The Will: When Love isn’t Willed

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  When Rahma walked into her Boss’ office, her Boss was crying. She must have been crying for a long time because her eyes were puffy and her nose was a sore red, from rubbing and sniffing.

Scene: Two women seated in a room. One, the older, crying. The younger helpless and speechless.

This was not the first time that Rahma had found her in such a state: two weeks ago, she had laid to rest her husband of thirty years. At the funeral, she had not cried much, but for the whole week proceeding everyone knew she was in pain. Yet there was nothing they could do for her. All week long, they had walked on egg-shells, tiptoeing all around her so as not to rouse her emotions. They had offered to help in any way possible. Graciously, she had accepted their offer, but she accepted it more for their sakes than because she needed it any way.

She signaled, asking Rahma to take a seat. Instinctively, Rahma took the one nearest the door.

“All men are assholes!” her Boss said with an air of finality. As if that was a fact that every human being knew. Her candour was unsettling, it was her nature to speak her mind, but doing so while in tears was completely something else, something for which Rahma was unprepared.

She looked into Rahma’s eyes and smiled. It was a painful smile, a smile of sadness but not despair. A smile hard to discern its cause. Was it pain or joy? Rahma could not tell. It is a difficult affair to watch your heroine crumble before your very eyes.

She leaned back on her seat, stared at the ceiling and mouthed the words again:

“All men are assholes!”

One could see the tears welling her eyes, streaming down, and running in and out of the wrinkles on her ageing face. Her face was deceptively younger than her years. But it revealed a depth that was not without years of suffering. Without attempting to reach for the handkerchief on the desk, she sniffled. Using the thumb and the forefinger of the right hand, she wiped the tears from her eyes, then slowly turned and looked at Rahma who sat as if on the run.

“All men are assholes,” she said “And all my life has been a big charade.” The statement sounds in Rahma’s ears truthful. She is quiet, there is nothing she could say that would measure to the pain that furrowed her Boss’ maternal face. Nothing that would sound right.

She was, and still is, a beacon of hope for the women in Rahma’s office. Her office had served as a solace from the oppressive workplace. Here, they could laugh and cry in the same breath. Here, Rahma could be herself. But not today. Seeing her as successful businesswoman and a mother of four, kept them alive. Not today. She was never one to attack and disparage men just because she was more successful than they. No. for this she admired her.  She was everything Rahma wanted to be. Everything that most desired. But not today. The figure cut before her was of a woman yielding to pain, a woman on the verge of total surrender to the winds that blew her path.

Maybe it was grief that made her speak as she did, Rahma consoled herself.

“I am about to retire,” she began. “In two years I will be in the farm rearing chicken and bonding with my grandchildren,”

“That would be nice,” Rahma managed, trying hard to follow her train of thought.

“Yes, it would have been. That was all I would have planned and hoped for. However, that may not be the case.” She said.

For the first time, Rahma realised the scope of the emptiness that the death of her husband must have left in her life. The plans for retirement that she, they, might have planned together would now be no more. She felt her pain. As if reading Rahma’s thoughts, the Boss continued;

“Well, there was my husband. Now he is gone. He may not have been the best man alive, but by God, I loved that man! Thirty good years I gave him! Thirty years and four children! Can you believe it?”

Rahma does not know what to say. Thirty years is a long time.

“Thirty years and now the bugger goes ahead and f___s everything up!” Boss declared.

Rahma contorted and bit her lips in pain. One would not tell whether Boss was angry at her husband for dying or at God. Rahma does not ask. She is confused.

“Sorry for my outbursts,” Boss says. “But my life, everything, I held on to no longer makes sense.”

She is in denial, Rahma tells herself.

“My husband’s will was read to day,” she says. This is news, Rahma had not known about the reading of the will.

“His will has just been read a few minutes ago, and guess what?” she laid her arms on the desk then swept them wide across the table as if gesturing for Rahma to place the correct ‘guess’ up on her desk. Rahma shakes her head. She has no wise words.

“My husband of thirty years willed everything to his children and his sister. Everything!” she said, wiped her eyes and proceeded;

“I have no problem with that, the children are mine too. The sister, well, she is the only sibling he had. I understand that. What I do not understand is why half of the property and our matrimonial home had to go to Joshua.”

Joshua was her step-son. Joshua had lived with her since he was five. How well he treated him, Rahma cannot tell. Maybe she was just as any other stepmother, mused Rahma. Now Rahma can begin to imagine her pain and sense of betrayal, Rahma cannot speculate what she would do if that were to happen to her. Boss’ home was now the property of her stepson who, if he so wanted, would throw her out – out of the home she had planned to retire in. God, It is an unlucky thing to be a woman.

“Men are all dogs,” Rahma mutters under her breath. It must have been loud enough because her Boss looks up at her and smiles.

“Yes, they are.”

Rahma wanted to curse that husband who cheats his wife off her lifetime dedication, but she did not know what to say.

“Like I said,” Rahma’s Boss preceded, “All men are assholes. My husband steals the roof over my head and gives it away to my step-son.” She could no longer hold herself together and she bursts into tear. After a few minutes, the tears stop and Boss straightens herself on her swivel chair.

“As soon as my home is gone Joshua calls me, can you believe that? He calls me.” Rahma’s heart, at this point, is racing and paining for this woman who has no place to call home. Joshua must not have wasted a minute more after the reading of the will, Rahma reflects.

“Joshua calls me and he says that I can keep the house. That he has no need for it. That it is my home,” Boss says, then continues, “Joshua said that I am his mother. The only mother he has.”

Tears are now streaming down Rahma’s face too. Her eyes are misty and her heartbeat unsteady.

That was totally unexpected.

She had not seen all these happening. Everything was unanticipated. She had not known about the Will. How could Joshua keep this from her? She who he had promised he would marry soon? They had even planned to visit his parents, but his Dad had died. Now, the mother-in-law-to-be is telling her how Joshua, her future husband, had just given up a house and wealth?!

“I feel so much pain. I regret that I was never a better mother for Joshua, maybe then I would deserve his kindness.” The old woman says and again bursts into tears. So does Rahma.

“Men are all weird,” the women remark in unison. And in that tiny office, two women cry. Tears are shed; tears of love, tears of pain; the tears of a loved mother, the tears of a cheated wife. The tears of a mother-in-law-to-be and the tears a daughter-in-law-could-be mingle into a heartfelt sob.

Joshua is an asshole, Rahma pondered as she reached for her handkerchief to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.

The Will: When Love isn’t Willed.

By Macaria Wa Gatundu