Baba Margaret got out of bed to start the day despite not having slept. He now had first-hand experience with the cruelty of life. He’d lost his wife, yet the world went on and expected him to show up too. He needed to deal with the bank. He organised the documentation needed before making his way there.
“Mzee are you okay?” That was the voice of the bank personnel. A few more people were surrounding him. He had fainted.
“Sir,” another called to him.
“Some water?” The first one offered.
“Are you okay?” They kept asking.
Baba Margaret only had one thing on his mind—Mama Margaret’s bank account.
“I’m fine. Please show me those details again,” said Baba Margaret.
They did.
“Are you sure this is her account?” Baba Margaret asked.
“Yes. Is there a problem?” Asked the bank personnel.
Baba Margaret held his head and broke down. The bank personnel didn’t know how to react, so he handed Baba Margaret a serviette as he looked around to see who he’d call if this took a turn.
“Are you okay?” He asked.
It took a while for Baba Margaret to find his voice. He had so many questions and a myriad of emotions. Mama Margaret had died in her sleep. She’d only complained of a headache the previous night before sleeping to shake it off, and she never woke up.
He was still coming to terms with her absence, but now he felt anger creeping in. It wasn’t because he was in that stage of grief where anger is the dominant emotion, but because of what he had just discovered.
He wrapped up the meeting at the bank and headed out. His head was spinning. Home felt like the best place to go to. His two kids, Margaret and Kevin, were at school, so he had the house to himself. He went to their bedroom and started taking apart Mama Margaret’s stuff. He needed to know what else she had been hiding from him.
“Who was I married to?” He repeatedly asked himself.
What he was looking for wasn’t in the documents she meticulously organised. Then he found deposit slips inside one of her coats. It was so old he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her in it. Even robbers wouldn’t think of stealing that one. He kept looking through her clothes. There was some money in a number of them. It felt like he was going through a drug dealer’s closet to find hidden cash.
He didn’t realise how much time had passed until there was a knock on the door. It was his sister. She’d come with some food to ease his mourning and transition to being a widower.
“Baba Margaret, are you okay?” She asked after seeing him.
“I don’t know who I was married to,” he said.
“Why would you say that?” She asked.
“Yani, we have suffered as she watched and pretended there was nothing she could do?”
“What are you talking about?” Asked his sister.
“Forget about me, but she also watched her children suffering and did nothing about it? They cried for weeks when I couldn’t pay for their school trips or buy them the shoes they wanted. If I tell you the things we have eaten in this house because of my financial struggles, you wouldn’t believe it. Lakini hata si mimi kama watoto wake. She just let them suffer, yet she had millions in the bank? Millions, my sister, millions,” said Baba Margaret bitterly.
The sister changed her sitting posture. She was equally shocked because she knew about some of the struggles they’d had. Baba Margaret had borrowed her money quite often and was often unable to repay her on time.
“Why are women like this? Are you also hiding such things from your husband?” Baba Margaret asked her.
His sister’s posture changed again. He got his answer although his question was rhetorical. The kids were back from school. He didn’t have the heart to tell them what he thought was their mother’s betrayal of them, but he got some consolation in knowing the money would ease their lives.
Check out more stories
Her Husband’s Death Revealed Another Side Of Him
She Thought His Death Was An Accident Until She Found The Note
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts.