By Haron Wachira
As evening settled after Terry’s wedding, G.’s gaze lingered on the dry rose flowers, carefully preserved in silica gel and framed in the family room. They had been there for many years.
Earlier that afternoon, seated beside Timothy on the weathered wooden bench during the festivities, a previously dormant volcano had erupted in her soul, after many years. The seismic activities of the eventual eruption had been triggered by the curiosity that drove her into peeping into the gift Timothy had brought to Terry and what she saw: a set of dried rose petals; similar to the set she had preserved in silica gel and framed; which Timothy had sent G. many years back, before Terry.
She had told him that she had seen his gift to Terry and that she had preserved the set he’d sent her years back, framed them, and hung them on the wall of their family room.
“How do you explain them?” Tim had asked.
“Art,” she had replied.
It was the truth, though much more than that. The dry rose petals on the wall were a silent tribute to a past G. couldn’t quite let go of. They were memories of a teenage love, fleeting yet profound. She had written him a letter of gratitude for the gift, but his reply never came. She knew then that he was transitioning from high school to university; from teenage to adulthood. And she imagined him swept away by the allure of brighter, more beautiful girls.
Over time their connection faded, replaced by other tangible interactions. But it was an anti-climax she never forgot. She didn’t harbour any resentment, however. Instead, she embraced a different love, building a family with Dan. It had been good, largely. She had not gotten to know Tim well enough to compare him with Dan. She had not kept track of Tim. So her life with Dan was all she knew.
Yet, the flowers remained, a silent testament to what once was. A secret memorial to a love she had released but never forgotten. Tim lingered in her heart like the bittersweet, poignant memory of a lost loved one, initially painful, but softened, leaving behind a sense of melancholic sweetness.
Together, seated on that weathered wooden bench during Terry’s wedding, they had figured it out. Yes, it was the post office that failed them.
“Bloody Posta!” Tim had yelled. She could have joined in. But what difference would it have made? Timothy was unreal; a past, fleeting memory. Dan, on the other had, was real. She shared a home with him. She had children with him, including Terry, their lastborn. That said, she could not deceive herself. She had a split past, like someone who had suffered schizophrenia— a real one and a virtual one.
For many years her virtual love had been dormant. But erupted today. She would never again raise her head in their family room and look at that picture the same way…. Looking at it set her on fire; created wild yearning….
“No, she couldn’t allow that. She rose, limped to the wall, and unhooked the “art”.
But where would she keep it? In the shelving above their wardrobe. That would have been a good place. But her weight and the pain in her hip could not allow her to step on a stool to reach up to the hideout. Then there was the problem of the empty spot on the wall. It would undoubtedly raise questions, casting shadows over her carefully curated facade….
She heard the gate open, a car door shut, and their sitting room door open. She knew it was Dan coming home. Typically, she’d have risen to meet him at the door. But today she froze on the sofa seat, clutching the framed picture in her hands. She didn’t want to incite a conversation around it. While it hung on the wall, the framed “art” did not elicit any discussion; it was seamlessly integrated into the decor. Unhooked and cradled in her hands, it was a raw vulnerability laid starkly bare. She draped a shawl over it and rose to greet her husband.
He was drunk, and the realization immediately set off a revolt within G. He had taken up drinking recently…. No, that wasn’t exactly accurate. He had slid back to drinking recently, and G. had reminded him of their earlier quarrels over drink. It was stress, he tried to explain, as a result of the bank loan they had taken to stock up their chemist shop.
In the quiet depths of her mind, G. revisited the memories of their early years in marriage, tracing the lines of admiration that had once adorned her thoughts like delicate lace.
In those days, she had marvelled at Dan’s effortless charm at work when she visited him soon after she graduated from university and had lots of time; the way his laughter danced in the air like musical notes, and his eyes held a glimmer of endless possibilities. His passion ignited hers, fuelling her dreams with the fervour of shared aspirations.
He was a car salesman when they met. He had delighted her with rides in expensive cars while he did test drives with customers. Soon she started working as a chemist shop attendant, an apt deployment of her pharmaceutical knowledge. When they got married, or rather, hitched in together, Dan funded her to start her own chemist shop and the business thrived. Eventually, he joined her there.
