Sister-in-Campus 20
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astor Mwanga was happy that Joyce had
delivered her baby safely and that Madam Gladys was now taking care of her for
the rest of the semester till the end when she would be coming home with the
child. She needed money for upkeep and even to employ a baby sitter while she
managed her study. However Stacia agreed to be doing some chores for her
whenever and wherever she could.
“My wife I think we should organize
ourselves we take something to the dean of students where our daughter stays”
he said to his wife one evening. She nodded as she was cooking some ugali for
supper and did not want to produce badly cooked ugali. Her husband was very
sensitive in the kind of ugali that he was offered the aroma, the texture and
above all the vegetables or even stew if any of them happened to be having a
defect was enough to discourage him from engaging himself with the food. He had
one time undergone a stomach surgery that left for the dead after a doctor had
stitched him back with some surgical tool. Were it not for another operation
half a year later to fix the problem he would be a dead man by now.
He left the kitchen since he saw his
dear wife was busy to make supper ready and engaging her in such a conversation
was just a waste of time and energy. He would revisit the conversation
sometimes back later when she is not too busy so that he can get her suggestion
on a few things that seemed important. His mind kept thinking about Petro no
matter how much he tried to thinking of other things. Just in the afternoon
Mzee Wafula one of his close friend s and trusted deacons had called him
telling of how Petro was frequenting at Debra’s home. He had not only tried to
avoid that widow like a plague ever since her husband’s funeral but also had
also ignored her so that he could craft how to handle her. She was his weakness
from the days when Daudi was alive. But it was at the funeral that he realized
things were more unclear than he thought. Most villagers and church members
were watching her closely now that she was widow lest she harmed their
marriages.
However the thought of Petro frequenting
Debra’s home on a daily basis was worth worrying for. He had learnt that the
young man had stopped teaching and was now selling at a shop which he had
helped her put up just by the poshomill near the main road. An unmarried youth
like Petro to the widow like Debra was new car to a skilled driver. He would
certainly fall for her eventually and forget about his own daughter now that
she was a mother out of wedlock.
“Please come inside supper is ready” his
wife said a few meters behind him and he turned swiftly to enter the main
house. He suddenly felt hungry.
He ate his super silently thinking about
many things that were floating in his mind. However one thing would not leave
his mind as much as he kept pushing it away from his mind. It was the thought
of Petro and Debra. Just then a knock was heard at the door and his wife went
to check who it was. Think of a devil and he appears, he came back followed by
Petro. He was carrying something in a plastic basket and from the way he was
carrying it was not that heavy but appeared precious.
“Praise the Lord Pastor?” he greeted
him.
“Amen Petro, How do you do?” Pastor
responded.
“Am fine in the Lord” Petro responded.
Pastor gestured him to sit down but he declined saying he was hurrying home
since it was already some minutes to eight o’clock.
“My boss and Daudi’s widow, Debra sent
me to deliver this gift of five eggs from her hens before she could start
selling them to the neighbors” Petro said as he took out the wrapped luggage
from his basket. Pastor felt like declined the gift instead of not accepting
it. Why would the devil herself put him into such a temptation? He believed she
had a lot of confessions to make in church based on what she eulogized of her
husband at his funeral. Besides Petro himself was living right according to him
though he did not have any proof of that.
“Thank you so much my son” Pastor’s wife
said happily as she received the eggs from Petro. Pastor pretended to be
impressed and happy.
“Please pass our gratitude when you see
her again” pastor managed to say.
“I will when I go there tomorrow when I
go to work at her shop” Petro replied.
“So now you don’t teach and now a
shopkeeper instead?” Pastor’s wife asked to which Petro nodded to.
“I stopped teaching about a month ago
due to unpaid dues ranging back to four months. Then one day Debra called me to
her home where I found her father who wanted me to sell in the shop they were
setting there” Petro explained to them.
“So won’t you have a bite of what your
Pastor here is eating?” Pastor’s wife asked Petro who seemed to be in hurry
just in case he may change his mind. Pastor’s just wished the young man would
go quickly before he loses his temper and stop eating the food that he was
enjoying so much. Petro had already felt tense from the moment he had stepped
into the house and set his eyes on him. He felt hungry but how could he betray
his own sense of unsafe to eat in such a place.
