The Story of us

Chapter 5

Ammi's life revolved around us, her family and work. She spent half of her time at home in the kitchen cooking. Our house was hardly ever quiet, it was always filled with Abii's noisy radio when he played his old school songs or teased Ammi, Ammi's frequent scolding when I was being my silent destroyer self, the the sounds of her pounding and blending and washing and then aroma from the kitchen, and mine and Ramadan's voices, as we played in the evenings.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and so it shouldn't be skipped. And I prefer heavy breakfasts" she will opine, although her lunch was always heavy too. She always woke up very early in the morning everyday and busied herself in the kitchen. The maid, Mama Asabe came every morning to wash the dishes, sweep and clean. Ammi cooked all the meals herself. She would set the table for breakfast then get ready for work even before Abii got me and himself dressed. She would always drop our lunch boxes on the table, though I always went to school with my breakfast and ate noodles or any other light food at home. The only times her breakfast weren't heavy was when she's on one of her procrastination, Ammi will have rulings of judgements to write but she will rather play around "Remind me to write my rulings before I sleep" but she will wait for 3am to wake up and start writing. On such mornings we always had tea and bread, if we're lucky with fried eggs, then snacks in my lunch box. Abbie would have no lunch to take to work, he would grumble but then say nothing.

Our freezer was never empty, always stocked up with different soups Ammi cooked on Saturdays. She will go to the market to get soup ingredients after closing from work on Fridays, then rush home to drop them. "Let me rush back for this MAN meeting and start taking the minutes before those senior magistrates will start seizing me with their scrutinizing eyes." she was a secretary in an association called Magistrates Association Of Nigeria and they held their meetings on Fridays by 4pm.

Abii and I will get chased out of her precious kitchen on Saturdays because she claims we're giving her more work to do than helping. She will cook egusi and ogu, ogbono and okro, vegetable soup, three different types of stews and two more soups then put them all in containers, for the freezer.

"Ahoa sir" Abii's parrot which was hung in it's cage in the car park will greet whenever he was going out. Ahoa was a greeting in soldier language. Ramadan and I always drove to school with Ammi, as our school, Command Children School was meters away from her office. Ramadan's younger siblings attended the annex Command in the barracks. Once, an old teacher who also thought Ammi when she was in that school recognized her when she went to drop us. After greeting each other, he asked if I was her sister "No, she's my daughter" Ammi answered amused and the man looked at me for a very long time as if he was searching for some writings on my forehead to confirm that I'm her sister and not daughter. There's always this feeling I had when Ammi dropped us off and drove to her office and we walked through the school get, you get whipped at the gate by the old pape for late coming whenever it was past 7:30am. During assemblies on Monday, those without their white socks or badges on their uniforms were fished out along with girls who failed to plait the hairstyle of the week and boys whose hair weren't neatly cut. Ramadan and I were always lucky to escape all.

On the Monday after my fifth birthday, results of our match pass parade held at Ribadu Square on the 27th of May which was Children's Day and during which I carried the school flag and led the match pass was announced. Our school had the history of always taking the first position and this year wasn't an exception. We were called out and the whole school cheered and applauded us.

Whenever it was closing time by 1pm, I met up with Ramadan in his class Primarily 1A or he met me in mine, Primarily 1B and together we would run to Ammi's office less than two minutes from the school. All her court staff knew us, we were always hyperactive and the peaceful or sometimes tensed atmosphere of the court with police men and prison wardens seen leading prisoners with hands cuffed, feet bare, eyes shrunken, skins pale and destinies unknown seemed to never bother us as kids, because we never understood that whoever came to court did so with a purpose. Never really understood that thousands of destinies depended on few words declared by the judges of which my mother was one.

"Baby lawyer" an elderly Judge always called Ammi "Are you a baby?" I asked her giggling and she smiled then told me that just like me, she was once a student at my school, running off to meet her mother after school and spending time with her colleagues and friends and so almost all the old staff knew her. The elderly Judge was her mother's friend and she called her baby lawyer since her university days. And I imagined myself growing up to become like Ammi, wearing suits and passing judgements in court, giving birth to a daughter whom I will name after Ammi and carry along to wherever I went, and I knew that's when my interest in Law started.

She usually still had work to do, so asked someone to drop us home. I had clothes in Ramadan's house where I stayed after school till in the evening when my parents were back from work and we rounded up our after school lesson. Our lesson teacher came every Monday to Wednesday from 3-5pm. On Thursdays and Fridays, we went to Islamiyya from 4-6pm and 8-11am on weekends.

And on Sunday's we drove to their family house. Ammi cooked different varieties of food as she could take to her father every Sunday. Sometimes she waited for me to come back from islamiyya so we could go together, other times she left without me and I had to bug Abii to take me.

She had five brothers, all older than her, two of which lived with their father. The first born, Uncle Auwal, Ya Sadiq and Aunty Ama's father, took after their father in politics, he finally got over the shock of his wife and then mother's death, and remarried a year after Ammi. He had two very stubborn boys with the new wife, Kabir who was named after his grandfather and Zayn. Ammi herself called him Uncle, said as a child she thought he was her mother's brother and not son, he's 18years older than her and was already in university when she was born.

Next was Uncle Sani, Ammi's sweetest brother. He worked for the Nigerian State Security Service and based in Abuja with a wife and three kids. For the love he had for Ammi, he named his first daughter Amira, after her, the second was a boy, Mus'ab, then the last Khadijah.

Now one funny thing about Ammi and her siblings was that, any daughter born to the family after their mother died was named Khadijah, after her. Uncle Sani was also far older than Ammi, 14years older.

