it’s unacceptable for me to attend over Facetime.’
…
‘...scared I guess?’
…
‘...no one’s called me that since I left for A-levels, and I just know that when I go home everyone will.’
‘Why do you think they will?’
‘I’m still Kanono,’ she’d said, gesturing to her body.
‘Does it bother you?’
‘When I’m here no, I don’t…not in the way it used to…but then no one is going around calling me that all day.’
Nyambura’s self-appointed exile had begun with promise. She scrupulously avoided photos, quickly untagged herself from pictures that displayed more than her face and shoulders, learnt to contour away the pounds on her face; all of this so that she could create an illusion of a thinner Nyambura. Ah, but then she rediscovered the stage, her love of comedy and story-telling––the highlight of her childhood in Malaba had been the Christmas Nativity Play after all. Now her entire body was preserved in videos you could search online to ascertain that whilst Kanono seemed to be enjoying some relative success as a comedian (what sort of career was that?), she had not lost the weight.
~
There was one thing she had been looking forward to, seeing her childhood best friend Esther Karanja again. As a matter of fact, when her aunty cornered her upon re-entry to the hall, Nyambura had just come back from the parking lot, where an odd exchange had taken place. She had been under the impression that they were going to go out for drinks after the reception wrapped up. This impression was encouraged by the fact that they’d had a wonderful time catching up over lunch, at least Nyambura thought it had been wonderful.
When the aunties walked into the reception hall, Nyambura had just come back from the bathroom to find Esther’s sit empty. When one of the aunties spotted her looking around as if she were trying to find someone among their guests, the someone had been Esther. So when Mrs. Karanja (Esther’s mother), took her aunties under her wing and guided them to a table, Nyambura had taken the opportunity of a freed up door to go in search of Esther. Perhaps she’d gone out for some fresh air, or she’d gotten a call and needed privacy to answer it, Nyambura had reasoned on behalf of her childhood best friend.
Nyambura found Esther at the parking lot rifling through her handbag for her car keys.
‘Ess?’ Nyambura called out.
Esther looked up in surprise then her features distorted into what Nyambura was sure was dismay.
‘You’re leaving now?’
‘Uh…yeah…I have to meet someone…’
‘Oh. I didn’t realise you were leaving so early. Your mum is still here,’ Nyambura said pointing back in the direction of the hall. Esther looked that way as well, an unsettling look on her face, as if she were hiding something and she knew Nyambura was warming up to it.
‘She…the driver will pick her later.’ Esther shifted her stance. ‘It was good seeing you again,’ she offered.
‘Yeah, I was thinking that maybe we could get that coffee––’
‘I don’t know, it’s a really busy time right now…’
‘I get that, it’s just...it’s been years.’
Esther nodded as if she was just now processing how long it had been since they’d seen each.
‘Um…okay…maybe let’s try for next week… I’ll call you.’ she opened her car door then remembering to do so, gave Nyambura a quick hug before jumping into the car.
~
Nyambura was still trying to make sense of the bizarre encounter when she ran into her aunt. She tried to shake off her aunt’s grip but it only tightened.
‘And where is your other sister? I haven’t seen Nyambura anywhere here. Or are you people still not taking care of your father’s daughter?’
Nyambura pulled harder to back away, but her aunt’s vice-like grip did not falter. Her father’s daughter. Nyambura’s mouth was suddenly dry. Her father’s daughter. She bit the inside of her cheek.
On her last visit to her therapist before her flight, Dr. Theobald had asked her, ‘Is there anything else that is concerning you about your impending trip?’
‘Yes, apparently I have to take anti-malaria medicine to visit my home because I’ve been away for so long, the mosquitoes won’t recognize me.’
…
‘...uh...no. I mean no. Nothing really.’
Nothing really had a name: Nyambura. Her father had given the child he got out of an affair the same name as her. Nyambura was named after his mother, like all first-born Kikuyu daughters are named after their father’s mother. He had given her name to the other child.
She was fifteen when she found out. Ironically, it was in the middle of a blistering argument with her mother. Nyambura wanted to go hang-out at Village Market with a group of friends from school. Well, they were not friendships so much as they were acquaintances, but Nyambura hoped that if she hang-out with them often enough they’d start calling her to see what she was up to, instead of the other way around where she always did the ringing, and they did the reluctant giving of hang-out details.
Beatrice, to her credit, knew that the friendship dynamics with Nyambura’s chosen group of friends was off and in her own Beatrice-like way she was trying to protect her daughter (and atone for all the times she had not). ‘You are not going to loiter in the streets as if you are homeless!’ she’d exclaimed. They argued all morning and when Kanyi interrupted to ask if Nyambura was going to seek a divorce from her last remaining parent, Nyambura had rather ungraciously, screamed that she wished it was Beatrice who had died not her father.
‘Papa didn’t die. He got lost,’ Kanyi said as he flopped back onto the sofa and pressed play on his Tony Hawk (Pro Skater 3), game.
Beatrice’s hand was halfway to Nyambura’s cheek when the doorbell rang. Priscilla, still an employee of the Mathai household, shouted ‘kuna mtu kwa gate, somebody go open it,’ from the kitchen where she was snuggled in a cosy rattan chair, engrossed in a Danielle Steele novel. Exasperated with having to pause his game, Kanyi got up and went to open the gate. Nyambura and her mother kept talking over one another with no one to do the listening.
The woman who walked into their home must have been in her early thirties, maybe late twenties, yet, she looked as if life had done its best with her and spat her back out. There was a child by her side. You know these things, you’ve heard these stories. Nothing new here, nothing new here. A little girl of seven years, a replica of Mr. Mathai. Nyambura staggered back. Beatrice’s jaw slackened, Priscilla (ever an ear for a story), exclaimed ‘Haiya!’ the moment she laid eyes on the girl.
Financial agreements (you understand the nature of these things), were made by Beatrice to take care of the child and her mother. Nyambura was also allowed to go to Village Market that day.
That was the month before she was due to travel to the U.K. to begin her A-levels. The month before her nine year self imposed exile. Now, Nyambura wondered, did the aunties always know about this other child?
‘My name is also Nyambura,’ she said eventually.
‘Yes, but Nyambura is the thin one,’ Her aunt said as her eyes combed the room, looking for her sisters.
CHAPTER NINE
Beatrice and Mrs. Mutiso, August 4th, 2012
Mrs. Mutiso was walking out of the hall when she passed Nyambura and overheard Mr. Mathai’s sister ask her where Nyambura, her step-sister was. She stopped, considering if she should interrupt and rescue Nyambura from her aunt. As she was about to do so, Kelly Brown’s