Read Malaika for Free Online

his skin a moment longer, but as my question seeped in, he calmed down, shook his head, and told me he only wanted what was best. “Of course, every father wants this for his children.” As we sat, he opened another lager, sipped it, and sighed.
    Shortly, his white teeth grinned and he belted out a hysterical laugh. “My boy is his father’s son. I was about his age when I became entangled in this exact scenario!” He reflected on the similarities. “Do Sanura’s parents know?”
    “I don’t believe so,” I said. Abasi had to hold his belly as he doubled over in laughter. “Oh, I do not envy him. I have been there, and I do not envy him!” He began to brush tears of hilarity from his eyes.
    “I think he is going to name her Sherri . . .” He stopped laughing and turned to me. He then held his hands to his face, now weeping.
    “They’re having a girl? I’m going to be a grandfather to a baby girl?” I just let him be. In a moment, he had gone from the highest high to deepest sorrows only to end up in awe.
    “You know university is not out of the question. He is smart enough. If he fully desired to accomplish such a feat, he could do it.” Abasi felt I was placating him.
    “Not with a little girl to raise,” he countered. “Getting out of here is hard enough without a family.”
    “Not so. They don’t call it America, the land of opportunity, for nothing. I could pull a few strings, find some grants and whatnot. When the time is right, and if he wants it, I could probably get him a long way.”
    “What about the baby and Sanura?”
    “They could go too. Sanura has dreamed of going to America. Abasi, don’t give up on your dreams for Absko. If they are his as well, there is always a way.”
    “Today we drink,” he said. “Today my boy is a man. A budding man, but a man nonetheless.”

 
     
    At the meadow The Three stood stronger, taller than ever before. Malaika’s body language was uncertain in a way I had not seen before. As they met her, she tried to pass, but the patriarch swatted her across the snout. She yelped in submission, and the females hissed while contouring their bodies into a pouncing position. Instinctively, I stepped back in fear and then took one step forward, as if I could help, but I stopped. There was nothing for me to do. She tried to pass through them again. A roar bellowed from the male’s belly. Malaika withdrew from them. She turned toward me with sadness and then moved adjacent from her kin, seemingly no longer welcome, and passed through a different path down the ravine. The others traversed back the way they had come.
     
    Change for the worst had come. Malaika had been staying with me days at a time now. Her coat was becoming unkempt, and her mental stability had obviously waned. I learned that she was hunting solely for herself—now that she had been ostracized from her family. Although she could hunt, her confidence was failing her, for when she’d nab a kill, her cousins would be on her heels and would fight her for the kill. Most times she’d only get a scrap, and sometimes, not even that, depending on the mood of her kinship that day. Weeks were passing, her deterioration continued. Fresh wounds accumulated on her face from continuing defense of meals. It was becoming increasingly easy for her family to fend her off. Without proper meals, it seemed her joints began to ache, as her body became more and more emaciated.
    I had asked Absko and Sanura to leave me alone for a while. They understood and relayed the message to Abasi. Only on occasion would they bring supplies, for which I was grateful. Of course, no one from the village came to assist my lioness friend. As we hunkered down for sleep one night, I tried one more time to feed her a cut of beef. I had tried several times over the last weeks, to no avail. I was relieved at what I saw next, but also deeply saddened. For this was the moment I knew she had truly lost everything, even herself. She was