Daniel did not speak until they reached their small house on the lower shamba.
Wairimu and Mumbi went to fetch water.
Nyambura stopped them.
“Stay. Daniel will go.”
Daniel turned.
“Me?”
“Is carrying water shameful?”
He returned with the jerrycan and shut the door.
“What has happened to you?”
Nyambura arranged the receipts.
“I am tired.”
“Everybody is tired after a funeral.”
“Not only today.”
He defended Mama Ruth. She had suffered during marriage and now wanted to keep the family together.
“By giving Samuel the productive land and giving us debt?”
“Samuel stayed close to home.”
“I worked here for ten years.”
“You are my wife. What I receive belongs to us.”
Nyambura asked whose name appeared on the lower land.
Daniel’s.
Who controlled the coffee share?
Samuel.
The shop?
Samuel.
The debt?
Daniel and household.
“And where am I?”
“My wife.”
“That is not a place on the title.”
Daniel promised they could improve the poor land together. He would make furniture. Nyambura would manage milk and food.
It was the first life repeating itself.
She refused.
“Then what do you want? All the upper land?”
“Valuation, labour credit, clear title, and protected school fees.”
“Too many words.”
“My life also has many parts.”
Nyambura placed a blank sheet before him.
“Write that you support independent valuation. Write that the girls will not leave school for family work. Write that you reject debt without the asset. Write that my labour will be recorded.”
Daniel laughed in disbelief.
“I am your husband. Why should I write?”
“Because you are my husband.”
He called written promises an insult between spouses.
“The family wrote an agreement giving me debt without my name.”
Daniel asked for more time.
He had already had ten years.
She opened the storage box and packed clothes, schoolbooks, her mother’s cooking pots, a knife, sewing tools, and the receipts.
Daniel stood.
“Where are you going?”
“Thika. Rose has a room near her school.”
“Without me?”
“You may come when you know where you stand.”
Mama Ruth entered with Esther.
“The girls remain here. You may go alone.”
“They are my children too.”
“They are Mwangi daughters.”
Wairimu stepped forward.
“I am going with Mama.”
Mama Ruth slapped her.
The room froze.
Daniel cried, “Mama!”
Nyambura pulled Wairimu behind her.
“Do not hit her again.”
“She answered an elder.”
“You are the adult.”
Mama Ruth forced the question.
“Daniel, choose your wife or your family.”
In Nyambura’s first life, Daniel always refused the choice. He called that fairness. Nyambura paid the cost.
This time Daniel said:
“Nyambura, do not leave today. We will solve it.”
He did not say his mother was wrong.
He did not say the children would go with Nyambura.
He said only: do not leave.
Peace again.
Nyambura packed the sweaters.
She gave Daniel Rose’s address and a written visitation plan. She asked him to record the school money he would send.
He refused to write an amount.
At the gate, he called her name.
“I will speak to Mother.”
“When you do, write what you said.”
“You are making me a stranger.”
“No. I am making you responsible.”
Nyambura and the girls walked to the junction and waited for a crowded matatu to Thika.
Daniel remained at the gate.
When the vehicle pulled away, Mumbi asked:
“Will Baba come?”
“I do not know.”
Wairimu touched her bruised cheek.
“But we are going to school?”
“Yes.”
“And you will not send us to Aunt Esther?”
“No.”
For the child, that promise became the first room in the new home Nyambura was building.