Back in Bakau, Mr Owens took his resolve seriously.
He began to watch more closely, listen more intently. For far too long, he had assumed that love — silent, assumed love — was enough to raise a child. That if you have fed a child, clothed her, sheltered her, and sent her to school, it was love. That by fulfilling the basics, the heart would naturally follow. This was what he did with his own kids. But Matou had shown him otherwise. Or rather, she hadn’t shown him — it was in what she did not show. The dimming light in her eyes, the laughter that never quite reached her lips, the way her shoulders curled inward like a person shrinking from the world.
Love without demonstration, love without action, he realised, was not love at all. It was indifference with a friendly face. And indifference, he knew now, could harm as deeply as hate.
So when the children teased Matou or left her out of their games, he corrected them — gently, but firmly, in front of everyone. “She is a child,” he would say, “not a servant. We don’t leave people out in this family.” His words carried a new weight, one that made the others pause, even when they didn’t fully understand.
When Matou was made to scrub the floors while the others napped or read, he intervened. “Not her alone,” he said, stepping in as Aunty Beatrice barked orders. “Everyone shares the work in this house.”
There was no anger in his tone, only quiet certainty. The kind that shifted something in the room. Even Beatrice — unyielding, sharp-eyed Beatrice — fell silent, her lips tightening as she busied herself elsewhere.
But it was the conversation with his wife, Mary, that took the most strength. That was the hardest part. Harder than facing the judgmental stares of neighbours or the passive resistance of his household.
It happened one Sunday evening after church, when the air still carried the scent of burning incense and lemon peel from the neighbor’s backyard. The children were sprawled in the parlor, flipping through hymnbooks and photo albums. Matou sat alone in a corner, her knees drawn up, her chin resting on them, her lips moving to a silent tune. Not the loud, belly-deep laughter he remembered from when she first arrived — just the ghost of it.
“Darling,” he said softly, approaching Mary as she worked on her embroidery. Her hands moved deftly, stitching with precision. She looked up, one brow raised. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” he said, voice low. “Matou.”
Mary’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What about her?”
“She’s not being treated right. Not here. Not by you or your mother. Not by the children. And I’m to blame too. I let it happen.”
She scoffed, barely pausing. “She is treated like the others.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “She is treated like an outsider. Not like a child.”
She set her embroidery down now, her expression defensive. “She eats, she goes to school, she sleeps in a bed…”
“She eats last,” he cut in. “She’s sent on every errand. The bed is hers only when the others say so. And the way you look at her sometimes — like she’s a burden. A debt you didn’t sign up for.”
Mary opened her mouth, then shut it again. Her lips pressed into a thin line. The truth of his words hovered, uncomfortable and undeniable.
He took a breath. “Many years ago,” he began slowly, “I had a similar experience. I’ve never told you. It’s still too painful to recount. But it’s time.”
Her eyes softened slightly, curiosity breaking through the defensiveness.
“When my mother died, I was sent to live with my uncle — a man I revered. My mother spoke highly of him. I thought I would be loved there. But instead, I was the outsider. The ‘boy-boy’. I cleaned toilets, washed cars, did house laundry while my cousins sat at the table. I was family in name, but not in spirit.”
He swallowed hard. “I see that same treatment for Matou. And it — it shames me. We are Christians. The intention to help a child, to give her a better life, is noble. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
The words landed heavily. Mary stiffened, her back rod-straight now, her embroidery forgotten. Her hands trembled.
“How can you say that?” she whispered. “She has more than she did. We give her…”
“What good is comfort,” he interrupted, “if the heart starves? What good is school when a child is made to feel less?”
Her eyes glistened, but she blinked it back. “I didn’t know,” she murmured. “I thought — I thought I was being fair.”
He reached for her hand. “Then let’s be better. For her. For ourselves.”
………………………
Two months later, Borogie arrived with Nenneh Dado, Matou’s stepmother. They came by donkey cart, the rhythmic clatter of hooves announcing their arrival before they were even visible. The cart carried gourds brimming with seasonal fruits and vegetables — plump mangoes, bright oranges, tender green beans, and a bundle of fresh cassava leaves. Tucked carefully among the produce was a crisp white wrapper, folded neatly, the kind given to mark special moments in a girl’s life.
From the kitchen window, Matou spotted them and without thinking, dropped the spoon she was stirring with and bolted out the door, her heart hammering in her chest. A cry escaped her lips before she could stop it.
“Nenneh!” she called, her voice high and breathless, her feet pounding across the dusty courtyard.
She ran straight into their open arms, burying her face into her mother’s chest. Borogie held her tight, her arms trembling slightly as she pressed her face to her daughter’s hair, breathing in deeply—the oil in Matou’s scalp, the faint sterile scent of disinfectant that clung to her from the school clinic. She noticed the slight scabs on Matou’s legs, the shiny spots where iodine had been applied — healing sores from a fall some weeks earlier.
