The rain came down in buckets after that. Though I asked the taxi driver to get as close to the house as he could and though I already had my keys out, Maa Sarfoa and I were both wet when we went indoors.

My mood soured further when I realized half the clothes I had hung on the drying line that morning were lying in muddy puddles on the ground. The second drying line had snapped. And I kept thinking how could the day get any worse.

Maa Sarfoa disappeared. I, on the other hand had to put all the shopping away and plan the menu for the week. I’d never realized how hard looking after a home was and now that Mom was gone it just made me appreciate her more. I’d taken everything for granted—clean clothes, a clean house, edible food on the table and rides to and from school and anywhere else I needed to be. I’d taken her for granted. I’d just always assumed she’d be there. Always assumed she’d be home when I came back from school, that she’d always be there when I needed her.

Thinking about how I’d taken her for granted made me think of Ntiriwa and that was something I couldn’t deal with at the moment. I began preparing our supper. Boiled yam with garden-egg stew. I don’t know what I was thinking—but in addition to the koobi, I added salt but I was too tired to care. If Dad and Sarfoa didn’t like it, they could have tea and bread.

By 6:30 p.m. I was done with the stew for the week. I hadn’t bothered with soup this time. It wasn’t like anyone even ate it. Sarfoa came down to set Dad’s table and to wash the dishes. I took a shower and by 7 p.m. I was behind my desk, studying.

I heard Dad come in. I didn’t go down to meet him. I heard him and Sarfoa talking. Then the TV was switched on. Dad came up to our room, knocked and stuck his head in. He looked tired. Really tired.

“The food was delicious.”

A lie.

“I haven’t had garden-egg stew in ages. Thank you.”

True. The last time we had had some had been the day before Ntiriwa disappeared. I wondered if he remembered.

“Did Mom call?”

He knew the answer but just like Sarfoa, he kept hoping.

I shook my head.

He sighed.

“Thanks for picking Sarfoa up.”

I nodded and tried to smile, ashamed that I’d been angry when he’d asked me to do it. My dad is sweet. I know that’s not a word people use to describe their fathers, but it’s true, mine is. That’s why I couldn’t understand why Mom would do this to him. To us. She had to know she was hurting him, hurting us. Then again, she was hurting too.

He looked at me again like he wanted to say something but he didn’t and then he left, closely the door gently behind him.

I heard him downstairs with Sarfoa. He probably told her it was her bedtime. She came upstairs, brushed her teeth and climbed into bed. I heard Dad go out the back door. The rain had petered out to a drizzle. I wondered what he was doing getting himself wet, but then I got my answer when I heard the washing machine start a few minutes later.

I gave up studying when I began dozing and got into my bed. I was drifting off when Sarfoa said, “I was not behaving like an animal.”

“Huh?”

I turned to look at her but she was facing the wall on her side of the room.

“Today in front of all those people at the bus stop, you said I was behaving like an animal.”

I rolled my eyes in the dark.

I knew what she was doing. Even though Sarfoa was seven, she knew some Bible verses and tried her best to live by them. She was not “letting the sun go down on her anger”.

How many times had Ntiriwa and I stayed up at night rehashing the fights and quarrels we’d had during the day because we hadn’t wanted to fall asleep angry?

“It’s an expression. I didn’t mean you were an animal. I just meant you should stop being silly.”

“But I was not being silly. Asking if we can go to the zoo is not being silly.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “Asking if we could go to the zoo just as it was about to rain was very silly. And asking every week when you know the answer won’t change is even sillier,” but I didn’t. Instead I said,

“No it’s not, I agree. It just wasn’t the right time.”

“It’s never the right time with you.”

I felt the anger well up within me. After all I was doing to keep things as near to normal as possible, was this my thanks?

“If Mummy was here, she’d have taken me.”

That was just the thing, wasn’t it? Mummy wasn’t here and I was stuck with having to look after Sarfoa. I turned on my side away from her.

“Yes, she would have taken you,” I said just to get her to shut up.

And it worked. She was quiet for maybe five minutes then she said, “Do you think she’s forgotten us? Doesn’t she love us anymore?”

I opened my mouth. I was about to sprout the first Bible verse that had jumped into my head: Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you, but I stopped myself just in time. Wasn’t it obvious that that was exactly what my mother had done? She had forgotten us. Maybe not forgotten but we were not as important to her as Ntiriwa was. She, who had said she had no favourites among us, had practically stopped living when Ntiriwa died.

I opened my mouth again. I was about to say “Maybe,” because seven was a good age to be told the truth, but I didn’t. Even I couldn’t be that cruel, so instead I remained quiet, hoping Sarfoa would think I had fallen asleep. And she did because a few minutes later, I heard her sobbing. Those quiet-into-your-pillow-sobs that a seven-year-old should not know how to do. Those very sobs that I was now very good at, and not just because Ntiriwa had died, but because everything that I had thought was solid around me had fallen apart—God, family, friends and school.

A loving sister would have climbed into Sarfoa’s bed and tried to comfort her, but I, I had nothing to give. I was empty on the inside. Still on the subject of love, a loving God would not have taken Ntiriwa away in the first place and made a seven-year-old cry herself to sleep.

***

Tell us: What do you think would help Gyikua?