But it was through G. that Dan had become a regular churchgoer. She had previously attended a fiery charismatic church but to accommodate Dan’s “preference” for a more moderate form of religion she took him to the church of his parents, Anglican. And they settled there and had their marriage officiated and blessed in church and they brought up their children as nominal Christians.
Then he started drinking. And they quarrelled over it, each time when he came home drunk. It almost ended their marriage. So he stopped. He wasn’t a Christian in the serious sense that Tim was. He went to church because G. wanted it and his parents had brought him up in church because it was important that their children be baptised. Most of all he stopped drinking because he wanted peace with G. Thus, theirs became a decent, nominal Christian life—like the lives of most people in their circles.
“You are drunk,” she now said.
“That is not a greeting,” Dan said, holding her body against his. She let him. He was not a bad man.
“I would like to greet you in a better way, my dear. But we shouldn’t allow a relapse.…”
“Enough,” he said. “Just today, to celebrate our daughter’s wedding.”
“Who with?”
“Same guys you left me with,” he said. “George and Mike. We hadn’t seen each other in a long while.”
G. Let the infraction pass. But the hurt etched itself in her deeply.
“Hungry?”
“No,” he said. “But I see you have been eating a cake.”
“Mabaki (remnants), from Terry’s event.”
He picked up a small piece from the cake box sat on the sofa seat and soon dozed off.
G. Carefully draped a shawl over her inebriated husband, the same one she had previously used to conceal Tim’s cherished framed rose flowers. Her eyes shifted from the gift to the person, the juxtaposition of the beautifully displayed gift against her husband’s disheveled state accentuating the stark contrast between Tim’s elegant gift and her husband’s drunken stupor.
Before going to bed she returned Tim’s gift to its place on the wall.
He came to bed past midnight, no longer drunk and in his right mind. G. heard him enter the bathroom, change, brush his teeth, and approach the bed. She pretended to be fast asleep. But she lay awake for a long time, unhappy and fearing for her marriage. This on what should have been a very happy day; the day she had seen her last born married in church.
The first time Dan had taken up drinking G. had told him that she’d not live with the behaviour; that she’d divorce him over the habit. What would she do now if what she was faced with was a lasting relapse?
She woke up early the following morning, made breakfast for two, and wept silently as the meal went cold and the milky tea formed a layer of cream in her cup.
At last, Dan joined her. He approached the table with a tentative air, his every movement betraying nervous energy. He settled into his seat, his gaze flickering between his breakfast and G., unable to hold her gaze for long. He talked with his demeanour as he nibbled on the cold eggs and tomatoes, but she could not tell whether he was begging to be forgiven or silently asserting his defiance.
Then he poured the milky tea from a red flask and gobbled up the rest of his breakfast as if he had suddenly been hurried. The whole time, not a word was exchanged between them.
“Coming to work?” he asked, rising from the table.
“I’ll come later,” G. replied tersely. Their chemist shop did not get busy till the afternoon. In the meantime, she had another plan.
After he departed, she dressed up, donning her attire with purposeful determination. She got out of the house, locked up, and got into her weathered but still reliable Toyota Starlet, a relic of past journeys. She ignited the engine and, with a practiced shifting of the manual gears, navigated the familiar streets, her destination clear in her mind: the bank.
She got to the bank but not in one piece. In her distress, she had forgotten to take her pain medicine and her hip joint had gotten worse with each shift of the gear. But she bore it, parked outside, limped slowly through the banking hall, and eventually ended up at the manager’s office.
“What may I do for you today, Mrs Kange?” The bank manager asked when she was settled in his office. They had a decent account and were generally treated respectfully at the bank.
“I need to see our bank statement,” she said, handing the manager a card with their account number.
“Shall I print it or do you just need the balance?” the manager asked.
“Printed, please.”
“How far back, Mrs Kange?”
She thought for a moment, then said, “Six months.” That was when they took the stocking-up loan.
All the monthly payments for the loan were up to date. And all the daily bankings from the shop, which Clair, their shop clerk did, were reflected. And the account had a positive balance; small but positive. So what was that reference to “stress” that Dan blamed for his drinking? An excuse?