“My Matou,” Borogie whispered, her voice thick. “My own. My baby girl.”
For a few moments, the world fell away. Borogie felt her daughter’s thin arms wrap around her waist, her breath quick with emotion, her small body pressing close as though she could somehow absorb the safety of her mother through sheer will.
It was Mr Owens, seated in the sitting room with Uncle Johnny in quiet conversation, who noticed them and gently cleared his throat, motioning for them to come inside.
He smiled warmly and teased Matou about her new white wrapper, noting the way her eyes lit up as her fingers trailed the soft fabric. “Ah, see how beautiful you’ll look in this!” he chuckled. “Only special girls wear such fine cloth.”
He called for Anna to come and help carry the vegetables and fruits, profusely thanking the two women as if they had handed him treasures beyond measure. His warmth, genuine yet restrained, seemed to soften the room.
Aunty Bae and Mary soon appeared, offering greetings and pleasantries in that formal, practiced way women do when they sense the weight of unspoken things in the air. They nodded and smiled, exclaiming over the freshness of the cassava leaves and the sweetness of the mangoes.
“Matou, bring water to your two mothers,” Aunty Bae instructed, before they politely withdrew, leaving Matou and her guests alone in the parlour.
Matou fetched the tall glasses, careful not to spill, and placed them on the low wooden table. She used the small plates reserved only for visitors — the ones with the gold rims that were usually kept in the glass-fronted cabinet.
Nenneh Dado sat stiffly at the very edge of the sofa, her knees close together, her hands resting tensely on her lap. Her eyes roamed the room — the unfamiliar paintings, the heavy curtains — as if searching for something familiar, something safe. There was suspicion in her eyes, but also a deep, unspeakable regret. She missed Matou, after all.
It was Borogie who finally broke the silence, her voice low and tentative. Matou sat cross-legged on the floor between her knees, her head resting lightly against her mother’s thigh. Borogie’s fingers, worn from years of work, absentmindedly stroked her daughter’s hair, as if grounding herself in the moment.
“Nata is married now,” she murmured, her words hanging in the air like a secret.
Matou’s head shot up, her brow furrowed in disbelief. “What? Nata? Married?”
Borogie nodded, her expression soft but tired.
“To whom? When? Why wasn’t I there?” The questions tumbled from Matou’s lips in rapid succession, her voice edged with confusion and something dangerously close to betrayal.
“It happened quickly,” Borogie said gently, her fingers still threading through the curls. “A man from the neighbourhood. Bukari. The elders decided it was time.”
Matou blinked, her mind racing. Nata—her sister, the one who used to plait her hair on lazy afternoons, who would call her Semeh Semeh and tickle her ribs until she screamed with laughter—was married? Gone?
“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” she whispered, her voice cracking with the weight of it.
Borogie felt the tremble. She smoothed Matou’s hair, the lie forming quickly, gently: “She asked after you,” she murmured. “She wanted you there.”
Matou’s lip quivered, but she swallowed her sadness. Borogie forced a weak smile. “The good thing is they live right next door to us,” she added softly, trying to lift the mood. “I see her every day. More than I’d like, really.”
Nenneh Dado, trying to bring lightness, leaned forward. “And you, Matou? You’re the one we hardly see now! Tell us about your new life. Are you still the same Semeh Semeh who talks too much?”
Matou smiled faintly but said nothing. Her eyes dropped. She traced invisible lines on her mother’s wrapper.
They filled the silence with stories from Jeshwang — about a stubborn goat that refused to be sold, about little Bubel’s obsession with wrestling, about how the rains had come too fast and flooded the garden. Matou listened, managing to laugh once or twice, but her eyes kept returning to her mother’s face, to the gentle rise and fall of her breath, the familiar lines around her eyes.
And then it was time to leave.
Borogie and Nenneh stood, adjusting their wrappers, patting Matou’s head affectionately. She followed them to the threshold, her hands balled into tight fists at her sides. No tantrums. No pleas. Just the silent tears that rolled down her cheeks, slipping unnoticed by the others but not by her mother.
Borogie paused, reached out, and wiped one tear away with her thumb. “Soon, inshallah,” she whispered. “Soon we will see each other again.”
Matou nodded but said nothing. She stood there long after the donkey cart pulled away, after the dust settled, her heart stretched across two homes, two lives, and the unbearable weight of growing up.
She closed her eyes, feeling the breeze on her skin, and for a moment, she let herself remember the warmth of her mother’s arms, the smell of groundnut stew in Jeshwang, the rhythm of home.
But when she opened her eyes, she was still in Bakau.
To be continued…
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