LAURA

CHAPTER FIVE

Innas  POV:

I watched umar drag my granddaughter away without saying anything. This was just the last of it, I cannot let the only granddaughter I have live be ruined just like that by her stupid father. For years I prayed he will change even after abandoning my daughter I thought he will change with his daughter but know I can not allow it happen.
To even to think he is getting her married to a man that will make her life more miserable than it is now. I will not allow it to happen.
I picked my hijab and wore it locked my house door and left for Alhaji Tankos house. Alhaji tanko is one of the richest people in our village.  I just pray he have not already left for the market where he does his business because i want to discuss something important with him in private.
When I got there I only met his wives who told me he have already left for the market. I told them to tell him I will come back in the evening to see him before I left.
I stood in the middle of my compound looking at my house the place I have called home for over thirty years. My husband died in this house my daughter grew up in this house before she got married. My late husband and I moved into this house when we moved back from kano where he used to sell kayan kamshi [spice] before he got sick.
We had to sell our house over there because of his treatment and moved back to the village here. We were on our own I tried so much, I did different types of business just to treat my husband but finally gave up the ghost 5 years later then our daughter was ten years old. People use to say safiya and I don’t look alike she looks more of Fulani and she was very beautiful and fair I just use to laugh it off.
My daughter safiya was my everthing before she got married at 15 years to umar and gave birth to laura at sixteen.
Laura was named after me. She looked so much like her mother just inherited her father dark skin . After giving birth to laura any baby she gave birth to died mysteriously before the naming ceremony. Umar turned deaf ear to people that adviced him to get a second wife until he got married to zainab. Right from when I heared he wanted to marry zainab I knew she was no good news. That woman is a known prostitute in the village and she is known to be very diabolic.
I know that woman knows about my daughter mental issue which led to her death.
I have lost every family member I have it is now just us Laura and I. I lost my father mother and my siblings to a fire accident two months after I got married to my husband. The only person who survived the fire accident was my brother Abdulrasheed. And he too left home months after the accident that he was going to look for work in the southern part he never came back. So everybody assumed he died. My husband was an only son of his mother. He was never close with any of his siblings from the same father.
We tried having kids after marriage but to no avail until Allah brought safiya to us.
Safiya is no more now so I will not allow anybody to take away Laura from me. Even if I have to use everything I have. I looked aroud the house again and pray my plan works. If it works then I am going to take Laura far away from her father and Salisu danger.
After isha prayer I left for Alhaji tankos house I know by now he will be home. I met him sitting on a mat in the front of his house where he usually sat at night with his children.
He told the children to excuse us and told me to sit down. ‘Inna I wanted to come after I was done eating they just told me now’ he said
I just smiled ‘you don’t have to worry I am here already here’ he said ‘but inna you are my elder you should have just send for me I would have come’
‘don’t worry I came to see you for something important and I want it to be discuss in private’ I replied looking around.  He nodded in understanding and told me we should go to his room where he welcome visitors.
After we have settled down in the room I begin to tell him what brought me ‘as you know I just lost my only daughter and now the only child she left life is about to ruined and I will not allow that to happen, that is why I came to look for your help’
‘yes inna I just heard today that umar is marrying his daughter to that tout what was he even thinking’ he said
I sighed ‘that is the reason I am here today I need your help please you are the only one that can help me’ I paused and continued ‘ I want to sell my house and farm I need that money to run away from this village with my granddaughter please I need that money’
‘haba Inna you are like a mother to me you don’t need to beg me. How much do you want to sell the house and farm’. He asked me.
‘I want you to think about how much they are worth and come tell me tomorrow.and please don’t involve anybody into this I want it to be between us’ I told him before leaving his house.