The journey back to Farato began with tears.
By the time they reached the Serekunda garage, the afternoon had already begun to soften into evening. The heat that had pressed down upon the town for most of the day was losing its sharpness, and a faint breeze moved through the roadside trees. The lorries came and went in a noisy procession, each one announcing its destination through the conductor’s repeated cries.
“Tabokoto! Lamin! Brikama!”
Matou stood beside her mother, holding the small bundle of things they had gathered during their visit. Bubel had been dressed by the time they left Nata’s house, his little clothes slightly too neat for the dusty journey ahead. He leaned against his mother as though the entire world belonged to him.
Ousman Bah had insisted on walking them to the main road leading to the Serekunda garage.
He carried some of their things in one hand and Bubel in the other whenever the boy became tired. Khadjel walked beside him, holding onto the edge of his shirt. She had been unusually quiet since they left the house.
Matou knew why.
The visit had awakened something in Khadjel that she had tried to keep buried—the ache of seeing family leave.
When the Serekunda lorry finally appeared, Ousman handed Borogie the things he had bought for them. There were “Kebba Dampha” sweets for the children, a little packet of bonbon, and some money folded carefully into a piece of paper.
“This is for the children,” he told Borogie. “It is not much, but let them have something on the road.”
Borogie protested immediately.
“Caw, you have already done enough. You do not need to give us anything.”
Caw Ousman shook his head.
“Take it. The children have come a long way to see their family. They should return with something that reminds them of the visit.”
He then reached into his pocket and handed Matou a few coins.
“These are yours. Share them with Bubel when you reach home.”
Matou smiled.
“Thank you, Maama.”
“And keep some of the sweets your mother gives you too. Do not consume everything at once.”
Matou nodded solemnly, though she already knew that sweets were unlikely to survive the journey.
Nata’s husband had also given them money before they left. It was a small amount, but Matou understood that money was not something that passed casually from one hand to another in those days. Much of life still moved through exchange. A woman could take vegetables from her garden to the market and return with fish. Someone could bring groundnuts and exchange them for rice. Another could trade eggs for soap, or milk for grain.
People had money, of course, but money did not yet sit at the centre of every transaction.
What mattered was that someone had remembered them.
That was what Matou felt as she looked at the little gifts gathered in her mother’s hands. They were not expensive. They were not grand. But they carried affection.
And affection, Matou was beginning to understand, was sometimes measured not by the size of what someone gave, but by the thought behind it.
The lorry stopped.
The conductor shouted again.
“Serekunda market!”
Borogie climbed in first, carrying Bubel. Matou followed.
Khadjel suddenly began to cry.
It was not the quiet crying of a child trying to hide her feelings. It was the deep, wounded cry of someone who had watched happiness arrive and was now being forced to watch it leave.
“Take me with you,” she pleaded. “Please, Neneh. Let me come to Farato.”
Borogie turned immediately.
“Khadjel, my child, you cannot come now.”
“Why?”
“Because you have school here. Your Maama is taking care of you.”
“I want to come home.”
“You will come. You will come and visit us.”
“When?”
Borogie hesitated.
“Soon.”
Khadjel shook her head, tears running freely down her cheeks.
“You always say soon.”
Matou felt something break inside her. She knew that word. Soon. She had lived on it. Soon, she had once believed, she would see her mother. Soon, she would return home. Soon, she would sleep beside her sisters again. And yet years could hide inside that small word. Matou began crying too. She reached through the lorry doorway and pulled Khadjel toward her.
“Do not cry,” she whispered, though her own voice was breaking. “I will come and see you again.”
“When?”
“I do not know.”
That answer made Khadjel cry harder. Borogie leaned down and held her daughter tightly.
“My child, listen to me. You are not forgotten. Never think that. You are with family. Your Maama loves you, and you are going to school. We left you here because we wanted you to have an opportunity. It does not mean we do not want you.”
Khadjel buried her face in her mother’s wrapper.
Matou watched them, remembering another little girl who had once cried in almost exactly the same way. Herself. She remembered being taken away. She remembered the strange house. The unfamiliar faces. The first nights when she had cried quietly because she did not want anyone to hear. She remembered wondering whether her mother had cried after she left. Now, watching Khadjel, she knew that she must have. Perhaps mothers carried their children’s tears inside them long after the children had stopped crying.
Ousman Bah stood quietly beside them. He did not interfere. Perhaps he understood that there were some moments when elders could offer no wisdom. There were only tears, embraces and the promise that separation was not the same thing as abandonment. Eventually the conductor called out that they had to leave. Borogie gently released Khadjel.
“Go home with Maama. We will see you again.” Khadjel stepped back reluctantly. Matou wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Do not forget me,” she said. Khadjel looked at her as though the question itself was impossible. “How can I forget you?”
The lorry began to move.
Khadjel ran alongside it for a few steps before Ousman nudged her back delicately.
