Leila refused to get on the bus.
The conductor already had one hand on the door, shouting, “College! College! We're leaving!” but Leila stayed beside the stand with the fee notice in her hand.
Nasma had her bag over one shoulder. Yusuf stood near the KVK van they had parked across the road.
“Leila, the bus is leaving,” Nasma said.
“Let it.”
“What time is your class?”
“That's not my question.”
Yusuf frowned. “Then what is?”
Leila looked at both of them.
“Stop talking about my fees as if I'm not there.”
Nasma hesitated. “We don't.”
“You do. Yesterday, with Mama's notebook, you talked about education support. All week, every family meeting has included somebody saying, ‘Leila has fees.’ Uncle says we can sell an asset because my fees are coming. You say the business has to survive so my fees can be paid. Yusuf says if there's a distribution we can settle them. Which one of you has asked me the exact amount I need right now?”
Neither answered.
Leila lifted the notice.
“Exactly.”
The conductor slammed the bus door.
“Are you coming or not?”
Leila shook her head.
The bus pulled away, leaving them in diesel smoke.
“All right,” Nasma said. “Let's talk.”
“Not here on the roadside like another emergency.”
“There's a café over there.”
“I can't afford a café.”
“I'll pay.”
Leila gave her a hard look.
Nasma corrected herself. “The company won't pay. I'll buy the tea personally.”
Yusuf laughed softly.
Leila did not smile, but she walked with them to the tea stall near the stand.
They sat on a wooden bench.
Leila placed the fee notice on the table.
“This is the full semester amount.”
Yusuf pulled the paper closer. “Yes. That's the figure we've been talking about.”
Leila pointed to a line near the bottom.
“But registration can be done with this partial minimum. The balance is due within two weeks after registration.”
Nasma bent over the paper.
The minimum was far smaller than the full amount everyone had been using as a crisis number.
“Why didn't you tell us?”
Leila gave a humourless laugh.
“Because you didn't ask.”
Nasma fell silent.
“The balance is still coming,” Yusuf said.
“Yes. But you don't have to dismantle a grinder today so I can get on a bus.”
“We never said that.”
“Uncle said a sale could solve my fees.”
“Uncle has said many things.”
“And you've been on his side about the urgency.”
Yusuf's jaw tightened.
“I don't want to be the reason somebody sells,” Leila continued, “or the reason somebody refuses to sell. My fees are my need. They are not my price.”
Nasma felt worse because the sentence struck directly at her habit of protecting Leila without involving her.
“Fair,” she said.
“Don't just say fair.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Stop saying, ‘I'll pay for you,’ as if that's your decision. Give me options.”
Nasma leaned back.
“All right. Option one: the registration minimum comes from a family-support pot, if we agree that family support is a separate category from inheritance distribution.”
“What family-support pot?” Yusuf asked.
“We haven't formally created one. That's why I'm calling it an option.”
“Option two?” Leila asked.
“A short-term personal contribution from siblings who can afford it, recorded as such, not a company expense. Option three: the college accepts an instalment schedule without full payment at registration, if you can negotiate it.”
“I already asked,” Leila said. “The minimum won't change, but the balance can be split into two instalments.”
“You should have told us that,” Yusuf said.
Leila turned on him.
“And you should have told us about your vehicle deposit earlier.”
Yusuf closed his mouth.
Nasma caught the reaction.
“Yusuf?”
He looked toward the road.
“Say it,” Leila said.
Yusuf took the deposit receipt from his wallet.
It was more creased than the last time they had seen it.
“I told the seller I'd have the balance after the funeral.”
Nasma heard the sentence clearly, but wished she had not.
“After the funeral?”
“Yes.”
“Based on what?”
Yusuf shrugged angrily.
“I knew the company had assets. I assumed we'd sit down, work out the shares, and everyone would receive some starting cash.”
“Without us agreeing?”
“Yes. I didn't sign anything on your behalf.”
“But you promised money you didn't know existed.”
“Yes.”
