In the third week of November, Mundia and I got together with our friends and headed out of town for the weekend. Most of us met up separately in the course of the year. Noni and I had coffee when I wasn’t on tour, and if Jill was in town all three of us would get together for brunch or wine parties or shopping. That hardly ever happened though, since Jill worked at the Kenyan consulate in Arusha and didn’t travel back often. Mundia met up with Waita and Leilei regularly but we never hung out as a group unless there was a wedding, a wake or a weekend getaway. 

I was assigned the role of destination plug, being the only one with the contacts to get insider holiday deals. By default, a large portion of the planning also fell to me. Every year I try to rent a cottage, tree house or villa in a place we’ve never been and each time the group frustrates me with some excuse or other. It’s too long a drive, or there aren’t enough activities for the kids, or some people are not available on the dates given. We always end up at the same types of places doing the same types of activities — camping by a water body somewhere not more than two hours away from the city. 

That particular weekend, we wound up at a camp on the shores of Lake Elementaita. We took Mundia’s work pick-up because Kilonzo had the cruiser on tour, and I was in no shape to drive anyway. Any other day, not being the designated driver would’ve been great. I have always envied being able to drink and let loose on a road trip, but I had just started a course of antibiotics. Also, we had Noni and her six-year-old son in the back, and he was a fussy traveller. 

***

The antibiotics were occasioned by a series of boils I developed the day I got back from my parents’ house. I woke up with a lump on my armpit that grew taut and painful as the day went on until that evening, when it popped. Another one swelled on a different spot and two more broke out on the other armpit in a matter of days. I read online that boils could be treated with antiseptic and a warm compress at home, and that was all the permission I needed to put off seeing a doctor. 

The one time I asked Mundia to help me clean and dress them he looked at the oozing mess and said, “I think you should get this cleaned by a nurse,” and I said, “Never mind then, I’ll do it myself.”

It turned out to be quite convenient, his aversion and fear that the discharge might be infectious. It gave me cover for sleeping in the other room without it being a whole ordeal. Then the damn things broke out on my groin and I regretted not getting treatment earlier. 

At the clinic, the doctor asked a whole lot of questions about my diet and lifestyle — did I smoke or drink — the nature of my job, sleeping habits and sexual health. I try to eat a good meal when I can but sometimes it’s a sandwich and an energy drink at a rest stop. No, I do not smoke. Yes, I drink wine on occasion. Mostly wine, sometimes rum. My job involves sitting for long hours but also hiking, walking and hauling luggage. I sometimes have trouble sleeping. No, I would not say I always feel well rested. Well, back pain and muscle aches for obvious reasons. Some shortness of breath, yes. Tightness in the chest and palpitations. No hot flushes, no. Eeer, is that relevant? Right, well, it’s been a while. Seven months. Just busy I guess. Too much work and travel. 

It got to the point where I started to think that he was just up for a chat. Perhaps winding down the clock until his shift ended. Then in a solemn voice he announced that my blood pressure was alarmingly high and that the boils were likely enabled by a weakened immune system. 

“You’re not managing your stress well,” he accused. 

I stared at him sheepishly, not knowing what the right response was. I never know what to say when doctors admonish me for being ill. He spent another ten minutes explaining to me how the caffeine and sugar in energy drinks was messing with my blood pressure, exacerbating stress and anxiety, and why I had to cut them out of my diet. 

“Drink water, exercise, eat fruits and vegetables and you won’t need a caffeine crutch to get through a long drive. I think you’ll find that even a cup of tea will be sufficient to keep you alert,” he said. 

Apparently he was actually treating the patient, not just the symptoms. It had been so long since I’d been treated by such a keen doctor; I forgot they still existed. We scheduled a follow-up appointment before he sent me off with a prescription for antibiotics and a wound dressing kit. 

I did not tell him that weeks before I had tried to sever my marriage and been thwarted. That for the first time in my life, I was not speaking to my parents. And that my husband was blissfully unaware that I had decided to act upon my unhappiness. It was kinetic now, had been for a while, and would soon crush him with a might like that of a boulder racing down a hill. That too was giving me sleepless nights, but I would lay off the energy drinks as recommended. 

***

The night I broke the news to my mother, she was kneading chapati dough in the kitchen. This was an opportune time to do it in the event that I upset her; she could take it out on the dough. Dad was watching the evening news and Mark was bimbling around the house with his phone, doing Mark things. Likely on a stack exchange forum reading about video game cheat codes or bonding over game logic with other gaming bros on Reddit. 

I told my mother that Mundia and I were not getting along, although I had a hard time explaining what was wrong. What were the irreconcilable differences? What was it that could not be surmounted with perseverance? Everything I considered saying sounded lousy. 

“We’ve grown apart,” I said, knowing how flat that sounded but unable to deliver anything more effervescent. 

“Why? What’s happened?” she asked. 

“No one thing. It’s been that way for some time now.” I never went to her with those kinds of problems, so I hoped she would understand that whatever I was failing to elucidate was indeed dire.

She said that all marriages have rough stretches and that growing apart could be remedied. “If you are faltering, you should renew your vows. Or better yet, do what everyone else does and have a baby. Children bring joy to a home. You’ve left it too long already.” 

Ah. Of course, those were the kinds of solutions I could expect from my mother — doubling down and doubling down. Having  a baby or even inviting people to a vain and gratuitous exhibition of our love were things that would’ve excited me three or four years before, but right then, they filled me with dread. The very mention of them made me want to bolt out of the room. 

“Aren’t vow renewals like for people in their fifties?” 

“They’re for people of any age who want to recommit to each other.” 

