Becky plucked the last shirt from the clothesline. The air had warmed; the sun, now high, had burned away the mist that ruled the early morning.
Inside her room, she dropped the bundle of laundry onto the bed and began folding one by one, smoothing each crease with care.
When she pulled open the drawer to store the clothes, the corner of a packet of sanitary pads caught her eye.
Her fingers stilled.
Three days.
Her cycle had never been irregular and certainly never late.
A thin thread of unease slid through her. But no. It was too soon to panic. Perhaps the move, the unfamiliar rhythm of the campus life; the cold weather — her body was adjusting. Yes. That was all.
She shut the drawer too quickly and found a different storage space for her clothes in a suitcase.
And just as quickly, she pushed her worries away.
But a week later she stood in the same spot, the same drawer open, the same packet untouched.
Still nothing.
The worries returned. This time there was no wishing them away. The truth hovered, insistent.
She had to know. She picked a jacket and put it on.
At the clinic, the sharp scent of disinfectant made her stomach tighten. She watched as the clinical officer disappeared behind a curtain with her sample. Each small sound from behind the fabric felt amplified and every second he spent in there was a torturous delay.
When he returned, his face wore an easy smile.
"Be happy," he said gently. "Here are your results."
She took the test kit he extended towards her and stared in disbelief at the two lines that declared her new status.
"A new life is forming inside you." The clinical officer said.
She lifted her eyes to face him. His words did not echo. They settled as he handed her the test kit. And she stared at the two lines that affirmed the results.
Pregnant.
For one brief, disorienting moment, warmth flickered through her. Life. Inside her; tiny little thing at the onset of a long journey.
Then guilt crashed over it — swift, suffocating.
She was still a married woman.
Tesot's face rose in her mind, stern and distant. The fragile hope she had secretly nurtured — that one day he might return — crumbled quietly. He would never take her back now. Not with another man's child growing beneath her heart.
Later, in her room, she sat on the edge of the bed, hands pressed between her knees reflecting on her new situation.
Another child.
Kiplimo's absence lived inside her like an unhealed wound. Some nights she could almost hear his breathing in the dark.
Maybe this was not punishment.
Maybe it was replacement.
Yet she was terrified.
And what of Koech?
If she told him, would he step closer — or take over? Claim rights. Claim her. Lay hold of a future she was not ready to surrender to anyone.
No.
The word formed slowly, quietly — like the life inside her.
This child would be hers. Entirely hers. No strings attached. No negotiations. No debts to its father.
And thinking of the devil, his calls began. But she let the phone vibrate itself into silence. Once. Twice. Then countless times.
Each missed call tightened something in her chest.
She knew he would come looking for her. And the next day, she relocated to a new apartment. She did not even ask for rental deposit.
By the time Koech began asking mutual friends about her, she had already folded her life inward — shrinking her world to protect what was growing inside her.
The matatu jerked to a halt. Becky kept her eyes on the horizon, one hand resting protectively over her stomach.
"Mtu moja, Mtu moja! Nairobi direct!" the conductor shouted outside slapping the side of the vehicle.
A man in a red cap climbed in, paid quickly and took the only empty seat- beside her.
Becky barely turned.
Until she saw the phone in his hand.
On the screen - a Photo.
Him.
Her breath caught.
Koech.
He shifted, sending her movement and turned.
His eyes widened.
"Becky?"
Her name sounded like disbelief.
She forced herself to look at him properly now.
"Hello."
"What are you doing here ?" he asked, scanning her face as if confirming she was real.
"Travelling to Nairobi. And you?"
"Navashia, but I will alight at Mai Mahiu to join some of my colleagues. We are planning to take the kids on a tour of Mt Longonot in a month's time."
"Hmm!" Becky nodded her fingers tightening around her shawl.
"You disappeared," he said, voice lowering as the van
Pulled back onto the highway. "No calls. Nothing."
"I needed to."
"I don't understand."
She shifted in her seat.
He stopped mid-sentence. His gaze dropped briefly to her stomach. Then returned to her face.
"Are you okay?"
The baby moved - slow, deliberate, she swallowed.
"I'm pregnant," The words barely rose above the hum of the engine.
He froze. "What?"
She turned slightly toward him. There was no accusation in her eye. Just exhaustion.
"It's yours."
The Matatu hit a pothole. Someone cursed in the back.
"How far?" He asked quietly.
"Six Months."
His jaw tightened. "Six Months... and you didn't tell me?"
"I wasn't going to."
"Why?"
"I'm still married. You know. And hope to still get back to him."
His expression flickered - hurt, disbelief, something heavier.
"I'm alighting here," Koech said, rising from his seat as the matatu slowed. "Call me when you get back. We can't ignore this."
The conductor slid the door open. Dust swirled in. Koech stepped down onto the roadside at Mai Mahiu, then turned once as if to say more — but didn't.
The door banged shut.
Becky remained in her seat, her palm resting over her stomach as the matatu lurched forward again.
Seeing him had unsettled her more than she wanted to admit. He was still as striking as ever, and the gentleness in his eyes had not hardened. That was the problem.
As much as she had tried to avoid him, life kept circling him back into her path. Now he knows everything, she thought.
A tightness gripped her chest. She regretted telling him.
He wanted a conversation — to decide, to plan, to take responsibility. But she did not want that conversation. She did not want to be drawn into another arrangement, another attachment.
She was afraid — not just of losing this baby, but of losing control.
This child was the one thing that felt unquestionably hers.
Outside, the hills rolled past in muted green. Inside, the engine hummed, indifferent.
"Fine," she whispered, though he was no longer there to hear it.