Ammi's third and fourth brothers were twins. Uncle Hassan and Uncle Hussein, they were 10years older than her. Uncle Hassan worked for Chevron in Lagos and sometimes the Niger Delta States while Uncle Hussein was based in Yola, a lecturer at FUTY. Unlike Uncle Hassan who was still single, his twin was married with two daughters, Khadijah and Tahmyrah.

The last of Ammi's brothers was Uncle Kamaludeen, the fun brother and Uncle, Ammi's best friend. He wasn't married then too. 7years older than her and a journalist. He worked for the Adamawa State NTA before he was transferred to Abuja a year back. We called him Uncle Kay.

Ammi and the twins were splitting images of their father, though the twins got the light skin from their mother. They had something I like to refer as a dominant gene, they all looked alike in a way or the other, a family of giant people even though their tribe in Adamawa was identified as being an ethic group of short people. The gap tooth was also a remarkable feature they had and passed onto us. All the grandkids also, both the ones born to her brother and me, we all looked alike, like their father. Sometimes people will stop Ammi and ask "Are you Hassan's sister?... Are you Hussein's sister?" or when they heard her voice, they did ask if she's Uncle Sani's sister.

Their house always held some sort of serenity I could not explain, Baaba, their father was the most intimidating man I had come across in my life. Even Abii my soldier father shivered at his sight. He could always be found sitting on his throne like sofa in the sitting room, sometimes like a king, other times like a person who held a top political office, though he was none. With few people scattered around at his feet. He had a blood of royalty mixed with politics, little wonder he acted so, it was in the blood.

The people sitting with him will greet Ammi and take their leaves whenever she came. There were many photo enlargements in Baaba's spacious palace like parlour. Their was a black and white picture of him and his friend where they were both dressed in suits, they looked like they were in their mid thirties. As a baby, I thought it was either of my twin Uncle's in the picture, but in the next picture Baaba snapped in a traditional attire and turban, he looked like Uncle Auwal. Their was a picture of Maama their mother in her wig and gown, next was Ammi's, also in a wig and gown. Each of her brothers' single pictures were hanged on the wall according to their age and then their large family picture, taken on the last Eid their mother witnessed before she died. Ammi sat between her parents carrying her namesake Amira Uncle Sani's daughter, Maama perched both Ya Sadiq and Aunty Ama on her laps, Baaba held Mus'ab who was a baby then while Uncle Sani's wife sat beside Maama. All the five sons were standing. That enlargement always drew my attention, looking at it sometimes, I felt jealous of my older cousins who met our grandmother while the rest of us didn't.

Ammi being the last born and only daughter was obviously pampered by both parents and brothers, it was a surprise she didn't turn out to be a brat, well not like I know her when she was growing up. Their mother had given up hoping to give birth to a daughter after five sons, it was a miracle when she was conceived seven years after Uncle Tee and turned out to be a girl at birth. Her brothers were so glad to have a baby sister and so they showered her with love and were very protective of her. When Maama died, it was then as if they saw her in Ammi, they did gather around her, listening to whatever she said, they took her advises and suggestions without even a second thought. If you want any favour from them, go through her and your wish shall be granted, and sometimes she had to draw back so their wives don't think she's too possessive.

Baaba refused to marry after Maama, he always laughed it off saying who will marry a 70 year old widower like him, when ever the topic was brought up. Uncle Auwal and Hussein's wives took turns cooking for him and Ammi cooked for him each Sundays, he always looked forward to seeing her as he could be seen smiling all his week old gloominess away. Once, Uncle Auwal's wife spat when Ammi went to greet her

"The golden child is here, she's brought food straight from heaven for her father, and so he will eat all his hunger away, so we don't poison him later and he will smile now, because the only child that matters to him is around. All others don't matter" Ammi was taken aback by what she said, but then she ignored her and didn't say anything, she knew that beneath the woman's snide remarks, there was an element of truth and so she had to act fast before she poisons her brothers mind with her words and tears the family they have worked so hard to keep together apart. And so the next Sunday while Baaba was being his usual bubbly self, she blurted

"Don't you think you're being a bit selfish?" he gasped at her question, but of course it's Ammi, and she gets away with almost everything. "Amira me, selfish?" he asked

"Yes Baaba. This women cook for you every day, they check up on you every blessed day. You do know they weren't married to you right, and they're not under any obligations to take care of you, after all they have fathers who love them too, but they still do. Baaba sometimes you don't even spare them a look when they greet you, you barely eat the food they cook neither do you appreciate, but your face lits up when you see me, you give me preferential treatment. Baaba their fathers love them as much as you love me, will you like my father In law to treat me like this if I had one? Yes Maama's dead, we all loved her you know and it's hard to move on without her, but the key about life is trying. Baaba please try and bring down this wall you built around you, a wall in which you let only me and few others into. It's been nine years. Try please." I held my breath, I was scared for Ammi because no one ever talks to Baaba like that, but to my surprise, he smiled and thanked her, saying he will try his best.

Later I heard her telling Abii that she had to be harsh to Baaba, so he gets her point. The next Sunday when we went, Uncle's wife stood by the gate waiting for her "He's changing, he's changing Amira, he eats all his food now and guess what? He even told us the famous story of how he met Maama" she excitedly said all in one breath.

"Oh, Masha Allah" Ammi said and brushed pass her

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean all I said the other day and you know it"

"I know, but I was glad you did"

Ammi was so happy, with the development she even added sugar in his tea that day.