The sun had long dipped below the horizon, leaving behind a faint amber trace that melted into darkness. The call to Maghrib had passed; the air carried the faint scent of burning firewood and groundnut stew from nearby compounds. Inside the yard, Ousman Bah sat in his usual spot under the mango tree, prayer beads idle in his hand.
He could hear Mbentoung moving about in the house — softly, cautiously. For the first time in months, her steps were light, her voice muted. There was no clatter of pots thrown in anger, no heavy sighs meant to provoke him. It was a silence unfamiliar yet not unpleasant. Still, he felt no ease.
He wanted to trust the quiet, to believe it was peace — but experience told him silence often came before another storm.
Ousman’s heart was a troubled sea. Even after Borogie’s visit the previous day, her words lingering like incense, he could not shake off the weariness that had settled deep within him. Too much had been said, too much broken. The image of Mbentoung’s face twisted in fury, the cruel things she had hurled at him — senile, impotent, useless old man — they had lodged themselves in his mind like thorns.
Could love grow again in the same soil where such words had been sown?
And lately, another thought — one he did not voice even in prayer — had begun to take root.
At a family gathering some weeks earlier, he had met a young woman — by accident, truly. She had come to greet the elders with her father, carrying a tray of colanuts. Her laughter had been clear, her manner gentle but confident. He remembered how she had bent slightly to serve him water, her eyes lowered yet alive with quiet grace. She reminded him of how peace used to feel before life became complicated.
Yerro, his nephew — Borogie’s husband — had noticed. “You are looking too long at what does not belong to you, Uncle,” he had teased softly. But Ousman had only smiled. Later, when the laughter faded, Yerro’s voice turned serious. “Do not add another fire to the one already burning at home. Rebuild, Uncle. Rebuild before it’s too late.”
But rebuilding felt harder than starting anew.
Tonight, as he sat under the neem tree, those two paths stretched before him like roads in opposite directions: one leading toward a fragile reconciliation with the wife who had wounded him, the other toward the freshness of a woman untouched by his disappointment.
He did not hear Mbentoung approach until she was standing a few feet away. Her hands were clasped in front of her, her scarf neatly tied, her eyes downcast.
“Ousman,” she said softly.
He looked up, startled by the unfamiliar gentleness in her tone. “Yes?”
“I brought you food,” she said, placing a covered bowl before him. “It’s rice with okra. I… I made it myself.”
He regarded her quietly. She had said those same words before, many times — but never with this tone. There was no demand for thanks, no edge of pride. Just a nervous sincerity.
“I’m not hungry,” he murmured, though his eyes lingered on the steam curling from the bowl.
She hesitated, then sat on the mat across from him. The distance between them was small, but the years of resentment made it feel wide.
“I don’t know what to say that will change what I’ve done,” she began quietly. “I have been harsh. Unkind. I thought if I shouted loud enough, you would hear me — but all I did was make you deaf to my pain.”
He said nothing, his thumb rolling one bead after another.
She went on, her voice trembling. “If you cannot forgive me, I will understand. But I wanted to try, because I cannot live in this emptiness anymore. I miss you, Ousman.”
The honesty in her tone startled him. He turned his gaze toward her and saw something different in her face — not defiance, not manipulation, but a kind of surrender that only comes when pride has been spent.
And yet, a shadow still lingered in his heart. He thought of the young woman from the gathering — her calm eyes, her steady laugh. He wondered what it might be like to have peace again, to start over without the burden of disappointment.
“People do not change easily, Mbentoung,” Ousman said finally, his voice low but firm. “Your words cut deep. You said things that cannot be unsaid.”
“I know,” she whispered, her eyes glistening. “But I can do better. If you will allow me.”
He gave a small, bitter laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “You ask for patience when mine has run dry.”
She lowered her gaze, tears spilling freely now. “Then let me earn it again,” she murmured. “Please.”
For a while, there was only the sound of crickets outside, the occasional distant bark of a dog. The night felt vast around them, the air heavy with the scent of firewood smoke and okra stew cooling on the table.
Ousman leaned back in his chair, studying her. “You know what hurts most?” he said after a long silence. “It’s not just what you said. It’s how easily you said it. How you could look at me — a man who has never raised a hand to you — and call me senile. Useless. Less of a man. Do you know how that sits in a man’s heart?”
