The rain began before they had finished bringing Saada's clothes in from the line behind the house.
Ten minutes later, Leila shouted from their mother's room.
“Nasma! Water is coming in here!”
Nasma ran from the sitting room.
A thin stream was running from one corner of the ceiling, striking the top shelf and falling beside two boxes of papers.
Leila had already moved one.
“Kito!” Nasma called. “Bring a basin.”
Kito ran in carrying a bucket instead.
“This?”
“Put it there.”
The first drop struck the bottom of the bucket.
Leila pulled the second box from the shelf. Several papers spilled out.
“Don't step on them,” Nasma said.
“I know.”
They had postponed clearing Saada's room for days. Everyone had a reason. The factory. College. School. Uncle. The supplier. The buyer.
But the real reason was simpler.
None of them was ready to see her clothes become things.
Her work apron still hung behind the door.
Kito took it down.
“Don't throw this away.”
“We're not throwing it away,” Nasma said.
“And her blue scarf?”
“We're not throwing that away either.”
“And the shoes?”
“Kito,” Leila said, “we're not deciding everything today.”
Kito hugged the apron against his chest.
“Because once you start throwing things away, the room won't be Mama's anymore.”
No one had an answer that could help him.
Nasma sat on the floor and began gathering the fallen papers.
Old receipts.
Supplier lists.
Notes on recipe ratios.
A sheet with workers' phone numbers.
A small green notebook.
Leila picked it up first.
“Look at this.”
Three coloured tabs marked the cover: yellow, red and blue.
There was no title.
Leila opened it in the middle.
One page carried a heading in Saada's large handwriting:
**THE BUSINESS WITHOUT DIVIDING THE CHILDREN.**
Something inside Nasma seemed to stop.
“Don't read it alone,” she said.
Leila looked at her. “I haven't.”
Kito came closer.
“Is that Mama's notebook?”
“Yes.”
“Is it a will?”
Nasma shook her head immediately.
“We don't know. And we're not calling it that.”
Leila placed the notebook on the table.
“Mama wrote everything down.”
“Not everything written down is a decision.”
“Why did she write ‘the business without dividing the children’?” Kito asked.
“We'll read it.”
Leila looked at Nasma. “Where's Yusuf?”
“On his route.”
“Call him.”
Nasma picked up her phone.
For one second, she hesitated.
The notebook could be the thing she had been searching for without admitting she was searching for it.
A page saying Saada had chosen her.
A page giving her legitimacy in front of Rashid.
A page that would make Yusuf stop arguing.
The temptation made her call him faster.
Yusuf answered.
“What?”
“We found Mama's notebook.”
Silence.
“What notebook?”
“Company notes. There's a heading about management and the family.”
“Have you read it?”
“Only one section heading was visible.”
“Nasma.”
“Come here.”
“I'm far away.”
“Come when you're done. We won't continue without you.”
Yusuf was quiet for a second.
“All right.”
While they waited, Nasma and Leila kept moving boxes away from the leak. Kito sat on the bed holding the apron.
“Why didn't Mama tell us?” he asked.
“Maybe she was still thinking,” Leila said.
“But adults think so much that sometimes they die without saying anything.”
The sentence struck Nasma somewhere she had not expected.
An hour later, Yusuf entered the room with dust from the route still on his trousers.
“When did you find it?”
Nasma checked the time.
“Seven minutes before I called you.”
He studied her.
“Seven minutes?”
“Yes.”
“That's why you're here now?”
“That's why you're here now.”
Leila moved the notebook to the centre of the bed.
“One rule,” she said. “Nobody takes pages to Uncle or Khalfan and uses them as quotes without all of us knowing.”
“Who made you chairperson?” Yusuf asked.
Leila looked at him calmly. “I'm the one who found the notebook.”
Kito laughed.
Even Nasma smiled.
Yusuf raised his hands. “Fine.”
They began reading.
Most of the notes were not a finished system.
One page read: **Should management be one person or two?**
Another: **The children should not receive cash in panic. But they should not wait without a date.**
Nasma read that sentence twice.
Yusuf watched her.
“You like that one?”
“It shocks me.”
“Why?”
“Because it's close to what we wrote on the whiteboard.”
