The Sponsor

Mzee Ajabu

He did not know when his family fell apart. It was not one thing, it was many little things, he could not even tell you the tipping point. But it was on his sixty seventh birthday.

He came home as usual. He had not anticipated anything. I mean he had been with his family for over twenty years now and none of those years had they celebrated his birthday but something was different this year. His youngest daughter, Olivia who had cleared High School was pregnant and she wanted to please him before she broke the news.

She loved her dad despite the whispers she heard from her big sister about their dad being trifling. She claimed to have seen him not once in town arm in arm with young college girls.

Their sibling rivalry would not allow her to take anything she said seriously. She wanted to show Wairimu that she was better and far superior to her. She had already taught her how to get pregnant and soon she would teach her how to get a husband.

Olivia had gone with her brother, Fred to the supermarket and bought cake and ribbons and balloons and they had come back and decorated their living room. There was no hurry, Mzee Ajabu always came home late in the night so they had all the time.

Their brother alerted them after he heard the sound of their Dad's Land Cruiser.

"Switch off the lights, he's here, he's here," he cried.

"Happy birthday to you..."

Olivia and Fred broke into song when he entered the door, staggering because he had taken three fingers of scotch along with his diabetes drugs. But not even that could dampen their moods. They sung merrily and stuck three candles into the cake. Their mother joined in from the kitchen when Mzee Ajabu was about to huff and puff the candles. Her face almost curled into a smile when he started breathing heavily after blowing them out.

"Breathe dad, we don't want to have a birthday and a funeral," Fred chirped and everyone giggled.

"This is a wonderful day," Mzee Ajabu sung. "You're the best family a man could ask for."

Wairimu got into the house later after the party had died down and mzee Ajabu was almost nodding off to sleep. She was in a short dark thing that she called a dress. It revealed most parts of her thighs and her dipping cleavage. Her mother had long gotten tired of shouting at her and his father had long gotten tired of telling her mother to talk to her.

She passed close to her father and without notice, he grabbed her hand.

"You're going to start working tomorrow and I no longer want to see you dressing like a prostitute."

"You mean like the prostitutes you're with when you're not with mom?"

He got up and smacked her twice on the face, she wrenched free and ran to her bedroom sobbing. Nobody talked after that, they all disappeared into their rooms. Except their mother who sat beside her husband with a plate of hot food like she had always done.