FORECASTING LOVE IN MARRIAGE

CHAPTER 5:THE UNWRITTEN GOAL

– OUR UNWRITTEN GOAL~

The house was a palace of ghosts, and Abdulsalam was its most haunted resident. His return was not a victory; it was a surrender. The knowledge of his own folly was a shroud he could not remove. For three days, he moved through the home like a phantom, his shame a physical barrier between him and those he loved most.

He adopted a new, cowardly routine. He would rise before the sun, his departure so silent it was as if he had never been there at all. He would spend twelve, fourteen hours at his office, a space that now felt tainted by Nasir’s lingering presence. He buried himself in work that held no meaning, staring at documents without seeing them, the image of Nasir handing that laptop to Kabiru playing on an endless, torturous loop. He would return long after dinner, when the children were in their rooms and Mariam was either reading or already asleep. He would slip into his side of the bed, the chasm between them feeling wider and deeper than any physical space.

He was hiding. And Mariam, with her preternatural calm, was letting him.

On the fourth morning, as he tiptoed past the kitchen at 5 a.m., her voice stopped him.

“You cannot keep running from them, Abdulsalam.”

He froze, his hand on the front door handle. She was sitting at the dining table in the dark, a single cup of tea steaming in her hands.

“I am not running,” he lied, his back to her. “There is much to do. Damage control.”

“The damage is not out there,” she said, her voice cutting through the pre-dawn stillness. “It is in this house. It is in Fatimah’s eyes when she looks at the empty chair at breakfast. It is in the questions Aisha is too afraid to ask. You facing a camera is easy. Facing your children is the real work.”

He turned slowly. He could barely make out her silhouette, but he could feel her gaze. “And you?” he asked, the question tearing from a raw place inside him. “How do you look at me?”

There was a long pause. He heard her take a slow, deliberate sip of her tea.

“I have not forgotten,” she said finally, her words measured and precise. “I may never forget what you said. But I have chosen to stand with you. That is a choice I make every day. Now, you need to make yours. Stop being a ghost in your own home.”

Her words were not an absolution, but a command. They stripped away his last excuse. He nodded, a useless gesture in the dark, and left the house feeling more exposed than ever.

---

His office phone rang mid-morning. The screen flashed: Nasir Suleiman. A cold fury, clean and sharp, replaced the messy shame he had been wallowing in. He let it ring three times before answering, schooling his voice into a mask of weary normalcy.

“Nasir.”

“Sir! Good morning. I have excellent news.” Nasir’s voice was slick with false bonhomie. “The President himself has taken notice of the media circus. He wants to see you. Today. At the Villa. This is it, sir. A direct audience. He wants to reassure you of the party’s support.”

Every instinct in Abdulsalam screamed. It was too perfect, too convenient. A meeting at the highest level, called by the man Nasir was secretly betraying him to? This was not an opportunity; it was a trap. He could feel its jaws, expertly laid. Perhaps they would ambush him with the “evidence” of the lawsuit, pressuring him to step down. Or perhaps it was a ploy to get him to publicly contradict Mariam’s defense, creating more chaos.

“The President, you say?” Abdulsalam kept his tone neutral, even intrigued. “What time?”

“4 p.m. sharp, sir. I will meet you at the gate, smooth the entry.”

“I have a prior commitment that may run late,” Abdulsalam lied smoothly. “I’ll do my best to be there. If I’m late, start without me.”

There was a slight hesitation on the other end. “Sir, this is the President… it’s not advisable to be late.”

“I said I’ll do my best, Nasir.” He put a slight edge in his voice, the edge of a busy, important man. “I have to go.”

He hung up, his heart hammering. He would not go. He would let Nasir wait at the gates of the Villa like a fool, exposed. It was a small, petty countermove, but it was the first step in turning from prey to hunter.

---

While her father was plotting his non-attendance, Fatimah was facing the consequences of his actions in the most personal of arenas: her school. The whispers had started the moment she stepped through the gates. “That’s her.” “Her dad is the one dumping her mom.” “So much for their perfect family.”

It culminated in the cafeteria. A group of girls from wealthy, politically connected families—girls who had always been envious of the Isa family’s public image—cornered her by the juice dispenser.