“Come, Khadjel. Let them go.” She stopped.
Matou leaned toward the open side of the lorry and waved until the figures of Ousman and Khadjel became smaller. She could still see Khadjel’s hand raised in the air. Then the road turned. They disappeared. For a while nobody spoke. Bubel had fallen asleep against Borogie’s lap, completely unaware of the emotional storm that had just passed around him. Matou sat quietly, her mind returning to everything she had seen that day. Nata. Khadjel. Ousman Bah. The house she had once known. The people who had remained behind. She had expected happiness from the visit, and she had received it. But she had also discovered that going home did not mean finding everything exactly as one had left it.
Nata was still married.
Khadjel was still away from home.
Ousman had a new wife and a young son.
Everyone seemed to have moved forward in some way.
And yet everyone seemed to be carrying something from the past.
She thought about Nata’s face when they had arrived. There had been happiness there, certainly, but beneath it something else remained. Matou could not name it. Perhaps it was homesickness. Perhaps it was resignation. Perhaps it was simply the weariness of a young woman trying to make peace with a life she had never chosen for herself.
She thought of Khadjel and understood something else.
She had spent years believing that she alone had been separated from her family. But separation had touched all of them differently. Nata had been separated from the life she wanted. Khadjel had been separated from her parents. And Matou had been separated from the home itself. The thought made her press her face against the side of the lorry and look out into the fading landscape. Dusk was beginning to settle. The sky had taken on the soft colours that came before darkness. The trees became silhouettes. Smoke rose from compounds along the roadside as families began preparing evening meals. Somewhere in the distance, a child laughed. A woman called another person’s name from a compound. Goats wandered near the roadside before being chased back home. The road seemed different now. Perhaps because Matou was different. She had travelled it before as a child who belonged nowhere except in the memories of those who had given her away. Now she travelled it as a twelve-year-old girl who had seen another version of herself waiting in the people she had left behind. She opened one of the small packets Caw Ousman had given her mother. Inside were local sweets. She took one and placed it in her mouth. Then she looked at Bubel. He was still asleep. She smiled and placed another beside him for when he woke. Borogie noticed. “You are saving one for your brother?”
Matou nodded. “He will cry if he wakes and sees me eating them.” Borogie smiled. “He will cry whether you eat them or not.” They both laughed softly. For a moment, the sadness lifted. The lorry passed through Tabokoto and then towards Abuko. With every familiar turn, Matou felt herself drawing closer to the place that had begun to feel like home again. She listened to the conversations around her. Two women discussed the price of fish. A man complained about the condition of the road. Someone talked about a relative who had gone to Banjul looking for work. Another spoke about the rains and whether they would be good enough for the harvest. These were ordinary conversations. But to Matou they sounded beautiful. They were the sounds of life.
At Serekunda Kunda market they alighted the lorry from Jeshwang and took another to Farato.
As darkness deepened, the lorry lights became more visible. The driver slowed whenever pedestrians appeared near the road. Passengers grew quieter. The day’s energy was giving way to night. Matou rested her head against her mother’s shoulder. Borogie looked down at her.
“Are you tired?”
“A little.”
“Did you enjoy the visit?”
Matou thought about the question.
“Yes,” she said eventually. “But I also feel sad.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone is somewhere else.”
Borogie understood immediately.
“That is life, my child. Sometimes people must live in different places. It does not mean they are no longer family.”
Matou was quiet.
“Did you miss me when I was away?”
Borogie did not answer immediately.
The question had come so softly that perhaps she needed time to find words strong enough for it.
“I missed you every day,” she finally said.
Matou looked at her.
“Every day?”
“Every day.”
“Then why did you let me go?”
Borogie sighed.
“That is a question mothers carry for a long time.”
She stroked Matou’s hair.
“We believed you would have opportunities there that we could not give you here. We are poor. We have too many children and too little. Sometimes parents make decisions because they think they are protecting their children, even when the children cannot understand those decisions.”
Matou lowered her eyes.
She did not say that she had understood none of it at twelve.
She had only understood the loneliness.
But now, sitting beside her mother in the darkness, she was beginning to understand something else.
Perhaps being given away does not mean being unloved.
Perhaps it means that the adults around her had been trying, imperfectly, to create a future from circumstances they could barely control.
The lorry continued towards Farato.
Bubel woke suddenly and looked around.
“Are we home?”
“Not yet,” Matou told him.
“Did you save my sweet?”
Matou laughed.
“Yes.”
He reached for her hand.
She gave him the sweet.
Outside, the road stretched into the darkness, carrying them home.
And as Farato drew closer, Matou felt the familiar excitement beginning to return.
Home was waiting.
Her father would be there.
Nenneh Dado would be there.
The animals would be there.
The little hut.
The fire.
The stories.
The sound of voices after sunset.
And for tonight, at least, she did not have to wonder where she belonged.
She knew.
She was going home.
