Kimberly kissed her husband again and again. She could never get enough of him. Everything seemed like a dream come true. “I love you,” she whispered into his ears.
“I love you too,” he replied, “and our baby.” He held her very pregnant stomach.
“Me too,” she said lovingly. “And I love being Mrs. Mubarak.”
He kissed her lightly on her nose. “Thank you for being my wife, even if it was just for a short while.”
“What do you mean?” She raised her head to look at his face and her voice was filled with fear and concern, somehow she knew where this was going. She felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu.
“Goodbye Kimberly. Take care of our baby.”
“No! wait! Hussein!” She screamed but he was not listening. He was already at the door.
“I love you,” he said, “but I must leave you.” He closed the door and locked it.
This was her worst fear materialising right before her eyes. It was her worst nightmare. She pounded on the door as panic seized every fibre of her being. She pounded and pounded harder. She was still pounding when she heard somebody yelling her name. Her eyes flew open.
Someone was knocking on her door. Kimberly closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. That did not slow down her heart which was pounding so furiously in her chest that she thought it might break free any moment. It’s just a dream, she said slowly to herself. It’s just a bad dream. This had become her comforting mantra after the nightmares for the three weeks that she had been home. Different nightmares with the same elements which always ended with the same outcome. Hussein always left her. It was as if her subconsciousness was trying to imprint on her mind something that she already knew.
The knocking on her door persisted. “Kimberly,” her mum called, “are you awake?”
She took a moment to steady her breath before she replied. “Yes, mum, just a minute.” She looked at the clock on the wall. It was just a few minutes past eight. What was her mother doing up so early in the morning? She took in another deep breath and went to open the door. “Good morning, mum.”
“You mean afternoon.” Mabel raised the tray she was holding with both hands and walked inside while Kimberly held the door open. She closed the door after her mother.
“It’s just eight o clock.” Kimberly pointed to the clock on the wall.
“That clock has been eight o clock for the past two weeks. Didn’t you notice it?”
“No.” The truth was that she barely noticed anything around her lately. “For how long did I sleep?”
“I lost count of time after you woke up the third time.”
“The third time?”
“Yes. Sit down.” Kimberly sat on her bed and her mum sat by her. “You kept slipping in and out of sleep. When did you wake up to lock the door?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you’ve been murmuring in your sleep. You never did that before.”
“What did I say?”
“Mostly unintelligible words with a lot of sorrys.” Mabel did not add the number of times she had heard Kimberly mention Hussein’s name. “What happened in Mapungi? You returned earlier than you said you would and since you arrived, you have never mentioned a word of the trip.”
“Can we talk about it some other time, please?”
Mabel sighed and uncovered the tray. “If that’s what you want. But you have to eat now.” She took the spoon and fed Kimberly. when Kimberly attempted to take the spoon, her mum said, “allow me.”
And she did. It had been so long since she had been treated like a child. She had not realised how much she missed it. Observing her mother now, she realised what a reversed life she had been living all these years. She had been playing mother to her mother. Kimberly did not realise she was crying till her mother wiped her tears and said, “don’t cry, my girl. Whatever happened in Mapungi, I know you will overcome it. You are a strong woman.”
Kimberly cried harder and hugged her mother. “I don’t know if I can, mum. I don’t think I’m strong enough to overcome it.”
“You will, pumpkin, and I will be by your side throughout. You don’t have to be strong alone, not any more. We will be strong together.” Kimberly stared at her mother. Was this another dream she would have to wake up from. Did it start like this and end in a nightmare like all the others? “I have been waiting for the right time to bring up this conversation,” Mabel said, “and I think the time is now.”
“What conversation?”
“In the weeks that you have been away, I have been doing a lot of thinking. Soul searching you could say. I think your trip was the wakeup call I needed. I have realised that I have been a very selfish and neglectful mother.”
“No –”
Mabel raised her hand and said, “let me finish. After your father disappeared without a trace, I thought I did not have a reason to go on living. He was my life and my light, and he was gone. I let my grief consume me at your expense. You were always such a strong girl even as a baby. You never cried and you never complained at the times when I expected you to. You were like the perfect daughter.
