Chapter Four: Baby, You Made Me Crazy

It was a remarkably unremarkable day. There were no premonitions, or unsettling feelings. No glass photo frames hitting the ground and shattering dramatically. No ominous sound effects to set the scene, or alert the viewer that the oblivious blonde girl walking unassumingly into the dark room won't make it out. It was so ordinary that in Mumbi's memory the entirety of that morning was a series of blurred out shapes and distant voices. Life can be cruel that way - you often never know when things are about to change irrevocably until after they do, and you spend your days racking your brain for the moment it all went horribly wrong.

At least Mumbi did. That day, and everyday after.

It was a hot, humid Saturday in January. The air was stiff and Mumbi remembered her clothes clinging to her body for dear life, despite all the windows in their house being wide open. Her parents had both left for work bright and early and she was tasked with looking after her baby sister whilst Joyce, their cleaning lady, took care of the house. She recalled how care-free Shiru was, as she trotted along the corridors, with her stuffed brown dog that she carried everywhere. She didn't seem to feel the heat, she was just happy to have her sister around to play with. Shiru was very smart, and much more perceptive than most two year old's. Without Mumbi saying a word, she had picked up on her big sister's discomfort and set out on a near-impossible mission to cheer her up. Waddling with little balance, Shiru had made her way to Mumbi who was sprawled hopelessly on the leather living room couch.

"Bi," Shiru said, looking up expectantly at her personal hero, "Pay?"

It took Shiru a few more tries for Mumbi to grasp what she was trying to say. She wasn't as gifted a communicator as her sister had been at that age. With a reluctant grunt, Mumbi dragged herself off the couch to see what games Shiru had in mind that day. In the back of her mind, she already knew what it would be. Shiru was many things, most especially, she was a creature of extreme habit. At dinner time, she wanted her specific plate and spoon, she had her bath at nearly the same time every day, she played with one doll until every fiber came loose, and given the chance she would wear the same white onesie with smiling sunflowers everyday. Mumbi knew that it would be hide and seek today, as it had been every weekend before that. Shiru would always hide in the same place too - the nook behind the curtains in Mumbi's room. Mumbi would always tear apart the entirety of the upstairs rooms 'looking' for Shiru as noisily and thoroughly as she could, and Shiru would never be able to stifle her high-pitched giggles that rippled through the whole house.

Today was no different. Save for the fact that Mumbi searched hurriedly, in an effort to expend as little energy as possible in the crippling heat. She made her way quickly to her bedroom and immediately saw her sister's tiny body silhouetted against the adjacent wall. She called her name out loudly and dramatically, and Shiru shrieked in genuine surprise that for once Mumbi had found her almost immediately. She peered over the curtain, drawing it back enough so only a solitary eye glanced quickly over Mumbi. As their eyes met, Shiru, feeling that this game had not achieved it's desired effect, drew the heavy curtains back with all her might, and darted stealthily past Mumbi and towards the open door. It was almost cartoon-like, her giggles as she took tiny wobbly steps, and the "whoosh" sound Mumbi was sure she heard as Shiru sprinted by as only a toddler could. She remembered reaching out to try and catch her, which only amplified the sound of Shiru's giggles and shrill shrieks of pure joy.

Despite her inhibitions and the heat that made her body feel like it was twice it's weight, Mumbi gave chase. She found Shiru worming her way around the upstairs corridor, heaving doors open as she went by. Mumbi trotted lazily behind her, before realising that this new game would only end if she caught her sister. She picked it up into a gallop, before breaking out into a full on sprint to try and catch Shiru who kept wriggling past her. Soon, they were just running around in circles, both panting breathlessly, and laughing maniacally. After a few minutes, Mumbi decided to put an end to the madness.

"Shiru, ni hivyo...let's go...sit down," she managed to say, struggling for air.

Shiru, shaking her head vigorously, continued to sprint circles around Mumbi, refusing to let this gleeful moment end. With a frustrated sigh, Mumbi pulled herself up off the floor where she was laying in a crumpled heap trying to teach her lungs how to work again. Had she known, she might have savoured that moment more. Pure, unadulterated, child-like, joy. A joy she would not feel again.

That was the moment. The spark that ignited the wildfire that set their lives ablaze. The cruel seconds before everything changed involved nothing more than her getting up off that floor. It was something she could not cast out of her memory. And when she thought of that exact moment, she always wished she had continued laying there until Shiru had tired herself out.

But she hadn't. She had gotten up off the floor and lunged at her sister in an effort to grab hold of her hand. Somehow, Shiru had slipped through, still laughing and oblivious to the danger a few steps behind her. Neither of them had realised just how close she had crept to the top of the staircase that loomed behind her tiny frame. Mumbi, with one last exasperated charge had tried again to grab Shiru, but Shiru had backed away from her outstretched arms and into the awaiting jagged ones of the tiled stairs. She had tumbled backwards in slow motion for what felt like an eternity. Mumbi could only watch helplessly as her little sister's eyes widened and her own fixated on Shiru with inexplicable terror. When Shiru had hit the first stair it only sped up her descent down the rest. Rolling over almost half of the stairs, she had finally come to a stop on the landing that separated the top and bottom halves of their staircase.

The worst part of the ordeal for Mumbi wasn't the fall, or her own inability to stop it - it was the silence. Piercing and haunting, Shiru's giggles had been replaced by the sound of absolute, all-encompassing silence. As she fell, she did not scream, she did not cry, she didn't even call out to anyone. It always felt to Mumbi as if her sister had placed such an unshakeable trust in her, that even as she tumbled uncontrollably, she was not afraid because Mumbi was there.

Mumbi remembered how she had rushed down the stairs, praying with every step she took. She had found Shiru crumpled in a small heap, blood gushing from a big wound on the back of her scalp. For a second, she was relieved that Shiru was not conscious because then, at least she couldn't feel the pain that was unimaginable for a two-year-old to bare. Mumbi had picked her up in her arms instinctively and carried her screaming for Joyce, and anyone within a 5 kilometer radius. Her steps had been so effortless, her strength comparable only to the Hulk's, her screams loud enough to rouse the dead. In her mind's eye she always imagined what a sight she was when Joyce came running up to them - clothes painted red by Shiru's profuse bleeding and eyes covered in tears that dripped onto the smiling sunflowers.

Beyond that, her memory was fuzzy. She had very little recollection of the neighbour who had come rushing to their aid, or the drive to the hospital. She saw the faint outlines of the nurses who had pried Shiru from her arms, and how white they were from gripping her sister with all the strength she could muster. She didn't know when, or how, her parents had gotten there and found her shuddering and sobbing, absolutely inconsolable and unable to utter a single coherent statement. Her dad had wrapped his arms around her and offered little more respite with his pacifying words than Joyce had in the hour they had been at the hospital.

The one thing that she could never forget, in spite of her best efforts, was the look in her mother's eyes. When her parents had arrived, her mother had been unable to look at her, let alone touch her. She had instantly sought out the doctors for information on Shiru, and on hearing it had spun around and made eye contact with Mumbi for the first time that afternoon. It had not been sadness, or disappointment, or shock, or even fear, as she had seen in her father's eyes. It was a look that she had never seen from her mother in the years of getting looked past or facing disapproving glances. It was one of resolute, unmistakable, and unrelenting contempt. And she had held Mumbi's gaze until Mumbi averted her eyes in shame and broke out into a fresh fit of tears.