After returning from the SACCO, Amina did not let anyone scatter with their own version of the facts. She opened Father’s room, pulled a small table beside the window, then arranged the notebook, receipts and payment photographs in four piles.
On the first pile she wrote **Father’s Debt**.
The second became **Juma’s Payments**.
The third was **Rent and Shop**.
The fourth was **Each Person’s Contribution**.
Halima stopped in the doorway when she saw the headings.
“Are you building a case or an account?”
“An account,” Amina said. “Everyone has already built a case inside their own head.”
Neema came in holding the SACCO file.
“This should go on top,” she said. “Mr. Kaseke sent us a copy of the basic statement. The official balance still needs a stamp, but the payment dates are visible.”
Juma sat on the other side of the table. He had not taken off his shoes. He looked as if he might leave as soon as the conversation turned too sharply toward him.
Mama Rehema sat in their father’s chair near the wall. Since they had returned, she had read the same page twice.
“So Father borrowed,” she said.
“Yes,” Neema replied.
“And Juma paid part of it.”
“Yes.”
Mama Rehema looked at Juma. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Juma lowered his eyes.
“I wanted to finish it first.”
Amina placed the first receipt in front of him.
“The trouble is, while you wanted to finish it, you started selling the plot.”
“I wanted to protect it.”
“Without us.”
Juma did not answer.
Amina opened her laptop. She had made a table with columns for date, payer, stated purpose and available evidence. She put Father’s name in the first row, then added the shop, rent, medical costs and Juma’s payments.
“We will not decide who has a right by whoever speaks loudest,” she said. “We will look at what each person carried, when they carried it and why.”
Halima pulled over a chair.
“I don’t have all the receipts,” she said. “When I helped the tenants, I used my time. I did not write down every trip I made to collect rent.”
“Then we will record that time,” Amina said.
“Will you count my hours as equal to Juma’s money?”
“I didn’t say equal. I said visible.”
Neema opened her bag and took out small envelopes in different colors.
“I kept Father’s medical receipts. I also sent money to his phone during his last months. I didn’t know we would need them to prove what I did.”
Juma raised his eyes.
“Those were for medical care, not the shop debt.”
“Medical care meant Father couldn’t return to the shop,” Neema said. “If you put everything under one heading called ‘I carried it,’ we need to know whose burden was what.”
Mama Rehema gave a soft sigh. “Children, do not turn grief into a competition.”
“We don’t want a competition,” Amina said. “We don’t want Juma using one debt to control every asset, and we don’t want to use his payments to make it look like he did nothing.”
Juma leaned toward the table.
“You said you would record my payments.”
“Yes.”
“And Father’s debt?”
“It will be listed as a family debt until we understand what the contract says about the children’s responsibility.”
“Then don’t write only the numbers. Write what I did when no one else was here.”
Amina handed him the pen.
“Give me the dates.”
Juma paused. He opened his phone and scrolled through old messages, reading silently. After a while, he wrote two dates on a sheet.
“In January I used money from the shop to pay part of the interest. In March I sold my motorcycle.”
Halima turned quickly.
“When did you sell the motorcycle?”
“After the debt fell behind again.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because the motorcycle was mine.”
“But the payment was for a family debt.”
Juma tightened his face.
“That is where you mix things up. I sold something of my own to keep Father’s security from being lost.”
Amina did not interrupt him. She wrote **motorcycle** in the column for evidence that needed verification.
“Is there a receipt?”
“At the garage. And a message from the buyer.”
“Bring them.”
“I will.”
Neema opened another envelope.
“I paid two hospital bills. Not because I wanted a bigger share of the shop, but because Father was my father.”
Juma said quietly, “I never said you didn’t help.”
“But you used the sentence ‘I was the one here’ whenever we asked about a decision.”
Before Juma could answer, Halima put her notebook on the table.
“I arranged repairs for two of the rental houses last year. The contractor wanted cash, but I followed up until he sent a receipt. Here it is.”
Amina took the paper. It was made out in their father’s name, not Halima’s.
“You asked for the receipt in Father’s name?”
“Yes. I knew the property was his.”
Mama Rehema looked at the piles on the table.
“So everyone was doing something, but no one was writing it down.”
“Juma was writing things down,” Amina said. “He kept shop records, but not everything. Father wrote by hand in the rent ledger. The rest of us kept photographs and messages.”
Juma stood, went to their father’s cabinet and took out a small cardboard box. He set it in front of Amina.
“There are copies of some payments inside.”
Amina did not open it right away.
“How long have you had it?”
“Father gave it to me after he began getting sick.”
“Why wasn’t it in the safe?”
“I took it to the shop the day I went looking for the contract.”
Halima watched him with suspicion.
“Were you looking for the contract, or choosing which papers to show us?”
Juma turned to her.
“If you keep treating me like a thief, I won’t sit at this table.”
“And if you leave, will the secrets put themselves in order?”
Neema raised a hand. “We will not end this with threats to walk out.”
Amina opened the box. Inside were seed-purchase receipts, payments for Father’s medicine, a photograph of the motorcycle outside a garage, and two transfer slips sent from a number without a name.
She took them out and placed them in a row.
“Which account did these two payments come from?” she asked.
Juma leaned closer.
“One was the shop.”
“And the other?”
“I don’t remember.”
Halima picked up a screenshot.
“The date is two days before the first top-up.”
Neema looked at Juma.
“Did you still have money in another account?”
Juma closed the box with one hand.
“I had a lot going on.”
“Juma,” Amina said, “this is why we are making the table. It isn’t to humiliate you. Every unknown payment makes people believe the worst version of the story.”
Juma took out his phone and opened his banking app, but stopped before showing the screen.
“I don’t want my whole account number written down.”
“We don’t need the whole number. We need proof of who paid and what it was for.”
“And if the money was mine?”
“Then we will write that it was yours.”
“And if I don’t want everyone to know what I had?”
Amina met his eyes calmly.
“You asked to sell everyone’s plot. You can’t demand complete privacy about your money while asking for transparency about our property.”
Juma lowered the phone. Neema did not pressure him. Halima stared out of the window.
After a while, Juma opened two statements and put them on Amina’s phone. One transfer had come from his personal account and gone to the SACCO. The other had come from an account belonging to someone identified only by initials.
Amina looked up.
“Who is this?”
Juma did not answer.
“Juma.”
“Someone I borrowed money from.”
“What for?”
“To pay the debt.”
Halima breathed out angrily.
“So now there’s Father’s debt, your top-ups, the motorcycle and somebody else who lent you money?”
“Yes.”
“And you still wanted to tell us that selling the plot was simple?”
Juma sat down. For the first time, he looked more tired than angry.
Amina did not hide the information. She added a new line to the table: **Juma’s funds from a third source — source and use to be verified.**
Juma watched her.
“Will you show this to Mama Rehema?”
“Yes. But I will also include the motorcycle receipt and your payments to the SACCO.”
“You won’t remove anything that helps me?”
“I won’t remove anything.”
“Why?”
“Because we need the truth, not a victory for one side.”
Halima moved closer to the table.
“Then I will write that I was wrong when I said Juma had never done anything.”
Juma did not look at her, but his shoulders lowered slightly.
Neema said, “And I will write that I wanted peace until I understood that peace without information protects the person holding the keys.”
Mama Rehema stood and joined them at the table.
“Where do I sign?”
Amina gave her the sheet at the bottom.
“Here. You confirm that this information will be shared with all the children, not that you have decided who owns what.”
Mama Rehema read it, then signed.
As evening approached, the table filled with dates and marks showing which documents were missing. Amina photographed each page and saved it to everyone’s phones. They agreed that no one would remove an original document without making a copy and writing down where it had gone.
Juma kept one paper in his hand. It was a receipt for a large payment he said he had made. The date was one week before the SACCO’s first recorded payment.
Amina looked at it.
“Why doesn’t this appear in the shop statement?”
“Because it didn’t come from the shop.”
“Where did it come from?”
Juma folded the receipt, opened it again, and put it on the table.
“Tomorrow we will find the source.”
Amina photographed it without touching it.
The payer’s name showed only three initials, and no account was listed.
Neema said evenly, “That payment is larger than the two top-ups we saw.”
Juma did not answer.
Amina closed her laptop, but left the folder open.
A new line entered the account in her head:
**JUMA’S LARGE PAYMENT HAS NO VISIBLE SOURCE.**
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