Judith, a journalist, pen in hand by day, suspicion in heart by night, had begun to see shadows where love once glowed.
John, her lawyer husband, had grown distant, his eyes wandering, his voice carrying a tenderness not meant for her.
The culprit of her restless nights was Caro, the voluptuous maid, a woman of youth and curves, whose laughter rang like a bell in John’s ear.
“Could it be?” Judith asked herself in the quiet of her study. “Am I sharing a man with the one I pay to sweep my floors?”
Her plan was dangerous yet precise. One Friday evening, she sent the maid away with a smile, hiding her heart’s storm.
“Caro, you’ve worked too hard,” Judith said casually. “Take the night off. Visit your cousin. Tomorrow, you can resume.”
“Thank you, madam,” Caro replied, smiling.
At midnight, she slid into the maid’s bed, cloaked in pitch darkness. She could hear her own heartbeat, a drum of betrayal and rage.
Then came the footsteps. Slow. Measured. Guilty. The door creaked, a shadow entered, and the bed sagged under the weight of a man too confident in sin.
His lips found hers, urgent, reckless. Judith let him wander into his own trap, her rage swelling like thunderclouds.
Suddenly, she snapped on the lights, her voice a dagger:
“Surprised?”
John froze, his eyes wide, his lips trembling with the taste of his own betrayal.
“Judith… This isn’t…” he stammered.
“Don’t insult my intelligence!” she roared. “You came not for me but for her. My maid, John. My maid!”
The house trembled with their quarrel until silence fell like ash after fire.
At dawn, Judith packed her bags and fled to Buruburu, to the waiting arms of her elder sister, Moreen.
Moreen was older, yet her body defied time, sculpted by sweat and iron. Judith looked at her sister and sighed.
“How do you do it, Moreen? You glow while I fade.”
Moreen chuckled, wiping sweat off her brow.
“Discipline, Judy. Dawn runs, the gym, the rhythm of breath and body. Come with me. Find yourself again.”
Judith obeyed. Dawn after dawn, they pounded the streets, their shoes kissing the tarmac, their lungs blazing.
Slowly, her body transformed. Mirrors began to smile back at her. Strangers stared. Men drooled over her.
Among them was Luke, an Uber driver with eyes like sunrise and words that melted barriers. One evening, after a ride home, he lingered.
“You know,” he said softly, “the city’s lights don’t shine half as bright as your smile.”
Judith blushed, unprepared for tenderness. “And you, Luke, have the courage of a poet in a driver’s seat.”
Their love bloomed quickly, like wildflowers after rain. He took her hand in restaurants, whispered promises under Nairobi’s starlit skies. Soon, wedding bells loomed.
But fate, that cruel puppeteer, cut the strings too soon. Days before the wedding, a speeding lorry crashed into Luke’s car along Mombasa Road. He didn’t make it.
At City Mortuary, Judith wept, clutching his cold hand. “You promised me forever, Luke… Why did you leave me so soon?” A morgue’s cold silence.
At his funeral, Judith whispered to the coffin, “You were my second chance, Luke. Why did you leave me in ruins?”
Loneliness drove her back to her old house, where betrayal had first sprouted. What she found broke her spirit anew: Moreen, her sister, tangled in John’s arms.
Judith’s scream was primal. “Moreen! My blood! John, you filth! Was I not enough for either of you?”
John’s face was pale. “Judith, please—”
“Silence! You’ve both stabbed me in the heart and twisted the knife. My own sister!”
Her world caved. Despair dragged her into a pit so deep she flirted with the thought of ending it all. Doctors kept her under watch in a mental health facility until her shattered mind could breathe again.
When released, Judith sought refuge in Vihiga, under her parents’ roof, where the soil smelled of healing rain. There she met Nick, her childhood flame, now a humble teacher. He greeted her warmly, yet his eyes held no romance.
Judith, determined to reignite his interest, returned to her fitness routine. Still, she remembered Moreen’s gospel: fitness is rebirth.
She rose before dawn, ran through village paths, lifted stones, pushed her body to perfection.
Morning jogs along dusty village roads, push-ups under mango trees, stretches at dawn.
Soon, villagers whispered about her transformation. Her glow returned, irresistible as firelight in darkness.
“Nick,” his colleagues told him, “that Nairobi girl is shining. Don’t let her slip away.”
Nick noticed. One evening, under a mango tree, he confessed,
“Judith, you’ve grown into the kind of beauty a man cannot ignore. Perhaps I was blind before. But now — now I want to love you.”
She smiled, though her heart carried scars. “Love me if you dare, Nick. My story is a graveyard of broken vows.”
They became lovers, their laughter echoing in classrooms and markets. She thought fate had finally relented. But storms never rest.
Nick was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. The doctor’s words fell like stones: “Months, maybe.”
Judith clutched his hands. “No, Nick. We will not surrender. You will not fade away while I still breathe.”
She became his trainer, his healer. They ran, slowly at first. He lifted light weights, learned to breathe anew.
“Judith,” Nick said one morning, sweat dripping, breath steady, “I thought cancer had taken everything. But you’ve given me back life. Even if I don’t have years, I have today — and you.”
She wept, holding him as the sun rose.
Exercise gave Nick strength, dignity, joy. Shorter hospital stays, fewer complications, brighter days. Judith watched him reclaim his smile, his voice, his will to fight.
Though she lived with the dread of losing him, she also knew: finally, she had found a man who truly cherished her.
And for once, love did not feel like betrayal, but like the morning sun. Brief, perhaps, but blindingly beautiful.
