Mom?
As I ran home, with the sandwich in my hand, I thought of no one else but my mom. And Sandra.
I walked briskly back home. I was supposed to be back in school before 1.30 p.m. Recounting a time I had been made to mop the whole staff room for arriving just a few minutes late, and though I felt particularly tired and a little weak, and very hungry, I broke into a run. I had not taken breakfast when I left home that morning. I never took breakfast. Today, as I hurried home for lunch, with a sandwich packed in a pink little lunch-box clasped onto my chest with my left hand, it was more in the hope that I would find mom at home than find something to eat. Yet I strangely knew, however, that I would likely find neither mom, nor anything to eat. It was the former I feared. As I neared Alfred’s shop, I began to sprint. I didn’t like him. He always shouted at me and had once threatened to hit me for lying about my mom’s whereabouts. No sooner had I gone past the shop than I had a shout that froze me in my tracks. I wanted to go on running but that would have been more dangerous. What if he pursued me?
‘Daniel!’ He shouted. I turned and saw him standing in front of his shop. ‘Come here!’ I obeyed. What are you carrying? ‘Nothing.’ I said defensively, clasping the lunch box more tightly, fearing he meant to snatch it from me. ‘Hmm…’ He groaned, sneeringly. ‘Where’s your mother?’ ‘My mother?’ ‘Yes! Your mother. You know she owes me money. A lot of money. Don’t you?’ ‘Money?’ ‘Where’s your mother, you good for nothing bastard!’ he shouted taking hold of my shirt and shaking me vigorously. When he let go, I had lost my balance so that I tripped and almost fell. He glared at me. ‘Mother is sick. Very sick.’ I finally managed to compose myself and say. He was still staring as if he expected a more clear and definite answer. ‘She will pay you back.’ I hastened to add. ‘When?’ he asked, more in a shout than a question. ‘Soon.’ I whispered. I was now helplessly shaking, afraid he would act on his word about hitting me. He looked intently at me as if there was something intriguing about my puny miserable visage. He meant to say something but suddenly changed his mind, shook his head condescendingly, and waved his hand. I took it as a gesture to go away. I ran off, glad that I was no longer under his piercing glare, and no longer afraid that he would lay his heavy hand on my head. But the sting of his words still nettled my heart. ‘You know she owes me money. A lot of money.’ ‘I myself will pay you back,’ I whispered in my heart hoping he heard me. ‘Only leave mom alone!’ I hissed.
I hated it that I would always bump into these people I did not know. And they would ask me about mom. About a debt she had. Some of them were kind, but most of them, like Alfred, sounded like they desperately wished to hit me, as if that would calm down their rage. My stomach growled. A loud growl. But I knew there was no food where I was going. Still, I was going. I wanted to see mom. I wanted to give her the sandwich. I could count the times I had seen mom happy; when I would show a scribble of my grades after we had closed school. She would smile, a bright smile that brought some light to her beautiful face. I couldn’t bring home my report form as I had never paid my fees for the past three years. Tony had told me the school only let me stay and allowed me sit my exams because I always emerged the best, or second best, when Sandra beat me. ‘I am proud of you,’ mom would say. I would smile. How I treasured those words. They felt like the balm to a shattered heart. But then, tears would come to her eyes, and to mine, and we would lock in a tight embrace, from which it was unlikely that any of us would get out of alive. I would feel the throb of her heart on my chest. And in that throb I felt her love, her devotion, and her sacrifice. She had never explicitly said it, but I secretly knew that it was I who gave her the courage to go on living.
The times when I used to visit my friend Tony, who was a year older and ahead of me by one class, I would prolong my stay at their place, hoping to be invited for supper. I usually carried a polythene bag with me, and I would save most of the food for mom. Once I saw a tear fall from her eye when I presented her nothing more than a handful of githeri. She looked away. ‘Thank you,’ she finally managed to say, almost in a whisper, and then added, smiling through her teary eyes, ‘I’ll have it later.’ I smiled back at her, but just then a tear dropped from my eye. The next day when I went back home in the afternoon, intending to see her and maybe have my lunch, if there was any, I didn’t find her at home. The githeri was in a plate on the table, a spoon beside it. It was the same githeri I had brought her the evening before. I felt broken. Was I supposed to eat it? ‘Mom?’ I shouted frailly as I scurried into the kitchen to see if she was there. She wasn’t. I went back and stared at the tiny helping. I was hungry. I finally came around and took a spoonful, she had warmed it. But I couldn’t bring myself to go on, and I put the spoon back. ‘Mom, where are you?’ I asked in my mind.