She scanned the account statement again, wondering why the balance levitated on the low end despite the bankings. She saw it: a monthly debit of the same amount, transferred as an RTGS by order of her husband to an account number with the name: Magdalene Wanja.
The manager noticed her sudden change of demeanour and her now laboured breathing, and the sweat that trickled down her pained but still good-looking face.
“Is everything alright, Mrs Kange?” he asked.
“It’s not, Manager,” she said, pointing to the line with the latest debit amount on the bank statement. “How did this happen?”
“Your husband initiated the standing order, Mrs Kange. The mandate for your account is ‘any can sign.’”
“Do you know her?” she asked.
“No,” he said. He looked at her with sympathy, aware of what must be the cause of her pain but unable to avail any emotional support.
“Can I stop the standing order?” She asked.
“Of course, you can,“ the manager said. “You have the mandate.” He pressed a buzzer and a young man showed up at his office’s door.
“Please give me a standing order form, George,“ the manager instructed. The form came and G. stopped the monthly debit.
She rose from the seat, frustration evident from the wrinkles and bulged veins that had formed on her face, and walked hastily out of the manager’s office. Feeling her weight, the pain in her hip bone, and the sweat that had by now, trickled down to the small of her back.
As she opened the door to her Starlet turned the ignition key, engaging reverse gear, and stepping on the accelerator pedal to exit the parking space, she was in a daze, lost, unaware of her surroundings or actions.
She was thrust back into reality by a deafening bang, the sound of her car violently colliding backward into metal. Glass shattered, adding to the cacophony of chaos. The force of the impact violently jerked her head forward, slamming it mercilessly into the hard steering wheel. Blood gushed from G.’s nose as she succumbed to unconsciousness.
***
G. opened her eyes to a blurry vision of Timothy, Lina, and a woman she vaguely remembered. Timothy was speaking, but not to her. She longed for his attention, wishing he would transport her back to their teenage years and allow her to bask in the memories.
Straining to hear his words, she realized he was praying. Her vision cleared slightly, and she saw that he, Lina, and — she now recognized the other woman—Tim’s wife, had their hands clasped. Timothy’s voice resounded within the four walls of the room, “Oh, Lord, we beseech Thee, in the name of our Lord Jesus.” The others echoed, “Amen!”
“She’s awake!” Lina exclaimed, jolting G. out of the illusion.
All three turned their attention towards G. She attempted to lift her head, only to realize she couldn’t. A brace encircled her neck, immobilizing her.
“Stay still,” Lina advised, coming to her aid. “You’ve been in an accident.” The memory flooded back to G. Pain also accompanied her breathing.
“Hello, G.,” Timothy greeted her gently.
She tried to speak, but no words came out.
“Lina filled us in on what happened,” Timothy continued, understanding her inability to speak. “Do you remember Grace? We attended Terry’s wedding.”
G. Tilted her eyes towards Grace…lucky Grace…and in doing so, saw a bunch of flowers. Red and yellow roses. But fresh and in a vase. Tim’s doing, she thought.
That day, when she and Tim sat at the weathered bench during Terry’s wedding and Tim had cursed Posta, she had reasoned with him to accept the eventuality of their different paths in life. Now, she felt like it was her turn to scream like Tim had “Bloody Posta!”
Lucky Grace. Terry’s wedding. The dried flowers…. The fresh flowers… G. drifted off, struggling to organize her thoughts. She slipped into a dream, a blissful memory from the past, but upon waking, she couldn’t recall the details. Tim, Lina, and Grace were still by her bedside.
A nurse approached and informed them that visiting hours were over.
“Can she eat?” Tim inquired.
“Not orally,” the nurse responded. “She’s receiving nutrition intravenously.” She gestured towards a tube connected to a suspended bottle, through which the colourless liquid food slowly dripped into a receptor with a needle that penetrated G.’s left wrist.
“Balanced diet,” Lina said subtly, touching the inside of her cheek with her tongue. G. shifted menacingly to face her younger sister. Lina’s teasing, and G.s reaction reminded Tim of the exchange the two had had on the day of the land case, impressed that they could maintain their mock fights even despite the tragedy that had come about.
