Chapter One: Baby, baby, baby, NO!

On the day she was born, there was only a flurry of scurrying nurses, screaming mothers and squealing machines in the crowded labour ward. There was no fanfare, no father gazing lovingly at her little round face, or mother gently caressing the crown of her head. There was no time for celebration or ululation as was the tradition in the culture she would one day come to learn about. Her expectant eyes darted frantically across the room, met only by the nurse and midwife putting her in the open hospital crib,

It’s not that there wasn’t an abundance of joy that she had announced her presence on Earth that sunny Saturday afternoon, in the third week of January. It was just that in that moment, there was so much more going on in the hearts and minds of the people who gave her life. In fact, their very existence as a unit was hanging on by the threads of her scattered, jet black, springy, soft infant locks.

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At 7 months, Mumbi was sitting up with no support. She was calling out to her parents at 10 and a half months. Walking days after her first birthday. It’s as if she entered the world knowing she would need to grow up before her time.

She remembered very little about her early childhood. Only that her mother always seemed slightly detached from reality. Aloof almost. Not particularly sad, not quite happy. Just existing. She would work pretty much from dawn to dusk on most days. Aside from Sunday, of course. The Lord’s day was the one time her mother became a bit animated, and she spent every single one in Church since Mumbi could recall. Mumbi’s mum had been raised in the church; a perfect Sunday school attendance record, a youth leader at 19, a deacon at 30, and now a devoted member of the Women’s Ministry. Oftentimes, Mumbi wondered how her mother was capable of such devotion, when she had never been more than a fleeting apparition in her life.

Her mum was a vision, though. The kind of beauty that made Mumbi think her mother's detachment was because they were not even related. She had a long, slender face, framed by full, naturally arched brows and beautiful brown eyes with freckles of black and grey that were shrouded by long, delicate lashes. Her smile, though she didn't bring it out often, was radiant - the kind of smile that torments former flames and lights up children. Her most striking feature, though, according to Mumbi, was how she never seemed to age. The passage of time was no match for her ever-soft, ever-supple skin. If anything, it was her ever-drooping, ever-tormented eyes that gave you a glimpse into the years she had endured.

Her father, on the other hand, was nowhere near the picture of perfection. He was handsome, yes, but in a rugged, scrappy, wise way. Not a conventional, chiseled jaw line, full beard, piercing eyes, type of way. The kindest person anyone knew, he was always ready to lend more hands than he had. He was doting, devoted and deeply involved in every aspect of her life. He was the one who had fed her, burped her, bathed her and changed hundreds of soiled diapers. He had been home when she took her first step, and said her first word, unsurprisingly, it was “baba”. He worked a 9 to 5 as an accountant, but he never left the house without a kiss goodbye, or failed to put her to bed with a story every night.

Baba Mumbi was not much of a believer. He always said he was spiritual, but she'd never seen him set foot in the Church. The farthest he got was a quick drop and dash at the gate on the days he drove them there. She remembered a time in her eighth year of life, engrossed in one of their routine arguments, he told her mother “If Christianity is you refusing to forgive or forgetting to love, I want no part of it!”

When he said it, she had not quite grasped the piercing truth laced in the statement. It wasn’t until she was a young adult that his words made sense.

She had always sensed something was off with her parents' marriage, but she couldn’t yet fathom just how far from functional they were. In the house, they barely spoke - they shouted profanities, or used her as a go-between. She couldn’t remember a time when they were alone together and civil, unless they were asleep. No matter why the argument started, it would always end the same way. Mumbi's mum would lock herself in the bedroom with silent indignation, and her father would seek her out and bombard her with the same old platitudes that "there was nothing to worry about."

At first, she had resigned herself to the fact that marriage is simply so, and that’s why it was for grownups - after all, why would you stay with someone you couldn’t stand, unless all love was like that? This only became suspect in her mind when she joined primary school and went for a sleepover at her first best friend’s house. Elsie’s dad had come home to find his wife absorbed with her cooking. He had brought her flowers, greeted her with a warm hug, and inquired about her day. They proceeded to prepare the meal together, chatting away happily about the senseless and the stimulating. That was the day she realised she had never even seen her parents hold hands.