“Or you said it because you'd heard Mama say it before.”
Nasma shook her head. “I've never seen this note.”
Leila kept reading.
There was an idea for twelve months of stabilization in which daily management would be kept separate from beneficiary rights. Saada had written that all four children should receive account summaries at intervals. She had written *independent bookkeeper*. She had written *education support* as a category of family benefit, not “a favour from the eldest sister.”
“This helps Nasma a lot,” Yusuf said.
“Keep reading,” Nasma replied.
The next page had one line circled:
**Nasma's problem: she carries everything, then explains after she has the solution. This can become control even when her intentions are good.**
Yusuf went silent.
Leila slowly raised her eyes.
“Mama wrote something bad about you,” Kito said.
Nasma laughed painfully. “Yes.”
“If you want, we can skip that page when Uncle reads it,” Yusuf said.
Nasma looked at him. “Are you joking?”
“Half.”
“That's exactly why the notebook isn't staying with me.”
Yusuf sat straighter. “What do you mean?”
“I want it kept somewhere all of us know. And the company pages get copied in front of all of us. I don't get to choose the quotes.”
Leila nodded. “Good.”
“And Uncle?” Yusuf asked.
“He reads the company sections with us. But we do not tell him these are Mama's orders.”
Yusuf frowned. “Why aren't they orders?”
“Because this isn't a signed formal document. There are questions. Options. Crossed-out sentences. Mama was thinking.”
“And even if she wanted something,” Leila said, “we're the ones living with the consequences now.”
“Then what does the notebook mean?” Kito asked.
“It shows the questions Mama could see,” Nasma said.
“The answers?”
“Some. Not all.”
Yusuf turned another page.
Saada had listed possible monthly family benefits once a reserve target was reached.
Below it was a question:
**Does equal benefit mean equal cash every month? Or should education/health/basic needs be separated first?**
“Even she hadn't decided,” Leila said.
“Yes,” Nasma replied.
Yusuf read another page.
**A manager can receive a salary for work, separate from a beneficiary share. This must be clear so siblings do not think management = ownership.**
Yusuf glanced at Nasma.
“That's your line about knowing where the keys are not meaning you own the door.”
Nasma shook her head. “I've never seen it.”
“Maybe Mama had her own version of it too.”
Rain kept striking the roof.
For a while, Othman's offer was forgotten.
But it had not gone away.
Yusuf checked his phone.
“His offer expires tomorrow.”
“The notebook doesn't tell us to reject it,” Nasma said.
“But twelve months of stabilization?”
“An idea. Not an order.”
“Uncle will think you arranged this when he sees it.”
“Which is why you've seen it before him.”
Yusuf partly closed the notebook, then opened it again.
“Honestly, I wanted to find a page saying Mama wanted us to sell and divide the money.”
“And Nasma wanted a page saying she should lead,” Leila said.
Nasma stared at her. “How did you know?”
“Because I wanted a page saying my fees would be protected without me having to ask.”
“I wanted a page saying we shouldn't sell the factory,” Kito said.
They all looked at him.
Kito held the apron more tightly.
“Because if the factory is sold, it's like another part of Mama disappears.”
Nasma moved closer to him.
“Kito, we can't keep the company alive only because we're afraid of losing a memory.”
“Why not?”
“Because the workers, the customers and we ourselves need the company to be a real business. Not a grave.”
The words hurt him, but he nodded slowly.
“That was hard,” Yusuf said.
“Yes.”
“But true.”
They reached the last pages.
Saada's handwriting was worse there, as if she had written while exhausted.
There was a heading:
**IF NASMA LEADS DURING THE TRANSITION**
Yusuf stopped breathing for a second.
“You read it,” Nasma said.
Yusuf did.
Saada had written that Nasma knew the operations better than her siblings, but that this was also a risk. A person who knew everything could begin to believe that informing other people only slowed the work down.
Each line felt to Nasma like an unflattering mirror.
“Mama knew you,” Leila said.
“Yes.”
The final page was slightly torn along one edge.
One sentence began clearly and then stopped halfway.
Yusuf read it aloud.
“If Nasma leads, she must first learn…”
There was no word after it.
---