“Well? Are you coming in or should I send my homing pigeons to deliver an invitation?” Goma hollered from inside.
We stepped into a charming living area with large windows, plump sofas and faded pine floors. The house was as eccentric as the lady who had invited us in—a blend of colonial design and African heritage, with mismatched pieces and earthy textures.
Goma was standing in the middle of the room, trousers around her ankles, stepping out of her soggy clothes. Bahati and I averted our gazes while Scholastica watched with wide eyes.
“Brave girl,” said Goma. “Not afraid of old skin. You don’t speak English, do you?” She switched to Swahili and soon Scholastica was giggling. “Come on.” She held a hand out to her. “Let’s get you some dry clothes.”
I snuck a peek out of the corner of my eye, relieved that Goma had left her underwear on. They returned, wearing colorful muumuus—long, loose dresses that covered them from head to foot.
“I make these out of kitenge. You’ll never want to wear those jeans again,” said Goma, handing me a muumuu.
Bahati looked at her like she’d lost her mind when she gave him a green and yellow one.
“Oh, go on.” She shoved it into his hands. “You’re dripping water all over my floors.”
They faced each other for a few seconds, battling silently. Then Bahati snatched the muumuu from her.
“Bathroom’s over there.” She inclined her head and watched as he ambled towards it, his feet shuffling like he was heading off to a sacrificial altar.
“I’m Katherine Warden,” she said, turning to me. “Everyone calls me Goma.”
“Rodel Emerson.” I shook her gnarled hand. “And this is Scholastica.”
“Rodel and Scholastica,” she repeated, looking at us with curious eyes. “So what brings you here?”
I explained the situation as concisely as I could.
“I’m sorry Jack was so rude to you,” she said, when I was done. “It appears you are both bound by the events of a tragic afternoon. Jack hasn’t been the same since he lost Li—” She stopped as Bahati returned, wearing the muumuu. It barely skimmed past his knees.
Goma pinched Scholastica—a quick, sharp nip on the back of her hand to stop her from giggling. Bahati in a muumuu was a very quiet man, nothing like the Bahati who rattled on and on.
“Excuse me.” I needed to get out of there before Goma pinched me too. “I think I’ll go change.”
When I came back, they were all in the kitchen—Bahati and Scholastica huddled around the table, while Goma ladled hot soup into their bowls.
“You can hang those up in the laundry,” she said, pointing to the wet bundle rolled up in my arms.
The rain was still falling hard as I made my way down the hallway to the laundry room. I found some clothes pegs and was hanging up my things when lightning illuminated the back of the house. I thought I saw Jack momentarily through the window, standing outside in the middle of a full-fledged tropical storm. I was about to chalk it up to my imagination when another flash lit him up again. He was just standing there, under a tree that looked like it was hundreds of years old, staring at the ground, while the rain whipped hell and fury all around him.
“I think Jack is still outside,” I said when I stepped into the kitchen.
Goma nodded and continued having her soup. “He does that. Sits with her whenever there’s a storm.” She pushed a bowl toward me. “Eat.”
“Sits with who?” I asked, taking the chair across from her.
“Lily. His daughter. She’s buried out there. They all are. This place sure lived up to its name.”
“Kaburi Estate?” I recalled the sign at the entrance.
“Yes. It was supposed to be Karibu Estate. Karibu means welcome, but I was still learning Swahili back then and I wrote Kaburi on the work order. It means a grave. Sam—my husband—thought it was hilarious. He refused to correct it. He always said he’d love me to his grave.” Goma stared into her bowl. “And so he did. He loved me to the end.”
I sensed the beginning of an epic love story, the kind I was always hungry for, but she didn’t say anything more. She just smiled wistfully and swirled her spoon around the bowl in little circles.
“Should we . . . should someone go get Jack?” I asked as lightning pierced the sky again. I was starting to feel terrible about what I’d said to him.
“He’ll come in when he’s done. And he’ll keep doing it, until one day, he doesn’t need to anymore. It’s what you’re doing too, aren’t you? Miles from home. Mourning your sister in your own way. You’ve got to let it run its course. Give in until it’s spent and quiet, until you’ve learned to breathe through the loss.”
I had a spoonful of my soup and thought about what she’d said. Mo’s death was like a door that had been sealed shut forever. I could never walk through it, never listen to her go on about all the inconsequential things that I missed so terribly now. There is an invisible threshold of possibilities when someone is alive. It contracts when they’re gone, swallowing up all the worlds that hover around them—names of people they’d never meet, faces of kids they’d never have, flavors of ice cream they’d never taste. Losing Mo hurt like hell, but I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to lose a child.
“I thought I told you to leave.”
I jumped at the sound of Jack’s voice. He was drenched to the core, standing by the back door in a puddle of water. The hoodie was gone and his T-shirt was molded to the kind of muscles that came with hard, physical labor. We were high up at the foot of the mountain, where the air held a touch of frost in the evenings, but he showed no sign of being cold. Perhaps that was the point—standing in the rain past the point of numbness.