So Much For Love

Chapter Five

Assalamu alaikum.

Our journey continues with our renegade daughter👩🙍

You know people say love is blind, so please, be less judgemental here. Afterall, love conquers all❤😁

The story contines.....

The heat on the afternoon of Sunday was almost overbearing.

It was as if it didn’t rain the last three days in Gaji village. The farmers said it was so that the sorghum would produce.

It was expected to have a bountiful yield that year, despite the setback with lack of fertilizer.

The leng festival was fast approaching.
Asma’u picked groundnut from its roots and kept it in a big rounded calabash.

She had engaged in the groundnut planting that rainy season and from the look of things, she expected nothing short of three bags of the plucked shelled ones.
Although it was the first time she’d farmed herself, she was excited and grateful that she ever got the chance to.

Last year this time, she’d only labored on other people’s farms in order to get what she needed without bothering her parents.

As she carefully picked each shelled pod and placed it in the calabash, she remembered how their father had provided everything for them, how they’d lived like princesses.

But when she thought she would live like a reigning queen, she lived a little lower than a destitute. Love did that to her.

Now more than ever, she felt the need to save her sister from herself.
She looked worriedly at Zainab, who sat next to her and asked the inevitable question, “Now what?”

“What as in how?” Zainab feigned ignorance to what her sister referred to.

“Don’t pretend with me.” She warned with a stern voice.

“You have insisted on marrying Ali. And now that he is nowhere to be found, what is your next step?”

Almost nonchalantly, Zainab answered, “Nothing. I will just continue to wait for him.”

“What is wrong with you?” Clearly, Asma’u was more annoyed than simply asking her about her health or well-being. “Do you intend to stay single for the rest of your life?”

“And who says I will remain single? It might not be my time for marriage now, so I am not going to rush it.”

Asma’u was more frustrated now. She didn’t bother to hide it, “It would be different if only Ali had asked for your hand in marriage, Zee. But I am afraid, you’re going to stay at home just because you don’t want to heed to anybody.”

“Better to wait long than to marry wrong, they say.” Zainab was unperturbed.

“Yes, I agree, because marrying Ali is so wrong on so many levels.”

Zainab looked at Asma’u as if she was going to say something, but she ignored her and left the room entirely.

                       *     *     *
                          
The wind howled like an angry wounded lion. Zainab shifted.

She wasn’t normally scared of anything, but to have a heavily drugged Ali by her side at almost 2am wasn’t exactly a dream-filled scenario.

The last event that took place still overwhelmed her. And she wasn’t easily intimidated, ever.

That evening, exactly five days after that public humiliation dealt to her father, she had found out Ali was in the village.