HE IS MY CHAUFFEUR ✅

NINE

In place of going home, Ameer felt the need to go and greet his mother. He felt awful for not visiting her over the past two weeks even though he called her every morning. He told the driver to take him to Shagari quarters where his mother's residence was. He texted Hidaya and told her that he won't be back on time.

He was raised by a single mother, his father died when he's young. His father was also a Journalist that worked with a famous Nigerian television station that's owned by English men. His father was assassinated on his way back from work and the assassinators were yet to be discovered. Everyone knew about the tragic news because his father used to be an influential persona.

When the rickshaw stopped, he stepped down and paid the man his due. He opened the gate of his parents' house and entered.

Seeing the vast surrounding reminded him of those days when it's always pothering with people, day and night. Now his father was gone and all the people had stopped coming.

He remembered when he used to play with his cousins because he was the only child in the house. He felt nostalgic and shook his head. Gone were the days and they would never return. That's why it's good to live a moment cheerfully and enjoy it to the extreme end because once it ends it won't be back.

He pushed the glass door that would connect him to his mother's side. He made his salam and trudged inner. Everything was in place because his mother hired someone to be cleaning up the house for her as she couldn't because of her business.

She wasn't old and wrinkled. She still possessed a vernal look that made men syncope over her. Ameer could remember when she told him that she was considering marrying again but he stopped her. And so she gave up.

He had taken the way to her biggest room when he heard her shoe smack-dabbing the tiles. The scent of her perfume hit his nose and he smiled.

There she emerged garbed in a jean skirt and a shirt with a kimono on top. She looked much younger than the last time had seen her.

He suddenly went on his knees. His mother was among the type of women that demanded a lot of respect. He heard that she used to turn people with the flick of her finger and that when his father was alive, everything was done with her decision. He didn't know if all was true because he was young when his father was forced to leave the world.

All he knew was she loved to be respected no matter how little the age gap was. That side of her made it very difficult for him to get a wife and get married on time. Each girl he brought to greet her, after she's left, his Mumma would say the girl didn't know how to greet and respect elders or she greeted her like she was on a trampoline. She liked to call it spring greeting and she hated it.

"Good evening Mumma." She looked at him for a moment.

It's been a while since he came and she's pretty sure that it was his wife that wanted to separate a mother and her child. Then, Hidaya's a bloody liar if she had ever thought she would take her place. Her son was hers alone and it's mandatory for him to put her first before any other peanut woman called a wife.

"Has she given you the permission to come and greet me?" She asked, sitting down on a chair with a pallette of eyeshadow on her hand. She applied it to the crease of her eye and looked at Ameer who squatted limp.

She loved makeup since before the evulsion of the modern makeup. She was used to drawing a straight line on her brows, lining her lips with a khol before applying the famous green Taiwan lipstick that later changes to pink. Hausa people called it 'Kan ta kile.'

He didn't know what to tell his mother. He didn't like the way she thought Hidaya was controlling him. Thing was Hidaya didn't have such ascendancy over him, he knew his wife so much. Sure, he's pliant to her wishes because she's his companion and garment not his slave.