I had been outstretched for too long, overextended even. I yearned to gather myself, to fold my wings back into my body, arrange myself in a tree hollow, tuck my feet under my tail feathers, and roost. I did not wish to reenact a courtship dance, engage in a cloacal kiss or bring forth a fledgling. 

“I’m too tired for any of that,” I said. 

“So take time off work,” she said. 

I was certain that she understood me perfectly, and that her choice to address the wrong problem was a deliberate misdirection. She was trying to trick me out of the path I was on. This was an art she had mastered, convincing me that a problem had dissolved by solving an alternate problem of her own creation. It usually started with the words ‘let me tell you what your real problem is’ and had the effect of muting, infantilizing and enraging me in one go. 

“Work is not the problem, Mom! Ugh, you never listen to me. I don’t even know what possessed me to think that you would be supportive. You never have been,” I said.  

“We can’t have any kind of meaningful conversation when you are this emotional. We’ll talk about it when you’ve calmed down.”

Five minutes in and she’d successfully baited me into a juvenile outburst and shut me down. I don’t know how she triggered this regression to petulance and the shame that followed. Maybe it was something about being in my childhood home. I couldn’t help myself.  

Mark, oblivious of the fact that I had just had words with Mom, came clomping down the wooden stairs triumphantly. Apparently he’d found photographic evidence of his childhood trip to Michigan and this exciting news put my Harman Kardon back in play. It was turning into an eventful evening in the Ngatia household. I followed him to the living room, eager to prove that he had indeed been wrong. 

“Dad, who is this in the picture?” Mark asked. 

My father put on his reading glasses and held the picture up to the light. “Where did you get this?” 

“In Mom’s things,” he said. 

“Well, put it back. Your mother won’t like you going through her things.” 

“I will. But who is it in the picture? Is it me?” Mark asked. 

“No,” Dad sighed. “That picture was taken in Michigan and you’ve never been to Michigan, have you?” 

“So it’s not me?” 

“Why don’t you wait for your mother to finish cooking? Then you can ask her,” he said, picking up a newspaper to signal that he was done with the conversation.  

Mark and I exchanged a look. If it made Dad that uncomfortable, there would be no talking about it with Mom. 

“You tell us,” I said. “Why does it say ‘me and son’ on the back?”

He folded the newspaper and took off his glasses but did not set them down. Mark put the TV on mute and the house fell into an uneasy silence. 

“I suppose you’re old enough to know now. You wouldn’t remember this, but your mother left us when you were very young. You, Ceera, were about three years old and Mark was not yet born. I used to drive for Somak those days and your mother worked in a ticketing office at the airport. So that’s how we met, and we had you when we were very young. Because of my work schedule, I was away most of the time. It was very challenging for your mother. And on top of that I liked to drink. I liked my umqombothi.”

“What’s mkomboti?” Mark asked. 

“Umqombothi,” Dad and I laughed. “It’s African beer.” 

“What? What’s funny?” 

“It’s an inside joke for oldies,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“This was the tour industry in the 90s. It was impossible to say no to a good time. What I didn’t know was how alcohol had torn through your mother’s family — she told me, but I did not fully grasp it — so I resisted her when she said I had to stop drinking. She has lost her father, uncles and two brothers to it. You know this.”

And here he went on a tangent, lecturing Mark about what his aimlessness and drinking did to my mother. It turned quite sombre, so much so that we sorely regretted having brought it up. I felt compelled to save Mark but I also knew that he needed to hear everything that was said. From the kitchen, the sound of sizzling oil and aroma of chapati reached us. It was not a big house, and I guessed that my mother could hear everything. 

“Anyway, your Mother had always wanted to travel. It happens that way when your job is selling tickets; you wish to travel too. She ended up in Michigan and started a new life there. I don’t know all the details myself, but she was there for over two years. And so the person in that picture is your step-brother.” 

Of course! The seven-year gap between Mark and I. The fact that I’d always been closer to Dad. That memory I had of picking my Mom up from the airport. It was real, and the feeling I had, that I had to be well-behaved for her, was because I was afraid she might leave again. Even in my adulthood, I still met my mother with an apprehension I could not explain. Her abandonment, short lived as it was, must’ve imprinted on my subconscious. 

I have always been self-reliant, but perhaps that was because I feared that she was not dependable? It would be an obsolete fear now — my mother was anything but flaky — but without knowing the true origin of my fear, I could not have addressed it. Somewhere in the softness of my flesh, its roots had anchored. And what about Mark? Was my mothering him an extension of this fear or was that just another first born thing? 

“What’s his name?” Mark asked. 

“Matthew.” 

“Ha! If you’d had another boy, would his name have been Luke?” I joked despite myself. 

“You’ll have to ask your mother that. I have already told you more than I should have.”

“Wait. What happened to him? How did you get back together?” 

“Well, we already had you, and a girl needs her mother. But again, as for the details, your mother will share with you if she wishes.” 

We could not squeeze anymore out of him that night. Mark and I texted for hours afterwards, trying to make sense of it all. We thought we could find our stepbrother online if I’d thought to ask for a last name instead of making that inane joke. I stayed up till the small hours coming to terms with what this meant for me, personally. Yes, it was true. Women do turn into their mothers as they age. I would not be the first to abandon my nest in pursuit of happiness — my mother had done it before me. 

Presumably, she’d returned because she’d been burned out there, which all but assured me that she would not approve of me doing the same. 

Therefore, if I was to end my marriage, if I was to have any chance at the life I desired, it would have to be an act of disobedience. An act of rebellion. There was no easy way to do it. I would have to get comfortable being a rogue one.

***

To be continued…