FATE

Chapter 7

Aatikah

Growing up, I wanted to have something and by something, I mean a relationship, a marriage like my parents'.

But the joke's on me now.

I don't want anything like that anymore. For the sake of my sanity.

I don't even know how they manage to stay together under one roof without killing each other.

I'm exaggerating but yes, that's how bad their marriage is now. Once upon a time they were so much in love but now the only thing keeping them together is me. Yeah, me.

My mother, Hajiya Halima is from Agadaz of Niger Republic. She's indeed a beautiful woman, fair, chubby and everything a woman from Niger is, the long hair and all.

She met and married my father Alhaji Abdallah Mu'az a rich business man in Kano state.

He loved her dearly, yes he was captivated by her beauty but it was more than just that. She however, married him for the money.

I call my mum Yaya, I grew up with her close and distant relatives calling her that and I guess that kind of stuck and she never said anything about me calling her that.

My mum is quite the epicurean in every sense of the word. She lives for luxury and screams class and elegance. She's the type that doesn't associate with people below her class.

My father whom I call Baffa didn't care about all that as he kept providing her with all that she wanted and more. Well that is until I was born.

Not just after my birth because then she got double of whatever she wanted.

Don't get me wrong, I love my mother but she's not the best mum there is, far from that actually. Poor parenting and all. My father however is trying. He's not there yet but he's better than she is in everything that is. And for that, I love him more.

My mum, just like some Niger people welcomed and accommodated family, friends and strangers alike. Both men and women showing off my father's wealth and whatnot.

She loves occasions. Any chance she gets to flaunt her fancy clothing, she takes. And because of that she hardly stays at home.

She loves me without doubt, but she has a funny way of showing it. Her type of love is providing me with all that I so much glance at.

In a way, she was there but not really there. Literally I grew up amidst close and distant relatives.

So it's no surprise that I have somewhat "crooked home training" like my paternal family emphasize.

Sure I hardly cover, I mixed freely with the opposite gender and do things I wasn't supposed to do.

But none of my parents ever called me out on my behaviors. So in a way, I thought I was never in the wrong. I thought my cousins envy me and my mum, because my paternal family do not like her. Not one bit.

The feeling's mutual because she detests them too. The only person she gets along with is Aunty Sakina, my uncle's wife.

I don't have any sibling because my mum felt having more kids will temper with her physique and she can't have more scars from CS.

"You can't have siblings Aatikah, your father want kids and now you're asking of why you don't have younger ones. Well, let's just say you're more than enough. I can't go through what I went through to bring you into this world. It's stressful and traumatizing."

"It amazes me how a woman can have many children. Like the pain and stress of taking care of them. I just can't. It's not like I don't have a child at all, I do and that's enough. This way you get to have all that you want and more." My mum said one particular day I asked her why I don't have siblings.