Must Read: Behind The Veil

Episode 7 years ago

Must Read: Behind The Veil

I know you do. But I know he wouldn’t want you to be this miserable. He would want you to pick yourself up and make him proud. Don’t you think?” Mrs. Walter asked. “Don’t you think he
will rather want to see you out there, chasing those dreams both of you always talked about?
Don’t you think he would be rolling in his grave to know that you’ve been trying to kill yourself?”
Vanessa nodded. She knew her mother was right. But his absence, his absence tore into her.

A week later Vanessa was with luggage in hands, along with Jennifer, Kross and her mum.
“Make sure you call immediately you get there.” her mother said to her, gave her a hug.
“I will miss you!” Jennifer hugging her, a tear dropping from her eyes. She wipes it off before
anymore sees it.
“I will miss you too. But we will Skype everyday.” replied Vanessa.
“Promise?” asked Jennifer.
“Promise and hope to die.” she promised.
“Hey babe.” Kross, standing face to face with Vanessa.
“I don’t know why everyone is being melodramatic. It’s not like i have cancer.” she
laughed.

“How do you expect us to react? You’re relocating to London and leaving us behind. You
didn’t even think about me, your boo.” Kross holding her hands.
“I have always wanted to relocate there. Sadiq was the one that stopped me. There is this small
house I love there. I have already talked to an agent about it.’ She looked at him and realized
he wasn’t concerned about that. All he want is for her to stay. But she can’t. She couldn’t
imagine waking up every morning, staring at Sadiq’s window and not seeing him staring back.


Even though she had stopped him from climbing into her room through the window, she missed it now and would do anything for time to go back to those days.
“We will Skype, won’t we? It would just be like we are together.” She added.
“No! It wouldn’t be like when I am with you. No technology can replace that!” And they hugged, long warm hug for almost a minute before he let her go.

She scampered away to the departure section, stopped and took one last glance at them before
joining the crowd.
“But I like my school. I don’t want to change.” Asmau said sadly to her parents six months later.
“The boarding school has good facilities. You will love it there.” her mum trying to convince her.
They had decided to ship her to a boarding school to avoid her from questioning about Sadiq’s whereabouts. After the burial ceremony they couldn’t keep up with her questions. She wanted to know why Sadiq wasn’t home for holiday or hasn’t called for awhile. They knew it was a matter of time before they broke down and told her the truth. But they couldn’t afford to tell
her now, not till she was old enough to handle it.
Asmau noticed the mood in the house. She overhead uncle Idris talking about a burial
arrangement when he came months ago, and she thought it was one of those far relatives of theirs that she doesn’t know of that passed away.



She also noticed that sad look on Vanessa’s face, the day she came over to say goodbye before she travelled. There was this way she looked at her, like everything will never be the same again.


Asmau thought maybe she was sad because her parents were sending her to school abroad just
same way she is sad now because her parents were sending her to a boarding school. That must
be why Vanessa was overly sad that day, thought Asmau. Exactly the way brother Sadiq was sad
the day mum told him that he would be going to Kano. Now she understood how Sadiq felt that
day.
If only he could just come back from school right now and convince their parents to let her continue in her present school, Asmau wished.

In Kano things had gone back to how they use to be, before Sadiq came. Humaira refused to visit
home during the weekend. Zeenat was preparing to enroll into a nursing school while Kazim was
working on his visa to go for his masters abroad.