Nasma wanted to attack him.
Then she remembered her own promise of seventy percent payroll before the full reconciliation.
She had to stay quiet.
Yusuf looked at her and knew she had remembered it too.
“Don't say it.”
“I won't.”
“Because you also promised cash before you had the map.”
“Yes.”
Leila looked from one to the other.
“You two are more alike than you enjoy admitting.”
Yusuf laughed bitterly. “Don't become a philosopher.”
“You haven't paid me yet. I still can.”
For the first time, the tension eased slightly.
Nasma took Leila's fee notice and Yusuf's deposit receipt and placed them side by side.
“These are two different needs. Your fees cannot be the justification for liquidation. Your deposit cannot be a guarantee of distribution. But both belong before the family council as real costs.”
“And if the council says the company can't pay?” Yusuf asked.
“Then you know you cannot rely on company cash.”
“And I lose my deposit.”
“Yes.”
Yusuf glared at her.
Nasma continued before he could speak.
“And that is a real loss. I won't call you selfish for saying it. But we can't turn a private promise into a debt owed by all your siblings.”
Yusuf folded the receipt in his hand.
“I understand.”
“I want a needs list,” Leila said.
“A what?” Nasma asked.
“Each person writes their own minimum need and deadline. Nobody else speaks for them.”
“What will Kito write?” Yusuf asked.
“School, transport, basic things. And if he has no special need, he writes that.”
“He's fourteen.”
“His life is still affected.”
Nasma nodded. “Good.”
Leila looked at her. “And you?”
“Me?”
“What do you need?”
Nasma did not know.
Every day since the funeral, she had written supplier, payroll, stock, customer, workers, Yusuf, Leila, Kito.
She had never put herself on the list.
“I don't know.”
“Then stop pretending you're the person who needs nothing. That's how you end up saying later that you've carried everyone.”
The words from Saada's notebook came back to Nasma: *she carries everything, then explains after she has solved it.*
“I'll write something,” she said.
“Your need should be ‘control less,’” Yusuf said.
Nasma smacked him with the fee notice.
All three laughed.
Leila's phone rang. Kito.
She put him on speaker.
“Why haven't you reached college?” he asked.
“They delayed me.”
“Nasma?”
“Both of them.”
“Don't sell the factory because of her fees,” Kito said.
Leila closed her eyes.
“You see?” she said. “Even Kito has been told.”
“Who told you we might sell because of Leila's fees?” Nasma asked him.
“Everybody talks.”
“The family rumour system is very efficient,” Yusuf said.
“There is no decision to sell because of Leila's fees,” Nasma told Kito. “Do you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“And there is no decision not to sell because of Leila either.”
“Then what are you deciding based on?”
“We'll tell you at the council,” Leila said.
Kito laughed. “I'm in the council now?”
“Yes,” Leila said.
“Then I want juice.”
The call ended with all of them laughing.
Another bus arrived.
Leila stood.
“This one I'm taking.”
Nasma handed her the fee notice.
“Will you send me the registration-account details?”
Leila stopped.
“For which option?”
Nasma understood.
“We'll agree first. I won't quietly make the payment and then tell you I helped you.”
Leila nodded. “Good.”
“And me?” Yusuf asked.
“What?”
“The deposit.”
Nasma looked at him.
“The council will see the exact amount, deadline and consequence. Nobody gets to call you greedy for stating it. But nobody gets called a thief because they can't take the money out of company cash either.”
Yusuf looked down at his receipt.
The bus sounded its horn.
Leila climbed aboard.
Before the door closed, she called loudly, “Don't break something apart and say you did it for me, then ask me to thank you.”
Two passengers turned to stare at her.
Nasma and Yusuf remained at the stand, slightly embarrassed.
They walked back to the van in silence.
When Yusuf opened the door, he did not get in immediately.
He held out his receipt to Nasma.
“Keep a copy. Put it on the needs list.”
Nasma took it.
Yusuf said, “I already told him I'd have the money. I had no right to say that.”
---