It was only a few days before school reopened when the sadness returned.
Matou woke long before the night had finished with her. For a while she lay perfectly still, staring into the darkness, tears slipping silently from the corners of her eyes and disappearing into the mat beneath her cheek. Beside her, Bubel snored with the careless abandon of a child whose tomorrow held no threat. At the other end of the room, Nenneh Dado breathed deeply in her sleep. Somewhere close by, Borogie shifted beneath her wrapper.
Two months.
How could two whole months disappear like that?
They had felt like two days. No, two seconds.
Matou closed her eyes tightly, almost as though she could bargain with time by refusing to witness the arrival of morning. If dawn did not come, perhaps the days would stop moving. If the days stopped moving, school would not reopen. And if school did not reopen, she would not have to return to Bakau.
But dawn had never negotiated with anybody.
Already the night insects were quietening. Soon the birds would begin. Then the cocks. Then her father would stir. The animals would call for food. Someone would light the morning fire, and another precious day would begin and end.
Matou’s chest tightened.
She had spent much of the holiday refusing to count the days. At first there had been so many ahead of her that counting seemed unnecessary. She had surrendered herself to them instead: mornings feeding the chickens and sheep; afternoons trailing behind Borogie or Nenneh Dado; Bubel forever underfoot; evenings around her father’s fire; visits to Jeshwang; stories; laughter; arguments; village gossip; Kornyagi’s troubles; rain hammering against the thatch while everyone squeezed indoors and complained about leaking roofs.
It had all become ordinary.
That was what hurt most.
Home had become ordinary again.
And now she had to leave it.
She thought of the Owens’ house and felt her stomach knot. It was not that every moment there was miserable. There was school. There were Haddy and Yassin. There were books. There were even good moments with Jane and the other children. Mr Owens could be kind. Mrs. Owens had provided her with opportunities her parents could never afford.
But beneath everything was that other feeling.
The feeling of being tolerated rather than belonging.
Of knowing which chair was not yours without anyone having to tell you. Of listening for Aunty Bae’s voice. Of being useful before being a child. Of being surrounded by people and still feeling terribly alone.
And the scar on her cheek had not completely faded.
Her fingers travelled towards it instinctively.
She quickly pulled her hand away.
No.
She would not think about that.
She heard Borogie breathe differently.
Matou knew that breathing. Her mother was awake.
Immediately, she shut her eyes.
Borogie lay still for another moment before slowly rising, careful not to disturb Bubel. She gathered her wrapper around herself and stepped over the sleeping children.
Matou heard everything.
She heard her mother’s feet touch the floor. Heard the slight rustling of cloth. Heard the soft opening of the door.
Still, she pretended to sleep.
Borogie knew.
A mother knew the difference between the abandon of sleep and the stiffness of a child pretending to be asleep. She had also heard the tiny sniffles Matou had tried desperately to swallow.
But she said nothing.
Later, when Matou finally rose, she performed sleepiness badly. She stretched, rubbed her face and made a show of being sluggish, then hurried past Borogie towards the toilet before her mother could properly look at her.
“Matou.”
“Yes, Mama?”
“Nothing.”
Matou continued walking.
Borogie watched her go.
She had seen the swollen eyes.
She had seen everything.
And perhaps that was why she did not call her back.
There were pains a mother could not soothe without first forcing the child to admit that she was hurting. Matou clearly did not want to do that. Borogie would give her that dignity.
Besides, she understood.
More than Matou could possibly know.
Long before she became anybody’s mother, Borogie herself had known what it meant to live away from the woman who had given birth to her. She remembered missing her own mother with a longing so physical that sometimes food became difficult to swallow. She remembered being inside a house filled with people and feeling as though nobody could see her.
Loneliness was strange that way.
It did not require solitude.
Sometimes the loneliest place in the world was a crowded house in which everyone belonged except you.
Even marriage had taught Borogie versions of the same lesson. There had been days in Yerro’s household when she had been surrounded by husband, co-wife and children and yet felt entirely on her own. There had been disagreements in which nobody spoke to her, moments when she felt ignored, mistreated or simply expected to swallow whatever came because that was what women did.
Her mind began wandering towards memories she preferred not to revisit.
Borogie stopped it.
Some pastures were better left ungrazed.
She picked up her basket and went about the morning.
By afternoon, she had returned from selling vegetables and produce at the market. The compound had settled into that quiet part of the day when even energetic children became slower. The heat pressed down upon the village. Matou was somewhere behind the house, and Nenneh Dado was sorting something near the kitchen.
Borogie had just tied her wrapper more securely around her waist and was preparing to visit a neighbour when she heard a voice from beyond the compound.
She stopped.
There were voices one recognised before the person appeared.
“Neneh!”
Borogie’s face broke into a smile.
“Nata?”
