Four sheets of paper had been arranged on the table before Nasma got home.
Two grinders.
One mixer.
Two sealing machines.
The delivery van.
Warehouse stock.
Beneath every item was an empty space for a value.
Uncle Rashid sat on one side of the table with a blue pen. Yusuf was beside him. Leila sat quietly with her hands beneath her chin. Kito ate rice without speaking, pretending no one was putting prices on the place where their mother had spent years building a life.
Nasma put her bag on a chair.
“What is this?”
Rashid pushed the papers toward her. “A list of the things we can see. Before everything gets mixed together.”
“Why today?”
“Because today people still remember where everything is.”
Yusuf said, “And because if we don't record it early, every business decision will look like somebody is moving value around.”
Nasma looked at him. Yesterday he had been collecting receivables for the company. Today he was sitting beside their uncle.
“We don't have a valuation,” she said.
“That's why we're starting,” Rashid replied. “The machines should be assessed. The van. The stock. Every child should know what their share is worth before somebody starts saying everything has to stay inside the factory.”
Kito raised his head. “Which machine is my share?”
No one answered.
“Kito, finish eating,” Leila said.
Rashid lowered his voice. “That's not what we mean. We're talking about value.”
“So my value is a grinder?” Kito asked.
Nasma almost laughed, but nothing about the room was funny.
“We aren't giving everyone one machine,” Yusuf told him.
“Then what are you doing?”
“Making sure everyone is treated equally,” Rashid said.
Kito stared at the papers. “What does equal mean?”
Leila stood. “Come. I'll make you tea.”
Kito took his plate and followed her into the kitchen.
Nasma sat down.
“Uncle, nobody is refusing a valuation.”
Rashid raised an eyebrow. “You've started refusing before I've even finished.”
“I'm refusing a quick sale before we know what keeps this company alive.”
“Who said anything about a sale?”
Nasma pointed at the column marked **likely buyer price**.
“This isn't just an inventory list.”
Rashid shifted his chair. “Nasma, don't turn every question into an attack. My sister is dead. There is no will saying you run the company for five years while everybody else begs you for profit. There is no document saying Yusuf waits until you decide you're ready.”
“I said fourteen days, not five years.”
Yusuf gave a sharp laugh. “You hadn't even said fourteen days until now.”
“I wanted a cash map first.”
“Exactly. Everything has to go through your process first.”
“Because the supplier deadline is three days, payroll is five days, and the stock account doesn't reconcile.”
Rashid said, “Which is even more reason to value the assets. If the business is in trouble, selling part of them may keep the whole thing from dying.”
“And what happens to the order that depends on the machine you sell?”
“The valuation will tell us what to sell.”
“A valuation won't tell us operational dependency.”
Yusuf tapped the table. “And operations can't become the excuse for postponing valuation forever.”
Nasma felt two days of exhaustion climb into her neck.
“I didn't say forever.”
“You said wait.”
“Yes.”
“And while we wait, you hold the keys.”
The sentence stayed on the table.
Nasma did not answer immediately.
Yusuf pulled the paper closer. “Every day you tell us to wait is another day you're the one holding the keys.”
Leila had returned to the doorway without anyone noticing. Kito was not with her.
“Yusuf,” she said, “that's not fair.”
“Why? Isn't it a fact?”
“Nasma has worked at the factory for six years. Of course she knows the keys.”
“And that knowledge can become power.”
“Yes,” Nasma said. “It can.”
Everyone looked at her.
“That's why I want the numbers shared. I don't want you trusting me just because I was beside Mama at the factory every day.”
“Then don't be afraid of valuation,” Rashid said.
“I'm not. I'm afraid a valuation becomes a sale before the cash map shows which machine produces revenue and which one is idle.”
She picked up the sheet for the first grinder.
“This grinder has a price.”
No one disagreed.
“But it also makes the chilli batch two restaurants buy every week. Sell it for cash today, and tomorrow you may have money on the table and an order you can't produce.”
“We still have the second grinder,” Rashid said.
“The second one overheats faster. It can't handle the same continuous batch. We were already ordering a replacement bearing for it.”
Yusuf said, “That's exactly the kind of detail the rest of us don't know.”
“Which is why I want an audit.”
“And you're the source of the detail.”
“No. The maintenance records exist.”
“Then bring the records.”
“I will.”
