Deceptive Glitters ✅

Chapter 43: Arduous Odyssey

Khadijah took a deep breath as she entered her bedroom as if refamiliarising herself with the scent, the aroma of lavender and her floral scented bath and room freshener, she smelt incense and bakhoor which made her smile.

“You missed the place?” Kamla stated rather than asked, she went to the hospital before she was discharged and they came back together. She’d wanted to visit her earlier but had been the one taking care of Sadiya’s children along with Baraka’s own. One of Baraka’s sisters in law visited and she was staying for the night, she used the opportunity and visited only to find them getting ready to leave, she was at least happy she went even though she hadn’t stayed for long.

She has grown very close to her cousin over the past few weeks and her sickness had hit her hard, she was one of the most important people to her, she couldn’t lose them right after finding them.

“Just a day but it feels like forever.” She glanced around the light grey walls and her grey colored bed covers with a satisfied smile, her work table was neat, all the pencils arranged and her system lay beside it everything was just how she liked, her vanity was also pristine neat, she turned to Kamla who had a small secretive smile on her face.

“You did this, didn’t you?” she asked and didn’t wait for her answer before pulling her into a hug.

“Umma said that was your favorite bed sheet and everyone knows you like everything to be in place, it’s no big deal.” She waved off her cheeks tingeing pink.

“Thank you so much.” Khadijah said hugging her tighter. It was little things like that that meant the most to her.

“Okay now don’t go getting emotional.” She teased pulling out of the hug but Khadijah saw her tear filled eyes.

“The children send their love.” Kamla said sitting on the bed, Khadijah followed and sat with a satisfied huff.

“How’s school?” Kamla’s cheeks tinged with the coming of a blush before her lips stretched into a wide smile.

With excitement she started telling her cousin about her school she was to for lessons and how it was going the excitement in her voice couldn’t be mistaken.

Since she was already through with secondary school, malam Sadeeq thought it best for her to further her education. He was a full supporter of girl child education which was a far cry from his wife and he couldn’t hide his surprise when she’d readily agreed.

On normal circumstances her next step would’ve been marriage because to her the highest achievement in world was to be married, forget you’re not mentally ready or any other thing, if there was a man they shouldn’t waste time tying the knot.

She did make an exception this time, so they enrolled her in a WAEC and NECO lesson, to refresh her brain before she wrote jamb and the other external examinations. Malam Sadeeq had been proud about it because she was bright from the comments the school had made.

One topic led to another and Khadijah didn’t know how but Kamla finally let her in and told her what exactly happened to her, after leaving their village and up to the point that she met Baraka.

Kamla has never had life easy, her mother, umma’s eldest sister had gotten married and left the village when her husband, Kamla’s father died, since one of his brother’s had taken her other younger siblings in, she had nowhere to go when her mother had married and moved to another place with no thought of her first daughter who was just thirteen at the time, leaving her in the hands of her late husband’s stepmother and her children, who were very useless.

She would hawk in the village sometimes going into town to sell her step grandmother’s awara (local delicacy made from soya beans), it was when she came back from hawking that she might be given something to eat, coupled with demeaning insults, she was in js3 then, the only good thing they did for her was letting her go to school, that was until they decided to send to her Kano to work as a domestic help, the first family she worked with were nice enough, they let her complete her secondary school education since it was in government secondary school. She’d wanted to write WAEC and JAMB even though she knew going to further her education was a far stretch, she had no money and even though the family was nice, she didn’t think they’d take the responsibility of her going to university, she was already grateful they even let her continue schooling, so far it wouldn’t interfere with her work.