Fiction: Salvaging Tom’s marriage Chapter 1

Two months ago, I received a call from a long-time friend who lives in Eldoret. He needed to see me urgently over a personal matter.

I planned to visit him over the following weekend and come Saturday, I dropped in on him in Eldoret town.

My friend (Let’s call him Tom though that’s not his real name) works at one of the major education institutions. On weekends, however, he spends time in Eldoret town where he has set up a business selling malimali for his wife. He has three employees. A young man and two girls. It’s at this shop where I met him and he told me the wife takes the day off and he joins the three employees to run the shop.

I arrived around noon and the shop was quite busy. I admired Tom. He was good at what he did. Convincing a customer here, cajoling another one there and generally being an extremely good salesman. With his job and this business, the guy was definitely doing well.

At around 1:30 PM, Tom left his staff to take care of business and he took me to a nyama choma joint where we enthusiastically descended on some succulent goat ribs. A kilo down our tummies later, we took a corner seat and ordered for sodas. And then Tom laid it bare.

Barely three years ago, Tom had turned us green with envy. He had met, charmed, befriended and later married this girl we all felt should have been ours. All curvy at the right places, slim as they come, a dazzling smile, laughter that had a way of landing on the heart and a personality we couldn’t resist. Tom was a damn lucky guy and we never tired of letting him know it. I remember jokingly telling the girl, Stephanie (but we all called her Stefff) that if she ever felt she was getting a raw deal with Tom, I was more than ready to accommodate her. The fact that I’ve been married 10 plus years notwithstanding.

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