The next morning, Tunu left Salma’s house at five forty-five.
Mariam woke with her.
They walked together to the main road while darkness still rested over the roofs. The first bus arrived already packed. Tunu stood at the door, looked at the bodies pressed inside, then looked back at her mother.
“I’m getting on.”
“Wait for the next one.”
“If I do, I’ll be late.”
Mariam checked the time on her phone.
“Then hold on properly.”
Tunu climbed aboard.
Mariam stayed at the stop until the bus pulled away, then turned toward the bus market where her tailoring stall was. Normally she reached the stall around six thirty, before the first commuters began passing. That day she opened late because she wanted to make sure Tunu had caught the second connection.
At 7:14 a message arrived.
I’M HERE.
Mariam replied: GOOD.
One minute later Tunu wrote:
LATE.
Mariam felt pressure tighten across her chest.
“How many minutes?” she typed.
No answer came.
Her first customer arrived carrying two skirts.
“Mama Tunu, these days you open late.”
“Only a little.”
“I used to come before the bus stand got crowded.”
“I’ll organize things differently.”
The woman handed over the skirts but said, “If I come tomorrow and find you closed, I’m going to someone else.”
Mariam did not defend herself.
After taking the measurements, she opened the school timetable she had saved on her phone. Assembly was at seven thirty. First lesson at eight. Their old route from Mto Mdogo had been one bus and about twenty-five minutes. From Salma’s place, Tunu needed two buses, waiting time, and nearly ten minutes of walking from the final stop.
The priority card knew none of that.
At ten, Tunu called during break.
“How late were you?” Mariam asked.
“Twelve minutes.”
“What did the teacher say?”
“Nothing.”
“Tunu.”
“She said next time they’ll write it down.”
Mariam tightened her grip on the phone.
“Tomorrow I’ll go with you to the second connection.”
“Don’t close the shop again.”
“I won’t.”
“How will you open it if you’re with me?”
Mariam had no immediate answer.
“You see?” Tunu said.
“This is not permanent.”
“I know.”
She used the same tone she had used when she said paper could not sleep somewhere for them.
Mariam finished the day with six alterations, two below her usual average. When she returned to Salma’s, Tunu was doing homework at the table while the children watched videos loudly on a phone.
“Tomorrow we leave even earlier,” Mariam said.
“How early?”
“Five thirty.”
“And you?”
“I’ll open the stall at eight instead of seven.”
Tunu put down her pen.
“Your peak hours are seven to nine.”
Mariam stared at her.
“You know that?”
“I know because every day you used to say, ‘If I’m late, the peak is gone.’”
Salma, cooking in the kitchen, stepped into the conversation.
“Mariam, maybe find school transport for a month.”
“It’s expensive.”
“More expensive than losing customers?”
Mariam did not answer.
After supper she wrote the numbers in her notebook.
Tunu’s two-bus daily transport. A quote for a school van. Lost peak-hour jobs. Contribution to Salma. SACCO repayment. Storage.
When she finished, the school van was expensive but not as impossible as she had first assumed. The problem was the two-week deposit the driver wanted in advance.
“I can pay Friday,” Mariam said on the phone.
“I have one seat left on that route. Without an advance I cannot hold it.”
Mariam closed her eyes.
“Until tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow at ten.”
“Okay.”
She wrote in her notebook: school transport seat — hold until tomorrow 10:00.
Tunu passed behind her.
“Don’t borrow because of me.”
“I haven’t borrowed.”
“Not yet.”
Mariam looked up. “I don’t want your school to become the cost of this housing dispute.”
“But it already is.”
Nothing followed that sentence.
The next morning they left earlier. Mariam went with Tunu as far as the second connection. When the bus arrived, people rushed the door. Tunu pulled her bag against her chest and climbed in.
“Text me.”
Tunu nodded.
Mariam ran the other way to catch a bus toward the market.
She reached her stall at five minutes to eight.
Two customers had waited and left.
Jonas Kweka, the young man from the photocopy shop next door, pointed to the chair where he had asked them to sit.
“I tried to keep them here,” he said. “One said she’ll come back in the evening.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re staying far now?”
“With Salma.”
“I heard Mto Mdogo is completely gone.”
Mariam nodded.
Jonas did not offer sympathy. He had moved from the same neighbourhood months earlier.
“Tumaini Housing?” he asked.
“The portal says sold out.”
Jonas froze.
“But you paid, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And your card?”
“I have it.”
“Then print everything.”
Mariam looked at him.
“I’m not there yet.”
“When you are, I’m here.”
She went back to work.
At three in the afternoon, the school called.
“Mother of Tunu?”
“Yes.”
“The deputy head would like you to come tomorrow regarding punctuality.”
“How many times has she been late?”
“Today makes the second this week.”
Mariam stood still with a needle in her hand.
“How many minutes today?”
“Seven.”
“And yesterday?”
“Twelve.”
“I’ll come tomorrow.”
She ended the call and looked at the clock.
Going to school tomorrow meant opening the stall late again.
That evening she told Tunu.
“I don’t want you to come,” Tunu said.
“They asked for me.”
“They’ll turn it into a story.”
“It’s a school record, not shame.”
“For you everything is a record.”
Mariam felt anger rise, then remembered that Tunu was not a soldier on the other side. She was a child waking in darkness because their home had become rubble.
“What do you want me to do?” Mariam asked.
Tunu was quiet.
“Just tell them this isn’t normal,” she said at last. “Don’t start telling them about the house, demolition, portal, receipt. Okay?”
Mariam nodded. “Okay.”
The next morning they went to school together. The deputy head was a calm-voiced woman with a student diary open on her desk.
“Tunu is a good student,” she said. “This is not a discipline problem yet. But it is exam term. If lateness becomes a pattern, it will become a problem.”
“We have changed where we are living temporarily,” Mariam said. “I’m arranging a new route.”
“For how long?”
“We don’t know.”
Tunu tightened her hands beneath the table.
Mariam added, “But the transport arrangement will change this week.”
The deputy wrote a note.
“We’ll give her until Friday. But I have to keep a record of arrivals.”
Tunu looked down.
Mariam said, “I understand.”
The deputy places a warning slip in Tunu’s diary: “Late arrivals: 3.”
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