“Please, uncle.”
His face changed instantly.
“Did I ask your opinion? Have you forgotten who feeds you? Or have you started thinking you deserve choice in this house?”
Aunt Sarah folded her arms. “A girl who came with no bag and no bed wants standards.”
Uncle Gideon pointed toward the door as if dismissing a worker.
“The matter is settled. He will return with elders on Saturday. The following week, you will be married.”
Nia stood very still.
Sometimes humiliation is loud. Sometimes it is simply realizing that everyone in the room has agreed you are not a person.
That night, Nia lay on a thin mattress near the kitchen wall and stared into the dark. Outside, dogs barked. A baby cried in the next compound. Somewhere far off, a radio played an old love song.
She pressed her wrist over her mouth so her breath would not sound like sobbing.
She was not afraid of poverty. She already knew poverty.
She was afraid of entering a new life with no witness, no voice, and no protection. Afraid of a man whose face she did not yet understand. Afraid that maybe kindness had been foolish after all.
And still, when morning came, she got up and boiled water for everyone else.
Timba returned three days later.
This time he came earlier, just before noon, when Aunt Sarah had gone to buy fish and Uncle Gideon was still at a neighbor’s mechanic shop discussing politics as if the country could be repaired by his opinions. Deka and Reena were inside oiling their hair and arguing over a borrowed handbag.
Nia was alone at the back, hanging washed clothes on the line.
When she heard the cane tap softly against the side wall, she turned.
Timba stood there, not too close.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I asked the younger girl if I could wait in the yard.”
Nia nodded.
For a moment, both of them were silent.
The quiet did not feel dangerous. It felt careful.
Then he said, “I know this arrangement was not your choice.”
Nia looked down at the damp cloth in her hands.
“Very little in my life has been my choice.”
He absorbed that without rushing to answer.
“I will not pretend what your uncle is doing is noble,” he said. “It is not.”
Nia frowned slightly. That was not what she expected from a man seeking approval from the same uncle.
