All For What!

57.

Dedicated to lily_JA

"Na'am, ummi." Sumaiya sashayed into the room.

Mrs. Hauwa glared at her, before speaking softly. "Please have a seat."

She looked really puzzled by what was happening or was about to happen, but sat down nonetheless.

"I want you to answer all of my questions sincerely; have you ever lied against Maryam with the aim of getting her in trouble with me, in the past? Why did you do it? Is that the way I raised you?"

"Ummi..."

"No excuses, Sumaiya. I want nothing, but the truth. Did you or did you not do that?"

Sumaiya's gaze darted to Maryam, before she averted it back to her mother. "But it was all in the past. Why is she digging up the past?" She questioned, narrowing her eyes at Maryam.

"You still haven't given a reply to my question. It is all in the past, yes, but I still want to know."

Glaring at Maryam, she replied; "Yes. I did."

"Why did you do it?" Mrs. Hauwa asked.

"I did it for many reasons." She replied.

Maryam wasn't taken aback by her reply, for she already saw it coming.

"Reasons are?" Mrs. Hauwa inquired.

"Do we really have to talk about this now, ummi?" She asked with furrowed brows and averted her gaze to Maryam. "Why did you have to tell her after so many years?" She rolled her eyes. "You did it for revenge. I know." She muttered.

"Yes." Mrs. Hauwa replied curtly.

Maryam was about to speak - she was about to beseech with Mrs. Hauwa to let the matter slide, moreover, it happened so many years ago. She ended up closing her lips.

"I was six when she was brought to live with us. I was very happy to have a playmate, because as an only child, I was beginning to get bored not playing with other kids my age or close." She paused for some seconds. "The problem I have with her, began when you started showing her affection. You treated her well, more than you treated me."

"I had no idea you had this in mind ever since." Mrs. Hauwa shook her head. "I might have treated Maryam with more love then, because she lost her father recently. It wouldn't have been easy for her to adapt to the family if I had not shown her she was already part of it. I thought you were reasonable enough to understand that."

Maryam wiped a tear from her eye as she listened attentively.

"Not only that." She remarked. "You weren't strict with me, until she arrived. The worst you did, was yell at me when I did something wrong, but when she-" she pointed a finger at Maryam. "Arrived, you began to punish me more strictly. I wasn't used to it and I refused to get used to it. I blamed her for the change in you. I still do."

"How did she become stricter because of me?" Maryam asked incredulously. She couldn't believe what she just heard. How was she to be blamed for their mother's attitude? Indeed, when a butter person sees you walking on water, they will say it's because you can't swim.

"In every way." She huffed.

"Is that the reason you blamed her for your wrongdoings?" Mrs. Hauwa asked.

"One of the reasons. The other is; she never seemed to do anything wrong in your eyes. To you, she was the perfect daughter and I was second best. You praised her whenever she would come first in class and I, you'd never encourage or praise me for coming fourth in class." She replied.