Building

As a child, I hated tall buildings. I hated how they would swallow people whole; body first and then eventually consume their souls. The one on Acacia Avenue had taken my father when I was about 9. Mummy had excitedly called it a promotion but then Daddy never came back; at least not the man we once knew. Then the one on Mwimuto Close had claimed my husband.

There had been countless nights of him poring over proposals and ideas, thumbing through documents and glaring back at glowering laptop screens into the wee hours of the morning. I didn’t realise at the time that his breakthrough would mean losing him to a tall building. But oh, the smile on his face when he heard back from the financial investment company he had been trying to sell an idea to was the purest thing I had ever seen.

“Our dreams are all about to come true” he said as he left for work that first morning, leaving me to drop our daughter at kindergarten. Something about the way he left felt final but I first thought it was the slow demise of the familiar. Whether it was him, or me, I couldn’t tell. But my moment had come. I watched our daughter fumble with her shoes as I opened the door to the pantry.

“Mama, please sit on a chair and put on your shoes.” The little child shuffled wordlessly into the next room as I pushed the pantry door further. There was enough food in there for the month, but there was also a man who looked like he had been holding his breath for too long. I put a finger on my lips to silence the words that threatened to come out of his. I signalled to him to come out silently and leave through the open kitchen door, the one that led to the laundry area and then out further into the conservative backyard. He either couldn’t or wouldn’t question me because even though his face was a series of unconnected statements, the tightness in his shoulders was the restraint he needed in that moment. He didn’t have a tall building to retreat into. His home just over the fence was his sanctuary and office. He hadn’t realised when he walked in as usual at 9 AM that I was not alone and we both knew this was not the way my husband was supposed to find out about what I had been doing.

I glanced at the laptop I had left open on my desk as I grabbed my daughter’s furry bag and led her out of the front door. I was going to have to tell my conservative husband about what I was doing with my neighbour’s husband. Our business would be out in the streets for everyone soon anyway. We wanted everyone to know about us. We were partners and our company was opening its doors in a month or so.