here, with her...with any of them, anymore. Accepting it was acknowledging that there'd be nobody who'd pull at her nose when she was being cheeky. Accepting it... was accepting that it wasn't her mother that she was holding in her hand, that it was the body of her mother that she was pulling into her lap. That those eyes that were staring off into the distance belonged to a corpse. And so, Jamilah tightened her grip on Zaynab, pulling her in closer. "Mama", she called, in a voice that was too rough, too grainy, too broken to be hers. "Mama", she called again, placing her ears close to Zaynab's mouth, listening for a response. She heard nothing.

"Subhanallah!", Jamilah heard someone scream, but she couldn't bring herself to look away from Zaynab. Something in her was breaking, something in her was realizing...the longer she stared at Zaynab, and at the hole in the center of the woman's forehead. All too suddenly, there were people buzzing around her, and around someone lying on the ground near her. 'Oh', Jamilah thought. 'Rahma'.

 She watched as people flitted around, pouring water over Rahma, tugging at her, trying to reach for Zaynab. Her hands tightened around Zaynab, anger welling up in her chest. 'Cowards', she thought, watching them. If they couldn't help when they needed help, she didn't need them now. No one would take Zaynab away from her!

To the people around, Jamilah was the picture of pure, unbridled anger. From the way her eyebrows were pulled close to each other, to the menacing glare in her eyes...no one doubted that the girl had lost her reasoning to grief. An older woman in the crowd, taking pity on the girl, nudged the people around her to move. She trudged along slowly with her walking stick, along the path the crowd had cleared for her. No one fought her. If anyone could deal with a person in grief, it would be the orphaned, widowed, childless Mairo Abubakr.

Jamilah bristled as one of the people from the crowd placed a hand on her shoulder. She held Zaynab tighter and frowned at the woman. The woman was visibly old, with a face that was deeply wrinkled; and she was smiling. Jamilah wanted to cry. Why was this woman smiling when her own world had crashed and burned?

"It's time to let go now", she heard the woman say. Her voice was tender, and her hands on Jamilah's shoulder squeezed, the other one coming to her face, just under her eyes. The woman wiped at her face, her hands coming off with moisture. Jamilah reached for her own face, pulling her hands away from Zaynab to stare at them. Her hands were stained with blood and now, with tears. Jamilah wanted to scream. Her shoulders were uncontrollable, and she was holding every sound that wanted to tear through her, in. The old woman smiled again, in a smile Jamilah could now see was sad, deeply pained. "I'm so sorry for your loss. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raa'jiun". The first sob left Jamilah's lips, resounding through her chest and vibrating through her entire body. She let go of Zaynab and watched people start to carry the woman.