“We will be back,” Grace said.
“And we are praying with you,” Tim added.
G. nodded her understanding, her gratitude. And they left. But Lina circled back and quickly asked the nurse in G.’s hearing, “When can we talk to the doctor about the hip replacement?”
“When she can talk,” the nurse said, adding, “after her rib cage heals enough to allow it.”
After the visitors had gone, the nurse sat on a stool so that they were at the same eye level as G.
“Can you hear me ok?” She asked.
G. raised her eyebrows in acknowledgment.
“You have been unconscious for a week,” the nurse said. “I am Nurse Gertrude. I look after patients with spine and other internal bone injuries – like you.”
G. did not fully understand what that meant, in respect to her condition. But she had heard enough to know her body was in bad shape— although she could not feel all of the pain associated with her condition. She didn’t panic; she knew why: the wonder of modern medicine.
“Are you in pain?”
“No,” G. indicated by double-blinking. The cast on her neck did not allow her to turn her head.
After the nurse was done talking and attending to her, she’d left, allowing G.’s thoughts to drift and take her back to the events that had unfolded earlier that afternoon. Why had Dan not come?
At some point, she thought she’d heard her children…Ken, Daya, and Terry…. All three of them, together, chatting to each other within her hospital room in muted tones, and, sometimes, to her. But she was too tired and sleepy to fully process what was going on.
***
She came back home from the hospital after nearly three months; with a new hip made of metal alloys, titanium, and polyethylene. And a new nickname: Mama Chums (Metal Lady), courtesy of Lina, queen of sick humour.
While at the hospital, Tim, Grace, Lina, and G.’s children – along with their spouses- frequently visited, helping chase away any loneliness that came with being confined to a hospital bed. Some brought flowers, while others brought cards. And food (which Lina vetted viciously) after G. could eat solids.
Grace, oblivious to the buried history between G. and Timothy, brought her a potted spathiphyllum, their blooms on the cusp of unfurling.
“It produces white blossoms,” Grace explained. “To brighten your days.”
As the white blossoms finally bloomed, they gracefully adorned G’s room, imbuing it with tranquility. Yet, neither G. nor Grace discerned any symbolic significance in the gift, unaware of the plant’s common name – peace Lilly – and the subtle thread it wove between the two women and their husbands.
When the other flowers (the dead flowers, as Lina called them) began to dry, G. forbade the attendants from trashing them. Tim brought her a huge Britannia Encyclopedia and showed her how to use its weight to flatten them and dry them permanently. “For preservation in silica gel and framing,” he whispered.
But Dan never came. Not once. G. worried about it, but eventually rationalized that it was guilt. Hopefully, they would mend the fractured relationship after she came home from hospital.
The accident-related medical bill was covered by her car’s insurance policy. The waist surgery, however, was largely covered by their medical cover, with their business helping cover the excess. Ken, her son, drove her home, doing his best to prepare her for the pitiful situation she’d find when they got there.
“Dad has been drinking too much,” he said.
She knew that.
“You will have to help him somehow,” Ken said when his mother did not react to his preparatory words.
Or leave him. She entertained the idea but kept it under wraps in her mind.
But no amount of preparation could have steeled her for the inevitable breakdown she suffered upon returning to a home where her husband spent the entire day immersed in alcohol.
***
A few days after G came back home from the hospital, Lina brought Timothy and Grace over to visit. This was the first time for the couple to step into G.’s home.
Dan was not at home, but he later came, drunk to the heel, while they were eating lunch, and did not seem to care less whether his drinking embarrassed him or hurt others.
“Karibuni, welcome,” he said, excused himself, and escaped to the bedroom.
Towards the end of their visit, after several hours, Grace tentatively broached the subject.
“About your husband,” she started, halting at each word, “I hope I am not overstepping your welcome to us into your home, G.,” she said, very tenderly.
“Oh, not at all, Grace,” G. said. “It’s clear to me you are asking out of concern.”
“I am available to help where I can. I have some experience in counselling,” Grace explained.
“I wish he could accept help,” G. confessed, her voice heavy with resignation. “It’s a relapse. After many years.”
