Sister-in-Campus 20

P

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.