“How does it feel, Fatimah?” one of them sneered, her voice dripping with faux sympathy. “Knowing your dad finds your mom a… what was the word? A ‘liability’? Maybe he finds you all liabilities.”

Tears of hot humiliation pricked Fatimah’s eyes. She clutched her tray, her knuckles white, wishing the ground would swallow her.

“Leave her alone.”

The voice was calm, deep, and authoritative. They all turned. It was Tunde Danladi, Kabiru’s son. He was tall, handsome, and carried himself with a quiet confidence that set him apart from the other boys. Fatimah had always rejected his subtle advances, partly out of loyalty to her father’s political rivalry with his, and partly because she found his quiet intensity intimidating.

“This isn’t your business, Tunde,” the ringleader snapped.

“It is my business when I see hyenas circling,” he replied, his gaze fixed on the girls until they faltered and scattered with muttered insults.

He turned to Fatimah. “Are you alright?”

She could only nod, mortified that he, of all people, had to see her like this.

“Don’t listen to them,” he said, his voice softening. “Their parents are probably the ones feeding the stories to the press. Politics is a dirty game. It doesn’t mean what they’re saying is true.” He didn’t wait for a response, simply giving her a brief, respectful nod before walking away.

His act of unexpected chivalry left her more confused than the taunts had. The son of her father’s arch-nemesis, defending her honor. The world, she realized, was not nearly as black and white as her father had always painted it.

---

That evening, for the first time, Abdulsalam came home before sunset. He found Khalid in the living room, a textbook on civic education open on his lap. The boy didn’t look up.

“Khalid,” Abdulsalam began, his voice tentative. “How was school?”

“It was school,” Khalid replied, not lifting his eyes from the book.

The silence stretched, heavy and uncomfortable. Abdulsalam, desperate to bridge the gap, gestured to the textbook. “Civic education. Important. Thinking of being a lawyer like your father?”

Khalid closed the book slowly and looked up, his gaze direct and unsettling. “No.”

“Oh? A politician, then?” Abdulsalam tried for a joke, but it fell flat.

“No,” Khalid repeated, his voice firm. “I will become a police officer.”

Abdulsalam blinked, surprised. “A police officer? Khalid, with your mind, you could be anything—a Supreme Court judge, a—”

“I will become a police officer,” Khalid interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument, “for people like you.”

The words hung in the air, simple and devastating.

“For… for people like me?” Abdulsalam stammered, confused.

“Yes,” Khalid said, his young face deadly serious. “For people who are so busy looking at the horizon, they don’t see the snake at their feet. For people who need protection from the traitors they call friends. Someone has to enforce the law for those who think they are above it, even when they don’t know they are being preyed upon.”

It was a declaration of war against the world that had hurt his family, and a profound indictment of his father’s blindness. Before Abdulsalam could form a response, a sound from the doorway made them both turn.

Mariam stood there, her composure shattered. Her face was pale with a fury Abdulsalam had never seen before.

“Khalid!” she shouted, her voice sharp, cutting through the room. “Go to your room! Now!”

Khalid, startled by her outburst, looked at his mother, then back at his father, before standing up and walking away without another word.

Mariam advanced into the room, her eyes blazing. “How dare you?” she whispered, the words trembling with rage. “How dare you put that burden on him? He is a child! He should be dreaming of being a pilot or a doctor, not a shield for his own father! You have made our son feel he needs to become a warrior to protect this family because you failed to!”

Abdulsalam stood utterly still, Mariam’s words hitting him with more force than any political attack ever could. He looked from her furious, pained face towards the hallway where his 14-year-old son had just announced his life’s goal was to clean up the messes of men like him.

He had been so focused on his own shame, on the political machinations, on Nasir’s betrayal. He thought the "situation" was the public scandal, the leaked lawsuit.

But now he saw the true, devastating situation. It was his daughter being mocked and saved by his enemy’s son. It was his wife, forced to be a general in a war she never wanted. It was his brilliant, fierce son, feeling compelled to dedicate his life to a battle his father’s ambition had created.

The unwritten goal of a father—to provide safety, to inspire dreams, to be a fortress for his family—he had not just failed to meet it. He had burned it to the ground. And in the chilling silence after Mariam’s shout, he realized the ashes were all he had left.