“If you’re up to it, we can start today. Right here,” Grace, ever decisive, proposed.
“How?” G. asked.
“Confrontation,” Grace guided. “Wake him up. Tell him to come and bid us goodbye. The effects of the alcohol should be largely gone by now.”
G. rose from her seat and walked purposefully to the bedroom. Despite the brace on her neck and the metals and plastics in her body, she moved steadily, without limping. Timothy’s gaze followed her every step.
She returned with Dan, gripping his hand as a mother might guide a wayward child.
“Dan,” Grace addressed him directly. “I’m the one who requested this meeting.”
“A meeting?” Dan’s expression was puzzled. Though he appeared sober, his demeanour still betrayed the signs of a man accustomed to drinking.
“Your wife has something to say to you, and we, her friends, want to support her as she tells you she’s had enough of your drinking,” Grace continued.
Dan looked from G. to Tim and Grace, then turned to Lina with an appeal for help.
“Lina, please, my sister. Tell them I’m not a bad man. Or am I?”
“You were a good man, my dear,” G. interjected. “And you can choose to be a good man again. But I’ve had enough of the man you are now. Either change or…”
Tears welled up in Dan’s eyes.
“I can’t change,” he admitted, his voice choked with emotion. “I would like to, but I can’t.”
“You can, Dan. We can help. Shall we?” Grace, the problem solver, offered.
He said yes. That same afternoon, Grace and Tim drove Dan to a Christian rehab centre. And three months later, they brought him back, a healed man. In preparation, Lina had come over to help G. with the cooking, since Grace had told G by phone that they’d be bringing Dan back home.
G. had wanted to go visit Dan during his time at the rehab. But Grace had explained that it was not allowed. The rehab’s policy was to let all decisions emanate from their clients. They could leave or stay — it was all up to them. For three months. No family or other visits. Until graduation.
“I am very happy for you,” G. said to Dan, embracing him to welcome him home. She meant it.
She wasn’t sure she was happy for herself though. There was still the matter of the woman associated with the monthly debit G. had stopped. Magdalene Wanja, the cause of the confusion that caused G. to drive in reverse gear like mad, ending up with a broken neck and a crushed rib cage.
Dan’s three months in rehab may have done him good, but her three months in hospital hadn’t yet resulted in the healing of her marriage.
She hadn’t told anyone of this complicated detail of the trouble in her marriage. While Dan wallowed in drink, she could have chosen to leave him and it would have been understood…. But could she? Where would she go? Their business was jointly registered. She had no other source of income or home. The dispute on her father’s land left her with nowhere to go. She’d have to fight through a messy divorce from Dan to force a division of their assets.
She saw the playouts — in family meetings; in front of hostile lawyers; in court, most likely before an unsympathetic male judge—and it made her depressed.
Then, out of nowhere as they sipped the hot, milky tea Lina had made, Dan said, “There is something else I need to say.” They all paid attention.
“I need to go to the bank and cancel a standing order.” His tone was laden with a hint of remorse.
G. felt a sudden pang in her chest, but she maintained her composure, waiting for him to continue.
“What about?” Grace pursued.
Dan looked down, dejected. Then he looked up at G. tentatively. His eyes were still reddish from his now conquered drink habit. But the tears that welled up in them softened G.’s heart.
“Ah!” He said, banging his hands hard against his thigh.
“I am sorry,” Grace apologised, thinking she was the cause of Dan’s consternation.
“Tell them,” G. said. “It’s about Wanja, isn’t it?”
It was Dan’s turn to nearly fall. “You knew?” he asked, astonished.
“Tell them!” G. hissed sharply, new anger over the matter threatening her composure.
“There was a woman, yes,” he said repentantly. “Past now. While in rehab I believed in Christ and got saved. I am done with her.”
G. jumped up, a sudden flush of relief and joy engulfing her. She rushed to Dan with her arms spread out and embraced him; first with a bear hug, the cast on her neck getting in their way. Then she kissed him all over his face. Wildly. Dan had to pull himself back to say, “Thank you. I love you, G.”