Matou heard it too.
She came running.
Nata appeared along the path carrying a small bundle, perspiration shining across her forehead. Before she had properly entered the compound, Bubel was already racing towards her.
“Jaajah!”
“Look at this one!” Nata laughed, catching him. “Are you planning to knock me down?”
Then she saw Matou.
For a moment, neither sister said anything.
Nata opened her arms.
Matou flew into them.
“Aah!” Nata exclaimed, staggering theatrically. “Bakau people have become strong!”
Matou laughed into her shoulder.
“You came!”
“Of course I came. You think I would let you go back without seeing you?”
That single sentence nearly undid Matou.
She held her sister tighter.
Nata felt it.
When Matou finally released her, Nata studied her face.
“What is wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Nata raised an eyebrow.
Borogie laughed quietly. “Ask her again.”
Matou glared at her mother.
“I said nothing.”
“Good,” Nata replied. “Then since nothing is wrong, nothing will mind if I sleep here tonight.”
“You’re staying?”
“I came prepared.”
She lifted the bundle.
That transformed Matou immediately.
“You are really sleeping here?”
“Unless your father has sold my sleeping place.”
From behind them came Yerro’s voice.
“I should have sold it long ago.”
Nata turned dramatically. “Baba!”
Yerro was approaching with an expression that tried and failed to conceal his pleasure.
“You remember you have parents?”
“I remember. It is my husband who keeps me hostage.”
“Do not bring lies into my compound.”
Everyone laughed, even Nata.
It was easier these days to joke about Bukari than it had once been. The marriage remained complicated, and Nata remained uncertain about the life chosen for her, but time had at least softened some of the rawness between father and daughter.
After greetings were properly exchanged, Nata opened her bundle.
“I brought things for Matou.”
“For me?”
“For the goats. Of course for you.”
Matou nudged her.
There were small things inside: something to eat on the journey, a little cloth, a few useful items and whatever else Nata had managed to gather for a younger sister returning to school. None of it was extravagant.
It did not need to be.
Matou touched each item as though it were precious.
“When are you going back?” Nata asked quietly.
“In a few days.”
Her voice changed.
Nata heard it immediately.
“Are you sad?”
Matou looked down.
This time she did not say nothing.
“I don’t want to go.”
Borogie, who had been listening, became very still.
Nata moved closer. “Because of Aunty Bae?”
Matou shrugged.
“Because of everything.”
Nobody answered immediately.
Then Nata put an arm around her sister.
“I know.”
And Matou believed her.
Of everyone there, perhaps Nata understood most clearly what it meant to live somewhere because adults had decided that was where you belonged. She knew the peculiar helplessness of being young and having one’s life arranged by people who insisted they were doing what was best.
“Do you know what I think?” Nata said.
“What?”
“I think you should go back and learn everything they can teach you.”
Matou looked disappointed.
Nata smiled.
“You thought I was going to tell you to run away?”
“A little.”
“No. Learn. Read all their books. Pass everybody in that school. Learn until your head becomes too heavy for your neck.”
Matou laughed despite herself.
“And then?”
“Then grow up.”
“That will take forever.”
“It feels like that now.”
Nata squeezed her shoulder.
“But it won’t.”
Matou looked towards her mother.
Borogie was watching them.
For the first time since waking before dawn, Matou felt the heaviness inside her shift slightly.
She still dreaded leaving.
Bakau had not suddenly become home. Aunty Bae had not become kind. The loneliness waiting there had not disappeared.
But Nata was staying the night.
There were still a few days left.
And Matou decided she would not waste them grieving over a departure that had not yet happened.
For tonight, her sister was home.
For tonight, Bubel would probably refuse to sleep because Nata was there. Borogie would tell stories. Nenneh Dado would complain about everybody talking too loudly. Their father would pretend he wanted peace while secretly listening to every word.
For tonight, the compound would be full.
Matou took Nata’s bundle from her.
“Come,” she said. “Let me show you my sheep.”
“Your sheep?”
“Yes.”
“Since when did Papa give you sheep?”
“He didn’t. They just like me.”
Nata laughed. “Then show me these sheep that have adopted you.”
They walked away together, Matou talking rapidly now, her earlier sadness temporarily forgotten.
Behind them, Borogie watched her daughters go.
She knew the tears would return.
Perhaps on the last night.
Perhaps on the lorry.
Perhaps when Matou reached Bakau and realised once again that the familiar sounds of home were gone.
But Borogie also knew something her twelve-year-old daughter did not yet know.
Childhood felt endless only while one was trapped inside it.
One day Matou would grow.
One day she would decide where she went and when she returned.
Until then, Borogie could only love her from both near and far — and hope that what felt to Matou like abandonment would someday reveal itself for what Borogie had always intended it to be: a painful investment in the girl’s future.