I had since stopped going to Tony’s place when I heard his mother whisper to her lady friend who had visited that my mother had gotten pregnant with me while she was in high school. She said her parents had disowned her. ‘What of his dad?’ the lady had asked derogatorily? ‘Hmm…’ I heard Tony’s mom begin but never got to hear the last part, the part I desperately hoped to. I wanted to tell mom about it but it felt unseemly to bring up the subject. One day, however, as I was doing my homework, and as she was doing her crochet work, I mustered some courage. ‘Do I have a dad?’ I asked. She gave me an intent but soft and kind unflinching look, then finally said, ‘of course you do.’ ‘Where is he? Why don’t we live with him.’ She looked a little startled by the question, and after a little silence, began, ‘well…’ then she hesitated, and quickly added reassuringly, ‘I will tell you when you are older.’ ‘Aren’t I, now?’ I asked a little disappointed. ‘You are.’ She said, now smiling. ‘Then?’ I battled on, but she only gave me a blank stare that seemed to request me to give up the prodding.
I knew I was now late, and as soon as I got home, I would just give her the sandwich and run back to school. I didn’t want to be made to mop the whole staff room again. ‘Where were you?’ I imagined Sandra asking me when I came back to class, having missed the first afternoon lesson. Almost unconsciously, I found myself reminiscing the events at school today morning. ‘Hi Dan?’ Sandra and mom, were the only girls who called me Dan. ‘Good morning Sandra.’ ‘I brought you a sandwich.’ ‘Oh. Why?’ ‘You don’t want it?’ ‘I do.’ She stretched out her arm to hand me the lunch box. Sandra was always kind. While most of my other classmates were either repelled or were indifferent to my existence, she was the only person who seemed to take notice of me. She was also very pretty. She was, in fact, the prettiest girl in my class. And the brightest. She clearly wanted to get close to me, but it had been impossible because I was always very difficult to lay a hold of. I was also not so good company.
I think I liked Sandra. But how could I tell her I did? ‘Maybe she likes me,’ the thought had crossed my mind several times. ‘No, she’s just being nice,’ I would remind myself. Furthermore, it was not as if I was exactly sure what my feelings for her really were. And I don’t think a poor boy like myself was allowed to fall in love with a beautiful girl like Sandra. Most times, I wanted to greet her, and feel her skin rub on my own, but I could never bring myself to giving her my dirty hands. What if I infected her with some unknown virus that would get her sick and kill her? I enjoyed her company, but I was always avoiding her, and I think that most times, I made the poor little angel confused. Several times, she had caught me staring, and she would smile, I would turn away, or look down, mortified.
‘Can I visit you?’ She asked me once. ‘Visit me?’ I startled. ‘Yes, or you don’t want me to?’ ‘Of course! One day.’ I said in defense. ‘Promise?’ ‘I promise.’ I said smiling and remembered the time she had brought me twelve new exercises book after she noticed I had picked the books my classmates had disposed and was doing my writing in the remaining empty pages. She brought me several pencils as well. I had felt really awkward afterwards and had almost rejected all that stationery. She would have none of my excuses. ‘You need them Dan,’ she finally declared to bring the expostulation to an end. Surely I needed them. But I began to avoid her. Wasn’t it the man who was supposed to give a lady gifts? No one had told me that explicitly but it felt right that way. It’s the man who gives. Not the lady. ‘How is Sandra?’ I remember mom asking me one time. I had never expected someone asking me such a question, least of all my mom. But as it turns out, mothers are usually the first people to know that we are in love. ‘She’s fine, I guess.’ My mom smiled. That kind of smile that seems to say a lot.
As I ran home, with the sandwich in my hand, I thought of no one else but my mom. And Sandra. Maybe my mom would be glad to know that it was Sandra who had given me the sandwich. Maybe she would smile, and tease me a little bit. Maybe, even if for a moment, her face would lighten up, and the gloom and despondency would fade for a while. ‘I will become a doctor, and build you a beautiful house, mom. And after I build my own house as well, I will ask Sandra to marry me.’ As I indulged these beautiful aspirations, felt something heavy hit me on my side and then sweep me off the ground. I was airborne for a moment and then, almost immediately, I was back on the ground. I think I heard some cracking sounds during the impact, but I didn’t feel anything particularly. I tried to rise up; I could not. I think I started to make sense of what had happened when I heard some disturbing shrieks and desperate wailing.
‘Amemgonga.’
‘Mungu wangu!’
‘Uwiii!’
‘Amekufa?’
‘Is he alive?’
I was still holding on to the sandwich. I began to feel some pain. ‘Mom,’ I whispered. And then everything went blank.
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