“Thank God. Thank you, Lord,” Timothy’s baritone voice rang above the sounds of happy crying from Grace and Lina, and G.’s high-pitched screams of joy.
When the noisy celebration ran itself down, G. informed the party that they did not need to go to the bank; and that she had cancelled the standing order. She spared Dan from the self-torture he would have suffered had she also told them, or him afterward, that Magdalene Wanja was the cause of her accident outside the bank.
After lunch that afternoon, Lina and Grace teamed up in the kitchen to wash the dishes, and Dan went for a siesta in the bedroom. Tim sat on the sofa seat that G had sat on the night Dan came drunk, directly facing the framed flowers on the wall; the flowers he had sent her so many years back when they were both teenagers.
G. came slowly from behind and sat next to him on the soft sofa seat, exactly as they had sat on the hard, weathered bench during Terry’s wedding. She had been stowing away the table mats that had been used over lunch and noticed what now engaged his attention.
They both looked at the dry flowers, each one bathing in the deep end of the memories the flowers triggered.
“Terry asked about your gift,” G. said. “The flowers.”
“Why?”
“She grew up here, seeing these,” she said, pointing to the wall. “Don’t you see?”
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? You did not answer her?”
“I did. I played it down.”
“How?”
“I showed her the ones I dried while at the hospital,” G. Said. “I told her I would set them all as a collection.”
“That wasn’t an answer,” Tim said.
“I know,” she confirmed.
“Perhaps it’s time to let them go,” Tim suggested.
“To where?” G. asked. She understood him. She was playing hardball.
“To the dustbin…” he started, then saw her clasp her mouth with both her hands in dismay, and he stopped.
“No,” she objected firmly. “No.”
“They might do more harm than good,” he persisted, looking at her, extending his hand towards her to express solidarity in their predicament.
“How?”
“If he… if Dan, now my new brother in the Lord, found out they came from me, he might see me very differently,” Tim said.
G. pondered for a moment, then a spark of inspiration lit up her expression. With a jovial tone, she exclaimed, “The wall collection. Generalize.”
Initially, Timothy seemed puzzled, unsure of her meaning. However, as G. rose from her seat and retrieved a carton, spreading on the floor the dried flowers she had preserved during her hospital stay, understanding dawned upon him.
They heard a rustle of clothes. Tim panicked.
G. smiled at her husband. “Pass over there, please, Love.” she pointed to a seat that was well away from the paraphernalia on the floor.
“Why, what’s going on?” Dan asked.
“My collection of gifts while in hospital,” she said, sure of her words. “I am assembling them into a collection.”
Dan had been facing G. directly, as he had come from their bedroom. Now he turned, making a connection between the spread-out items on the floor and the display on the wall. His eyes shifted between the finely framed version on the wall and the unpreserved dry flowers on the floor.
G. and Timothy were breathing in sync, slowly, as if they awaited, helplessly, the impending detonation of a timed bomb.
Grace and Lina came into the sitting room at that very moment, and both halted at the door between the kitchen and the sitting room, noticing the unfolding spectacle.
Dan’s expression solidified as he appeared to reach a decisive conclusion about the link between the dried flowers on the floor and their framed counterparts on the wall.
At last, he nodded with understanding, a subtle smile playing at the corners of his lips as he voiced his thoughts, “Ah, I understand now. Old habits die hard.”
Everyone reacted. Grace and Lina looked at the flowers on the floor, then at the framed version. Tim and G. exchanged glances.
“Some never die,” Timothy said cryptically.
At which Lina commented, “Some are re-learned late in life.”
The mystery of the dried flowers was solved, albeit differently in each one’s mind. Different perspectives, no doubt. But no one needed to elaborate on his or her interpretation of their shared reality.
I hope you enjoyed reading this series, but it’s not over yet! This whirlwind mystery is taking on a new perspective: Terry’s perspective.
Curious to read about what gift Terry had received from Tim? Click the title to read: Terry’s Intrigue Over the Dry Flowers.
Disclaimer: All characters, locations, and events depicted in this book are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales, is purely coincidental. This work is created for entertainment purposes only and does not intend to portray real individuals, organizations, or occurrences.
Haron Wachira 