“So I convinced myself that you could take care of yourself without me. And then I let myself believe that you could take care of both of us. So I let you. I shifted my responsibilities to you because it was easier, and you managed so well that I began to believe that everything was as they were supposed to be. That night when you did not call to check up on me, I panicked. At first, it was not because I was worried that something had happened to you. I panicked because I thought the patterns were about to change and I was not ready for that. And then I panicked later because it occurred to me that something might have happened to you out there. Even then, I was worried about who would take care of me if something happened to you. It was very selfish of me.”
“Mum –”
“Let me finish, Kimberly. I have done a lot of soul searching and I do not want to continue with things as they are. That same night when I spoke to Hussein, that’s his name right?”
Kimberly nodded. Suddenly her throat was too tight with emotions and she could not speak.
“When I spoke to him, he mentioned things that had me thinking a lot. And he made me realise that my greatest mistake was not just neglecting you, but believing that my life without James was meaningless. Do you know why?”
Kimberly shook her head.
“Because my real purpose on earth is to live for Christ. Instead of Christ, I had made James the centre of my world. So when he left, the balance was shifted. I thought my life was meaningless but I was wrong. Now, I know that I have a lot to live for and even more to be thankful for. Over the days, Hussein and I spoke a lot on the phone and he helped me realise what I can do with my life.”
“I did not know you two had become best friends,” Kimberly said.
“No, we are not best friends but he is a good man. If he did not tell you about our conversations, it is because I asked him not to. I wanted to have this conversation with you myself.”
“Do you still keep in touch with him?”
“No. I’ve called him only once since you came home because I was worried about you. He only asked me to take care of you and told me that I would not be able to reach his line again because of matters he could not share with me. He did not give me an alternative number and I did not ask. I have decided to set up a charity with the church.”
“I think a charity foundation is a good idea.”
Mabel smiled. “I think so too and the women in the church are so nice. You should come with me sometime.”
“Sometime,” Kimberly said quickly. She might not be an atheist, but she was not in good terms with God either.
“I am glad that you went on that trip,” Mabel said.
That makes one of us, Kimberly thought. Aloud she said, “I’m happy that you are happy, mum.”
“Have you decided what you are going to do about BozCo? You have not been to work since you returned.”
“I am not going back.”
“Did you put in a letter already?”
“No,” Kimberly said. “I don’t intend to and I have decided that I don’t want Newton working there as vice president any longer.”
“Does that mean you are going to claim it?”
“No,” Kimberly said. There was always the possibility that her father would return. Though they never spoke about it, Kimberly knew that they both thought of it. “I will have a word with Bosman and ask him to remove his nephew.”
“I take it you two broke up then?”
“Yes, and I’m glad we did.”
“The truth is I never liked him for you either. He was too smooth.”
“Makes two of us,” Kimberly said and her mother laughed. “I like seeing you laugh,” she said.
Mabel took Kimberly’s hands in hers and said, “we will have more to laugh about. I promise you.”
The tears sprang to her eyes and this time she did not wipe them away. “I love you, mum. I’ve missed you so much.”
“I love you too, pumpkin.”
Over the days, Kimberly set a schedule for herself. Because her sleep was so fitful, she woke up as late as possible every morning and she had breakfast with her mother. Then she spent time revising her plans for the school. Her mother had been very pleased with the idea and made some very valuable suggestions. It felt good to be able to rely on her mother’s insights again. It was like a ray of light in a rather dark world.
More often than not, she found herself thinking about Hussein Mubarak Daniels. In the middle of revising her plans, she wondered if he was out in the field under the unrelenting Mapungi sun rounding cattle. Or was he having lunch prepared by Grace under the lunch tent? And at night before she fell into another haunted sleep, she wondered if he was standing on the veranda of the Big House looking into the dark still night. Did he think of her like she thought of him every day? Or had he forgotten her already? And could she blame him if he had? No, she could not. But it did not stop a piece of her heart from breaking any time she thought of it.