She swallowed hard. “I was angry, Ousman. You ignored me. You made me feel small.”
“I made you feel small?” he repeated, his voice rising a notch before he caught himself. He looked away, shaking his head. “You see, even now, you cannot see your own hand in the breaking of things. Every time I came home, I felt like I was walking into a test. You never spoke to me without measuring how you could win the argument.”
“I only wanted your attention,” she said softly.
“You wanted control,” he countered, his tone quiet again. “And when you didn’t get it, you tried to wound what you could reach — my pride. My peace.”
He sighed, the weariness in his voice deeper than anger. “You turned everyone in this compound against each other. Even your own family members stopped visiting because of the way you carried tales. You remember? And the one person who tried to make peace — Borogie — was the same woman you called arrogant, proud, even fake.”
Mbentoung winced, guilt flashing across her face. “I said things I shouldn’t have,” she admitted. “But you always took her side.”
“Because she wasn’t the problem,” he said flatly. “She was the one cleaning the mess you left behind. While you burned bridges, she was mending fences. She never once came to me complaining, even when you spoke badly of her. She just kept working in her garden, raising her children, keeping her dignity. That woman…” He paused, shaking his head slowly. “She has peace in her blood. You hated her for what you lacked — calm.”
Mbentoung’s lips trembled. “You talk of her as if she is a saint.”
“She is not,” Ousman said simply. “But she knows herself. And because she does, no one can move her from her place.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes softening. “You think peace is in being right, Mbentoung. It isn’t. Peace is in knowing when to stop fighting. You mistook her silence for weakness, but I see now — it was strength. You called her proud because she wouldn’t roll in the mud with you. And yet, she’s the reason we’re sitting here tonight. She came to me yesterday, do you know that?”
She blinked in surprise. “She came to you … here?”
He nodded. “Yes. To speak on your behalf. She asked me to show mercy, to remember the woman I married before the anger took over. Imagine that — the same woman you accused of turning me against you is the one who told me to forgive you.”
Mbentoung’s shoulders sagged, shame flushing her cheeks. “I didn’t know.”
“No, you didn’t,” he said quietly. “Because you were too busy defending your pride to see who was standing by you. She carries no malice, that one. You could learn something from her.”
Silence settled again, thick and fragile. Mbentoung nodded slowly, tears streaking down her cheeks. “You’re right,” she said softly. “I envied her. She made life look easy. People respect her, love her. And I… I just wanted that too.”
Ousman’s tone softened, though a trace of distance remained. “Then learn from her, not resent her. There’s still time, if you mean what you say.”
“I do,” she said, her voice small. “I will change, Ousman. I promise.”
He sighed, leaning back once more. “Promises are easy, Mbentoung. It’s the quiet days that will test you. The days when no one praises you, when the house feels lonely, when my silence stings — those are the days I’ll know if you’ve truly changed.”
She nodded slowly. “Then let me start today.”
Ousman regarded her for a long moment before saying, “Eat with me, then.”
Her head snapped up, disbelief flickering in her eyes. “Truly?”
“Yes,” he said, his tone weary but sincere. “But understand me — I’m not promising peace overnight. Trust is a seed, and ours hasn’t grown for a long time. It will take work to make it live again.”
She bit her lip, nodding. “I will wait, Ousman. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
He gestured to the bowl between them.
Moments later, the clink of spoons filled the silence between them. They ate slowly, each lost in thought.
Yet the quiet felt different this time — not empty, but tentative, careful.
And though Ousman’s heart still carried doubt, and the memory of another woman’s gentle laughter lingered somewhere in his mind, a small part of him began — however reluctantly — to hope that perhaps peace could be mended after all.
He reminded himself of Borogie’s words that morning: “Trying is where mercy begins.”
And for the first time in a long while, Ousman Bah wanted to try… again.
Reconciliation, he realised, was not a single act but a daily choosing. And though he had chosen mercy that day, he knew the next day might bring the old ache back.
He prayed softly as he ate. “Ya Allah, if peace is to be found, let it be in my own house. And if not… guide my heart where it may rest.”
Mbentoung too whispered her own prayer, matching his in silence.
Between them, trust did not return that day — but perhaps its shadow did.
To be continued…
