The enemy within

"You know...I spoke with my friend mama tahir this evening and she was pouring her heart out to me...about how her siblings and extended family despise her so much despite doing a lot for them, helping them with school fees for their kids, sending food supplies, living expenses, etc, she just can't believe this is happening to her"

Mom said in a conversation with Aunt Hubaida one early tuesday evening about her friend Raliat also known as Mama tahir who is a wealthy cloth merchant in Lagos, to which Aunt Hubaida scoffed almost with indignation and responded,

"Well, one couldn't say exactly what transpired between them as we both weren't present nor hear from the other parties, am sure her siblings must have their reasons"

Mom's eyes squinted, apparently puzzled and asked what Hubaida meant, she responded,

 "It's as I said it because from my own experience, I can tell that sometimes, it's the richer sibling that could be guilty, more often than not"

Mom's facial expression immediately changed from bewilderment to seething fire, she swiftly responded,

Dawgs have no soul 2

I kept running in circles, confused and distraught, totally at a loss at what next to do  while Garba jumped up and down, urging me to quickly call Mom, I thought I should do that but I didn't want to alarm our poor Mom at work, she's had a lot on her plate lately and I didn't want to compound her worries by breaking this news to her, assuring myself I could handle this at least to a reasonably mitigated extent before alerting Mom about it but I couldn't hear myself think as Garba practically kept shouting in my ear for me to call Mom as neighbors who had saw the whole fracas gone down began to gather to ask questions and knowing how neighbors can be with their talent at spreading gossip at an alacritious speed, I needed to save my brother's face by feeding them a false story, a rape story would not help Hamz and by extension us too so I simply jerked myself to reality as though I was initially lost in thought and told those who gathered with their faces etched with lines of fake worry that he had a fight with someone and Mom had asked the men to come and take him away to be dealt with, they sighed with relief, saying Mom was being harsh as they departed to their houses one by one.