Rashid changed sheets. “The van?”
Yusuf leaned forward. “We could sell the van. Hire deliveries.”
“And the margin?” Nasma asked.
“We calculate it.”
“And the market route where a hired driver won't wait while you collect from shops?”
“We calculate that too.”
Nasma gave a small smile. “Good. Now we're talking.”
Yusuf did not smile back. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded receipt.
“I've got something else to calculate.”
Nasma took it.
It was a deposit on a second-hand vehicle.
“You paid a deposit?”
“Last week.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because the money was mine.”
“What are you doing with the vehicle?”
“Starting a delivery business.”
Rashid stayed silent, but Nasma could see from his face that he already knew.
“I've been the sales runner and driver here for years,” Yusuf continued. “I know the routes, the small shops, the people who need deliveries. I found a vehicle I can start with.”
“And the balance?”
“Due within two weeks.”
“If you miss it?”
“I lose the deposit.”
Nasma looked at the amount. It was not small money for Yusuf.
“That's why you want a distribution now.”
“That's why I don't want the word wait to have no end.”
She handed back the receipt. “But company cash isn't automatically your deposit money.”
“I didn't say it was automatic.”
“You're saying divide the assets.”
“I'm saying establish what I'm entitled to.”
“And if the value you're entitled to can't be turned into cash today without destroying the income source for Leila and Kito?”
Yusuf paused.
“That's how you people like to scare me. Everything gets put on the children.”
Leila raised her head. “Don't put me inside your sentence.”
“I said Leila and Kito—”
“I heard you.”
She took the fee notice that had been sitting on a shelf since the previous week.
“My semester fees are due in three weeks. I know. Everyone knows. But I don't want everybody saying, ‘Don't sell because Leila has fees,’ or ‘Sell because Leila has fees.’ That makes me the reason for a decision nobody asked me about.”
“My child, no one is using you,” Rashid said.
“But everyone keeps mentioning me.”
Nasma lowered her eyes. She had done exactly that in her own head: the company must survive because of Leila's fees.
Leila looked at her. “If you pay my fees from the company, is that a distribution? An expense? Family support? Who decides?”
Nasma had no good answer.
Neither did Yusuf.
“This is why I want these things made clear early,” Rashid said.
“So do I,” Nasma replied.
“But you want to keep operating first.”
“Because a working business can't be stopped like a piece of furniture while we count it.”
“You don't even know whether it's operating at a profit.”
“Exactly. That's why we need the cash map.”
“And the valuation.”
“An independent valuation.”
Rashid watched her. “You'll accept it even if it shows selling some assets makes sense?”
Nasma hesitated.
This was the point where she could hide behind operations.
“Yes,” she said. “I'll accept the data. But no sale before cash, liabilities, receivables, and operational dependency are visible.”
“Timeline?” Yusuf asked.
“Fourteen days. Review date.”
“And who decides at the review?”
“All of us.”
“And valuation begins within those fourteen days?” Rashid asked.
“After preliminary books and the stock audit, so the valuer knows what they're looking at.”
Yusuf looked at his receipt again. “I have fourteen days too.”
“You said two weeks.”
“My deposit deadline is exactly thirteen days from today.”
Nasma felt two clocks collide in front of her.
The company needed time.
Yusuf needed time too.
And neither kind of time was free.
“Then the valuation plan proceeds,” Rashid said.
“Yes.”
“Sale?”
“Frozen until we have the data.”
“Distribution?”
“Frozen until we have the data.”
Yusuf laughed again. “See? The word frozen still comes from you.”
“Then you write the review date.”
Nasma pushed the pen toward him.
Yusuf did not take it.
Rashid picked up the list of machines and placed it in the middle.
“Tomorrow we start with stock and debts. But I won't accept the family being informed after every decision.”
“Fair,” Nasma said.
“And I want a copy of the numbers,” Leila said. “Not Nasma's summary or Uncle's.”
“You'll get one,” Nasma said.
“And Kito?”
“Kito is a child,” Rashid said.
Leila looked at him. “He's a beneficiary too.”
Another silence.
Nasma knew the discussion had settled nothing. It had opened everything.
Yusuf picked up Rashid's asset list.
Nasma thought he would return it to the middle of the table.
Instead, he pulled it to his side.
He looked up and said, “On this, I'm with him.”
---