Juma refused to meet with everyone until evening. He sent only a short message saying the shop was crowded with customers. Amina knew that was not enough reason to postpone the accounts. If a balance was due in five days, every hour mattered.
She went to the shop with Neema. Halima stayed at home to watch the safe and try to open their father’s phone memory card. Mama Rehema said she would sit with her, so no one could later claim the sisters had taken documents without an elder present.
The agro-supply shop was packed with sacks of seed, small water pumps, buckets and farm tools. Customers knew Juma by his confident voice. When he saw Amina and Neema enter, he called to the young man arranging the goods.
“Keep working at the counter. We have a family matter.”
Amina noticed the cash drawer standing open, but did not look inside. She took out a copy of the rent sheet and placed it on the counter.
“We need the books for the past six months.”
“The books are in the office.”
“And the mobile payment records?”
“On my phone.”
“Then we will look at both.”
Juma wiped dust from his hands.
“Are you here to give orders?”
“I am here with the creditor’s deadline.”
Neema stood by the office door.
“Juma, we do not want to humiliate you. We need to know whether the plot deposit is connected to a shop debt.”
Juma glanced at the customers. Then he pulled the small curtain that separated the office from the sales area.
“Inside.”
The office was cramped and smelled of damp paper. An old calendar hung on the wall. Juma opened a cabinet, took out two account books and put them on the desk.
“The shop takes in and pays out money every day. Do not expect every number to be neat.”
“We don’t,” Amina said. “We expect the records to be there.”
Neema opened the first book. Customer payments were written in quick strokes. Some figures had pencil marks beside them; others were circled.
Amina compared them with the phone records Halima had sent. Every few days, money had moved from the shop’s number into an account without a name.
“Who received these transfers?” she asked.
“The wholesaler.”
“What is the wholesaler’s name?”
“They were payments for goods.”
“Why did some go out on days when no goods came in?”
“Sometimes we pay in advance.”
“And this one marked ‘FATHER’S LOAD’?”
Juma did not answer.
Neema looked at him. “Juma?”
“It is an old matter.”
“What load did Father have?”
“Do not question me as if I were in court.”
Amina set her phone on the desk, its screen showing a photograph of their father’s letter.
“His letter mentioned a debt account. We have not seen that account in the rent book.”
Juma pulled out a chair.
“Father borrowed so the shop would not close during a bad season. He said he would repay it after the harvest. The harvest was poor.”
“When did he borrow?” Neema asked.
“Two years ago.”
“And you knew?”
“I was helping him.”
“Under whose name?”
Juma raised his eyes. For the first time, he looked directly at Neema.
“Under the family’s name.”
“Then the family needs to see the agreement.”
“The agreement is not here.”
Amina stayed quiet for several seconds. She did not want to decide that the missing agreement meant Juma was lying. But the pieces were beginning to form a pattern: the plot deposit, an unnamed debt, unlabelled transfers, and a missing document.
“When did you last go to the creditor?” she asked.
“Yesterday.”
“Why?”
“Because they have run out of patience.”
“Did they give you five days?”
Juma looked past the curtain. A customer was asking the young man about the price of a pump.
“They told me to prepare the balance.”
“How much?”
“I cannot name it until I verify it.”
“Did you ask for the plot deposit because of this?”
Juma fell silent.
Neema stood up.
“Juma, if you sold family property to pay Father’s debt, we can help find a way. But if you hid the debt and used ‘only son’ to shut us out, that is different.”
“Do you think I enjoyed going around begging them for more time? Do you think I wanted to sell the plot?”
“We cannot know what you want because you do not tell us.”
Amina opened the page with the receipts. The same reference number appeared on the monthly transfers. She wrote it on a sheet.
“Does this number belong to the creditor?”
Juma studied it and turned away.
“Where did you see that?”
“On the transfers leaving the shop.”
“Do not take that paper.”
“Why?”
“Not every number proves what you think it proves.”
“Then explain it to us.”
Juma picked up his phone but did not open a message. He began typing the number into a messaging app, stopped, deleted it, then put the phone in his pocket.
“We will go together tomorrow,” he said.
“To the creditor?”
“To whoever is involved.”
“Today we are separating the rent money from the shop money,” Amina said.
Juma turned on her angrily.
“The rent pays part of the family’s burden.”
“Then everyone will be able to see where it goes.”
“If you close that route, the shop will be left without stock.”
“We are not closing the shop. We are stopping the tenants’ money from disappearing into accounts no one can see.”
Neema briefly held Amina’s hand. It was not to stop her. It was a reminder that they were all caught in the same problem.
Juma opened the cabinet again and took out a thin folder. A stamp on the cover had partly faded. Inside was a payment slip, but the name of the institution had been cut off.
“Father signed this,” Juma said. “He said the shop had to be saved. When I started paying, nobody was ready to listen.”
“Did you tell us?” Neema asked.
“I said there was a burden.”
“You said you were the only son and had to decide.”
“Because whenever I told you something, you suggested selling another thing without knowing what we were trying to protect.”
Amina photographed the slip but left the original where it was.
“We will take it to the creditor. Starting today, every shop transfer will have a reason, a date and the name of the person receiving it.”
Juma stared at her.
“You will make me run the shop with paperwork?”
“We will make the work you do visible.”
Amina left the office with Neema. Before she reached the doorway, Juma called to her.
“Amina.”
She turned.
“Do not tell Halima about this folder until I know the whole debt.”
“Halima is one of the people involved.”
“She will burn everything in anger.”
“You want to protect a secret because you are afraid of her anger.”
Juma did not answer.
That evening, when they returned home, Halima had arranged the shop receipts across the floor. Mama Rehema held their father’s memory card but had not opened it.
Amina told them what she had seen without adding an accusation against Juma. She placed the photograph of the slip with the missing institution name in front of them.
Halima was furious.
“So he has been sending money to a creditor and telling us he alone is protecting everything?”
Neema stopped her.
“This photograph does not tell us what the debt was for.”
“But it tells us there is a debt!”
Amina raised the paper bearing the reference number.
“Tomorrow we will verify it. Tonight we will not let anger divide us.”
Juma’s phone rang. This time he left it on the table without realizing they were all watching. The number was not saved in his contacts.
He answered.
“Hello?”
They could not hear the voice on the other end, but the color drained from Juma’s face.
“I said I would prepare it.”
He listened.
“Do not take action in a hurry. I have started talking to my family.”
He took the phone into the sitting room, but the door did not close all the way. Amina heard his last sentence.
“The deposit is not the full balance. Give me two days.”
When Juma returned, no one asked who had called. Amina wrote the reference number on the first page of a new folder.
Beneath it she wrote:
**CREDITOR UNCONFIRMED. SHOP TRANSFERS HAVE NO EXPLANATION.**
Then she added:
**TOMORROW WE WILL FIND THE CREDITOR WITH THE RECEIPT, NOT WITH JUMA’S FEAR.**
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