Chapter 1 - Breathe When You Can

Hamisu, you have left a gaping wound in the souls of those who loved you: me, your mother, our daughters.

From the moment your brother Manniru said, “Hamisu ya rasu,” a deafening ring took root in my ears. It has not left.

There is a heaviness in my chest, as though an elephant’s foot presses down, unyielding.

“Innalillahi wa inna ilayhir raji’un!”
I screamed, running barefoot past the mourners, tearing through the house toward the door, desperate to stop the men lifting your body away.

Women in hijabs moved in waves around me, their faces blurred by my tears, hands outstretched to console me, to hold me back.
"Naye, kiyi tawakkali," they urged.

As if my devotion to mourning you were a refusal to accept Allah’s decree.

But I do not resist, Hamisu.
I have accepted it.
That I am a widow now.
That your daughters are orphans.
That your mother has once again faced the unholy task of burying a child.

It is not my faith that falters.
It is memory that drowns me, a ten-thousand-foot wave crashing into my lungs, filling me until I cannot breathe.

They come like angry tides, these memories, pulling me under, and I am helpless against them.

One rises now, unbidden: my mother’s death, early in our marriage.
Do you remember, Hamisu?
Only you knew how to comfort me when grief was loud and merciless, gnawing at me like poisoned teeth.
And when it came quietly, tiptoeing like a thief around the hem of my heart, you sat with me in silence.
You knew when to speak, and when to say nothing at all.

Who will comfort me now, Hamisu?
You, who loved to joke, to tease, to pull me into laughter even when it annoyed me.
But of all the tricks you played, this one is the cruelest.

Do you remember those early days of our marriage?
You had just gotten your first job at the Steel Rolling Company in Jos.
Back when the soil was still brown, before blood soaked it red.
When the night air still smelled of blooming jasmine and, once a year, the haunting perfume of the Queen of the Night.
Before bullets sliced the air in half, each half marked by tribe and religion.

That was when you wore your Afro like a crown. And in my eyes, you were a king, befitting of that crown.

When you received your first paycheck, you ran straight to Alhaji Manzo, your rich friend whom democracy later fattened into a politician.
You had long coveted his old Toyota Celica.
You paid him in installments, four months of sacrifice, though he had offered you the car long before the payments ended.
You refused.
Because you feared favors came shackled to chains.

The day you made the final payment, you drove straight to my university, honked three times under my classroom window — pim pim pim , earning a sharp glare from our CTS 201 lecturer.
I stepped outside.
And there you were, a stick of Benson & Hedges between your lips, one foot propped casually against the car, that smoky, reckless grin tugging at your mouth.

I smiled first.
Of course I did.
I descended the stairs like a queen whose king had come to claim her before the world.

"You finally did it, honey!" I said, hovering between hugging you and remembering where we were.
You pulled me into a tight embrace and whispered, "I promised you the world. And I will give it to you."

I felt joy first, then shame.

Shame creeping in through the cracks of my upbringing, saying: How dare you?
How dare I hug a man in public, even if he were my husband?
You never cared what the world thought.
I, on the other hand, carried the weight of their whispers until my back arched like my grandmother’s.

I remember Nanchep, my friend, leaning on the stair rails, her dimples deep, her eyes bright with admiration and a little envy.
When will it be my turn? she must have thought.
She congratulated us, laughed, said we would never have to fight for public transport again.

She was right.
From that day on, you drove us to school and back, religiously.

At night, when the city slept, I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders and buried myself behind piles of books, trying to unravel the mysteries of calculus.
You would pull me gently off the sunken sofa, lead me into the Celica, and drive like a madman, blaring Mr. Boombastic from the cassette player.

We sped past the cracked streets of Boko Road, and by the time we got to Apolo Crescent, you’d press the pedal harder, daring the speedometer to crack, all the way to Dadin Kowa, where the asphalt was smoother and the streets, quieter.

You'd light a cigarette.
I'd wrinkle my nose.
You’d always stub it out, promising to quit.
You never did.
But you tried. For me, you tried.

I told you I hated the way you smoked.
It was true.
But it was also true that I loved the way tobacco clung to your Axel cologne, the dangerous edge it gave you.
I loved how you held my hand in public, cigarette between your fingers, daring the world to wonder how a man like you could ever love a woman like me.

And love me, you did, Hamisu.
In that sacred, quiet way that only we understood.
Even when I was not worthy of it.
And Allah knows, I wasn’t always worthy.

Like when I accused Manniru, your younger brother, of stealing my gold ring, the one my father gave me at our wedding.
I, petty and bitter, lashing out because your mother’s cruelty had worn me thin, for bearing only daughters.

Manniru, barely eighteen, bore my false accusations in silence. He was a noble man.

You also said nothing to me, Hamisu.
But the next morning, after dawn prayers, you fed him tea and buttered bread, packed his small bag, and sent him home to Bauchi, to your mother.

Your mother mocked me for bearing only daughters, three then, and already, she had begun to question whether I could ever give you a son.

When I lashed out at Manniru, I wanted him to carry that message back to her.
He didn’t. Always a noble man.

And you, Hamisu, you saw no wrong in me.
It stung your mother to see you loved, outside of her.
But distance was all I ever knew with my own mother, for I was her firstborn. So how could I extend grace to your mother, who was, in the end, just a woman longing for her son's love?

When my mother died, we were in the hospital hallway.
The smell of bleach and Izaal lingered in the air.
A grainy TV clung to the corner of the waiting area, showing images of Princess Diana’s burial.

A white ceiling fan spun lazily, its blades casting slow shadows across the fluorescent light.
You stood at the edge of the waiting room, hands buried in your pockets, a deep worry creased into your forehead. The squeak of wheels on white tiles echoed as they rolled her body out.

I couldn't watch. I turned to you and whispered,
"Inna never said my name."

You nodded, opened your arms, and I fell into them.
For the first time, I did not care who was watching.

I wept over what could never be.
She never said my name.
And now she never would.

We didn't know it then, but I was pregnant with our first daughter.
You were ecstatic.
You treated me like porcelain.
You were good to me, Hamisu.
And more than that, you were good to your daughters.

Of all your legacies, this is the one I treasure most:
You loved them with tenderness and mercy.
All five of them.
You told them they were your entire world.

I remember once, when you had food poisoning, you swore the Angel of Death had come for you.
I sat by your bedside, holding your clammy hand, murmuring comfort.
You said through cracked lips,
"Hassanaye, who will marry off my daughters?"

And now, you are gone.
Buried beneath the indifference of dust.
Perhaps the hawks feast on your flesh; the thought alone makes me retch.
I will no longer wake to the sound of your soft snores.
No longer hear your stealthy steps sneaking outside for a cigarette.
No longer hear your deep-bellied laugh, the kind of laugh that made you your own biggest audience.

You have been reduced from a man of presence to scattered fragments of remembrance.
Fading.
You have been reduced to scattered embers of a life once lived.
Dimming.
You are gone now, Hamisu.
Who will marry off your daughters?