The next morning Amina carried the rent ledger, her phone filled with photographs of receipts, and a copy of Kaseke’s message. She did not tell Neema that she planned to start with the tenants. Neema would ask whether they were dragging outsiders into a family quarrel. But Amina knew the tenants had watched the property’s life longer than some of their relatives had.
Halima went with her. They reached the rental houses before three o’clock, while most doors were still closed. A thin layer of dust covered the yard, and water buckets stood beside the wall.
“What will we ask them?” Halima said.
“Not who has the right to inherit. We will ask who came to collect rent, who repaired the houses, and where they sent their payments.”
“And if Juma gave them different instructions?”
“We will record those too.”
The first tenant to open was Mama Tunu, who lived in the front room with the green curtain. When she saw them, she wiped her hands on a cloth.
“I am sorry about your father,” she said. “He was the kind of man who asked whether the pipe had stopped crying.”
Amina smiled sadly.
“We are organizing the rent records. Please help us confirm the last few months.”
Mama Tunu invited them in. On top of a cabinet stood a plastic box full of receipts.
“I often gave them to Amina,” she said. “Juma came twice this year. He told me to give money directly to him if I was late, but I did not like it because his receipts had no dates.”
Halima looked at Amina. Amina said nothing. She wrote down the visit date, the room number, and the receipt details.
“Did you ever send money by phone?” she asked.
“Yes. Amina’s number was in the ledger. Once I sent it to Neema because Amina was away.”
Mama Tunu brought out an old receipt. It carried Amina’s handwritten stamp and the room number.
Amina did not take it. She asked to photograph it, then returned it.
After that they visited Mr. Msuya, a bicycle repairman who rented the back room. He said Juma had given him a new payment number.
“He said that from this month we should send money to him,” Mr. Msuya said. “I asked whether it was the family number. He said he was the family member handling the property.”
Halima leaned over the notebook.
“Did you send it?”
“Only once. Juma never sent a receipt. When I messaged to ask, he did not answer. The next month I paid Amina in cash.”
Amina felt anger rising but held it back. The information did not prove theft. It proved that money and information had begun moving along two different routes.
At the third room, a new tenant told them he had signed a short paper with Juma. The paper carried the shop’s name rather than the rental houses’ name. Amina asked to see it, but the tenant hesitated.
“Juma told me not to give other people a copy.”
“We will not take it,” Amina said. “Keep it safe. We will only record that it exists.”
Halima wrote that sentence in large letters.
As they were leaving, Mama Rehema arrived with another female relative. She had heard that the sisters were questioning the tenants.
“Why are you bringing the tenants into the children’s affairs?” she asked.
“We are confirming the house payments,” Amina said. “We are not asking them to choose a side.”
Mama Rehema looked at the notebook.
“Juma has been responsible for this property. If you stop him, you will leave people without anyone to manage it.”
Amina opened the receipt photograph on her phone.
“For two years, most payments entered these numbers. The tenants know whose number they used, not whose claim is loudest.”
“You are telling me I was wrong to trust the only son?”
“I am asking you to trust the records before habit.”
Mama Rehema wanted to reply, but Mama Tunu, standing in her doorway, spoke first.
“Auntie, Amina came when the roof leaked. Neema paid the toilet repairman. Halima came to write down our names when Juma was at the shop.”
Mama Rehema fell silent. Not because everything had been settled, but because the tenant’s voice was not the voice of someone dividing an inheritance. It was the voice of someone living inside the results of their decisions.
Amina thanked them and returned home at midday. Neema was sitting with Father’s phone file. Juma was there too, walking from the window to the table.
“You have started pressuring the tenants?” he asked when Amina entered.
“We asked them about payments.”
“My payments?”
“The family’s rental payments.”
Juma gave a dry laugh.
“Have you decided to become the family accountant?”
“I have kept this ledger for years.”
“A ledger is not authority to block money.”
“And keys are not authority to sell the plot.”
Neema stood between them.
“Do not start again.”
Amina placed the receipt copies on the table. Halima followed with the tenants’ messages.
“We found two payment routes,” Amina said. “We need one temporary account that everyone can see. Rent should not leave through Juma alone, or through me alone.”
Juma picked up a receipt.
“What are you afraid of?”
“That money will not be traceable?”
“Money knows where it is going. Debt does not wait for a meeting of three sisters.”
Neema turned toward him.
“What debt exactly?”
Juma put down the receipt.
“You are not ready to hear yet.”
Amina stepped forward.
“We found the plot deposit. Kaseke says you promised a transfer within seven days. Now you say there is a debt, but you name neither the amount nor the creditor.”
Juma looked at Father’s safe beside the wall.
“Father left debts you did not see because you were not at the shop every day.”
“Then let us see them,” Halima said.
“If you want to show everything, you will also show how I protected your business while you lived your own lives.”
Neema frowned.
“Do not use your service to seal our mouths.”
Juma looked at her with real pain. For a brief moment Amina saw that not all of his words were performance. But pain did not remove the need for accounts.
Amina took a clean sheet of paper.
“From today, tenants will pay into a temporary account visible to all four of us. Repairs will be paid from it against receipts. If we discover an urgent debt, we will discuss it with numbers and dates.”
Juma read the sheet, then pulled it from Amina’s hand.
“You want to strip me of management.”
“We want to separate management from secrecy.”
Mama Rehema, who had entered behind them without being noticed, had heard everything. This time she did not defend Juma directly.
“Juma,” she said, “if there is a debt, put it on the table.”
“Auntie, not every shop matter belongs to all the children.”
“But you began selling something that belongs to all the children.”
Juma tightened his jaw. Then he looked at a new message on his phone. Amina could not see the sender’s name. She saw only Juma’s face change. Yesterday’s confidence gave way to urgency.
“I do not want a temporary account,” he said. “This month’s rent will be used to put out the fire.”
“Whose fire?” Neema asked.
Juma closed the phone.
“I will tell you tomorrow. But if you block the rent, you will be deciding that the shop should collapse.”
Amina took back her sheet. All four of them were silent, but this silence was no longer grief. It was the silence of people waiting to learn the name of the fire.
When Juma left, Halima placed Kaseke’s message beside the tenant receipts. The dates formed a single line.
Amina wrote the decision:
**TENANTS WILL PAY INTO AN ACCOUNT VERIFIED BY ALL FOUR SIBLINGS.**
Under it she wrote Juma’s sentence:
**THE RENT WILL NOT BE ENOUGH TO PAY THE DEBT.**
Then Neema’s phone rang. A message had come from the shop number:
**THE CREDITOR HAS CONFIRMED THAT THE BALANCE IS DUE WITHIN FIVE DAYS.**
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