They gave Nia away as if she were an old chair taking up space in the corner of the house.
There were no songs for her. No joyful ululation. No elders praying carefully over her future. No mother adjusting her dress with trembling hands. No father placing a blessing on her head.
There was only a hot sitting room, dry greetings, and the satisfied look on Uncle Gideon’s face as he convinced himself he had finally removed a burden from his home.
The man they chose for her arrived in a faded brown coat, leaning on a carved walking cane. His sandals were so worn that the edges had curled upward, and his clothes looked as though they had forgotten their original color. He spoke softly, sat carefully, and never held anyone’s eyes for too long.
To Uncle Gideon, he was perfect.
To Aunt Sarah, he was even better.
To Nia’s cousins, Deka and Reena, he was the funniest thing they had seen all year.
And to Nia, it felt like the last door in her life had quietly closed.
But sometimes the door that shuts behind you is not punishment. Sometimes it is protection. And sometimes the person everyone laughs at is the only one in the room who truly sees you.
Nia was nineteen, but grief had made her older. Not in her face. Her face was still soft and young, with a quiet beauty that made strangers look twice before realizing she was the girl carrying basins, scrubbing verandas, and running to the roadside kiosk with coins tied in cloth.
It was her eyes that were older.
Those eyes had watched sickness take her mother slowly. They had watched neighbors whisper when her father never returned from the road accident. They had learned too early that people could speak of mercy while keeping you hungry.
After her parents died, Nia was taken into the home of her father’s elder brother, Gideon Bansa. The neighborhood praised him loudly.
“Gideon is a good man,” people said. “He took in his brother’s child. God will bless him.”
Nia heard those words often.
She also heard what the walls heard.
“Do not eat too much rice. This is not your father’s house.”
“Why are you standing like a queen? Go and wash the plates.”
“If we had left you where you were, who knows what would have become of you?”
Aunt Sarah had a way of speaking loudly, as if cruelty became truth when others heard it.
Every morning before the first rooster finished crowing, Nia was awake. She swept the front yard. She lit the charcoal stove. She boiled water. She washed uniforms. She braided Reena’s hair when Reena was gentle, and endured Reena’s insults when she was not.