“No I’ll be on my way home please” Petro
said as he moved towards the door.
“Okay thanks Petro for your short visit,
greet your parents when you get there” Pastor’s wife said to him as he
approached the door.
“I will” Petro found himself saying back
though he knew he would not do it. His parents know that at this time he had
resumed his teaching profession. If they knew he was a Debra’s shopkeeper they
would really create an issue out of it.
“And close the door behind you please”
Pastor said finally as he stepped outside the door.
Silence took over the house for a while
till when pastor’s wife came back from keeping the eggs.
“You shouldn’t have received the eggs”
Pastor murmured.
“Why, yet you have been silent all this
while appearing to be okay with the gesture?” his wife retorted angrily. “Why?”
“My dear wife, I will explain to you
later” he replied.
“How many things have you promised to
tell me yet you never do so?”
“You have my word on this one I will
explain to you why I say this today”
“It must be because it came from that
woman” she said and disappeared into the bedroom to hide her grief that was
becoming vivid in her tears. He tried to call her back but she would not come.
She had buried her head deep in the pillow.
*
* * * *
Joyce sat inside the Hudson’s car in the
parking lot where they kept discussing a number of issues in general. It is
long since they were together and today Hudson had come to see her shortly over
the lunch hour. He looked disturbed though he kept denying it and shifting to
other things whenever Joyce popped up questions about him. He was still
striving to find some courage to tell her what was disturbing him.
“Joyce do you remember what you told me
on the day when you came back from the hospital?” he asked her finally after he
got the courage he was looking for.
“Yes I remember I asked why you are dark
skinned and your children were dark skinned am sorry about that” she said
looking remorseful.
“No need to. In fact I went to the house
and thought through it like my whole life was coming to an abrupt stop” Hudson
went on talking. “It turned out to be an eye opener to me”
“Really?” she asked turning to look at
him curiously.
“I went for a DNA test to find out for
myself because the doctor back at the hospital where you had given birth at
said I was not the father of your kids because I am not fertile”
“Did she say that?”
“I took my children without my wife’s
knowledge for a DNA test and now for the shock of my life the kids I was
proudly showing you are not my own!” he took out a handkerchief to wipe his
face because tears were forming in his eyes. He felt like crying as he said
that but the manhood in him would not let him do so. How could he cry in his
vehicle in the parking lot? Wouldn’t people think of him as a coward and go
their own way compared to what people would have thought and done if it was a
woman in his position crying? The world was for sure a cruel place for a man
even when he was the one wronged. They would for sure blame him for being
careless and ignorant for his problem and fail to dwell on the misgivings of
the woman.
He remembered one time he had a fuss
with his wife over how she spent the money he left her one morning. She had
spent the money in very unclear things and he could not understand how she had
spent it. Afterwards he had got into his bathroom and cried there quietly till
he heard his wife speak to someone. The quilt of having been heard by a guest
burnt him he went to apologize to her in the kitchen before he could come to
shake the hands of the guest who had turned out to be one of the deacons in
church. He didn’t revisit the issue again choosing to maintain peace between
himself and his wife who really loved. She would at times drive him crazy with
the way she sometimes showered him with the highest hospitality at times from
the welcoming him to the house, taking him water to the bathroom and even the
gymnastics in bed. It was strange that such acts of kindness and generosity
were seasonal yet when they were newly married they were. In anger he knocked
the steering wheel of the car and released the handbrake of the car thinking it
was a stick he could use to hit something. As he sat there he had got deep into
his own memory completely forgetting where he was and who was with him.
“Hey Hudson please! Hudson! What are you
doing?” he heard a feminine voice call out but he was determined to deal with
the demon before him.
A loud bang of metal clashing with metal
brought him to his senses as more wailing picked up around him. He could not
move his body apart from his own hands and head. He could see himself covered
in blood and lying on air bags. Joyce on the hand was badly injured since she
had not put on any seat belt hence no airbags had emerged to protect her. Her
head was bleeding from knocking the windscreen and her whole body ached a lot
till she was now crying uncontrollably. Hudson had released the hand brake of
his car unconsciously and it had raced out of the parking lot and hit an
oncoming vehicle whose driver intended to pack it in the available space
opposite to where his car was.
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