TRIALS (Completed)

Two

Each day is a new test, face it calmly. Know that you're not perfect but never let your anger get in the way you respond to problems. - Mufti Isma'il Menk.
...

Festac town, Lagos.

Kauthar was freaking out! She forgot to set her usual morning alarm, or was it that she overslept?
She couldn’t recall and she was too busy to try. It was Monday after all! 

“Barakah!” She called out from the dining room adjacent to the staircase, she stood against the round dark red dining table, taking out balls of hot puff-puff from a stainless steel colander to the  yellow rubber plate of Hoor’s lunch box. 

“Ma, I’m coming. Hoor is in the toilet.” Barakah replied from her room upstairs. 

Kauthar shook her head. “Toh, hurry up o, it’s already 07:15am and we’re yet to leave.”

She went into the kitchen to wash her hands in the sink then grabbed Hoor's shoe shaped water bottle on the marble counter beside the sink. She came out to meet Barakah perched at the end of the stairs, holding a notebook to her face. 

“Where is Hoor na?” she asked, reaching out for her purple wool handbag on the table which complemented the purple abaya she was putting on with a frilly white veil wrapped tightly around her head. 

“She’s coming.” Barakah’s voice came out muffled, like she had something in her mouth. 

Kauthar frowned, moving closer to her. “What are you doing?” 

Barakah lowered the book, her grey eyes peeking out. “Nothing.”

“Mummy!” Hoor called out as her shiny brown sandals padded down the carpeted stairs. Her knee length pinafore streaked with blue and white kites, each carrying a letter of the school name— Starlight Academy. She had Kauthar’s doe brown eyes and dimpled cheeks with Isma’il’s fair complexion and pointed nose. Her pitch black hair was made into single braids (Calabar hairstyle) and held together by a cute white ribbon at the back of her head which matched the ribbon design on her white socks. 

“Ehe, oya let’s go.” She took Hoor’s hand and they made their way out of the house as Barakah trailed after them. 

The sun showered its warm rays upon them as they walked towards a white Peugeot 307 parked at a corner of the interlocked compound.

As Kauthar pulled out her keys and unlocked the car for them, her eyes landed on what Barakah was trying to hide: Her face–of light brown shade–looked as though she poured glitters on it, her eyes (normally droopy) popped out more than they should, and her lips glistened.

“Barakah,” she narrowed her eyes. “Are you putting on makeup?”

“Em,” Barakah tugged at the chest length white hijab covering her head.

She was wearing a white short sleeved shirt covered with a black pinafore with the school badge emblazoned on the left side—Eternal Grace College.

Kauthar shook her head. “Let’s go.”
Luckily for them, the traffic wasn’t too serious so they arrived at Hoor’s school just as the school bell rang for assembly. 

Kauthar helped Hoor out of the car and through the open gate where she handed her over to one of the teachers. With a quick wave and a warning of ‘don’t misplace your pencil today o.’ She joined Barakah as they set out for her own school which was up ahead. 

“Barakah, how old are you?” She asked after a few minutes of silence, eyes straight ahead. 

Barakah looked up in confusion, biting her bottom lip. She knew she was in big trouble. 

“Mummy please.” She said. 

Kauthar chuckled. “Ah ah, what are you pleading for? I just asked a simple question.”

“I’m...twelve years old.” 

Kauthar nodded. “So at your age, is it appropriate for you to put on makeup without my knowledge?” 

Barakah ducked her head.

“I asked you a question!”  She bellowed as the car climbed over a bump, past the black and white walls of the school. 

“Em, but Aunty Rose said it was okay.”  Of course, Kauthar mused. 
“Aunty Rose as in Aliyah’s mother?” 

Barakah nodded, “She said that young girls should always look beautiful.”

Kauthar scoffed, why am I not surprised? Since Aunty Rose was a young girl herself (in her early twenties) who just got fated with a child. 

“So is Aunty Rose now your new mother, that it’s okay for you to obey her but disobey me?” She watched Barakah through the front mirror as she ran a hand across her face to get rid of the glitters. Kauthar wanted to continue, but it was already 07:45 am and she had someplace to be. 

She parked behind a blue Picanto jeep, a few metres away from the school gate.

As Barakah shuffled out of the car, she said, “Madam, this discussion is not over.”

“Are you going to tell daddy?” Barakah asked, her voice shaky. 

“Just go.”

Barakah nodded, then stepped out and shut the door behind her. 

Kauthar watched her, lips trembling.
Have I been doing it all wrong? She asked herself.

She had only wanted Rose—her new neighbour —to feel at home, that was why she pushed Barakah to make friends with Aliyah, even though they were not of the same age and they had nothing in common. 

It’s all my fault. She mused. I saw the signs but I ignored it, so much so that Barakah can do things behind my back. Ikon Allah! I knew that Rose’s method of parenting was a tad out of control. I mean which mother would allow her fourteen-year-old daughter to have a smartphone and a complete makeup set? Is she not too young for such things? And the way Aliyah addresses Rose sometimes make me wonder who the mother is among them sef. 

She sighed, turning on the ignition. I’ll talk with that woman later. If she wants her daughter to be exposed beyond her years, so be it, but let her keep my Barakah out of it. Kauthar resolved with a firm nod.

She reversed the car a little and drove past the school gate, past a woman seated at the back of a midnight blue Toyota Avensis that was directly parked opposite from her, who had been watching them with keen interest. 

Her gaze followed Kauthar’s car till it disappeared from her mirror view, then she turned back to the closed school gate, and leaned back against her seat, nodding in affirmation. Indeed, My brother’s granddaughter is alive.