Humpty Dumpty.

I ran, which is weird for me. I save running only for when big dogs with sharp teeth are chasing me, but I ran. That's what Mel made me do.

I meet her smiling face at one of those hidden alleys I didn't know about in town. She's in a hurry heading to Ngong. When she sees me she greets me with an awkward hug. I'm the awkward one. I'm yet to find out the formula required to calculate which side to turn my face during a hug. Everyone seems to have it down from birth but me.

"Hurry," she tells me handing me a brown bag. " My driver's waiting"

I'm wondering what she is doing right to have a driver at her age. She looks like she's in her mid twenties. We zoom past people in a walk race(remember those?) Until we get to a pale blue Harrier.

" This is Dave." She tells me as she gets in and takes the brown bag from my hand.

I tell myself not to ask how she has a driver but curiosity gets the better of me and I have to. She tells me she has him until the end of the year. Her late husband paid for Dave's services until then.

The words 'late husband' hang in the air, hot, thick and sticky and I crack open a window to release the tension. But the tension stays. Stubbornly.

She smiles a sad smile and tells me she would tell me how he died, but first, she would tell me how it all began.

Mel met him on one of those long lines at Kencom. Tired and wanting to go home and shower, she waited her turn for one of those buses home. Behind her were two guys, in suits, talking and laughing. As if they didn't have a care in the world. Their energy was alluring but she was too tired to eavesdrop on their happy conversation. Which got louder and louder until one of them tapped her shoulder.

"Hi, name's Martin. This is Alex. He thinks we should never talk to strangers. I disagree. What do you think?"

"I don't remember what I said" she tells me now, " but I couldn't stop looking at Martin." She smiles big. Those smiles that make you think that maybe the world really isn't all that bad. That indeed there was a silver lining to everything.

"He was one of those guys that gave you their full attention and you feel like you're the only thing that mattered for the moment. You know?" I did.

"He got on the bus and sat next to me instead of with his friend, and we talked all the way till my stage. Which was at the end of the line. Apparently he was supposed to get off a while back but he stayed. For me."

"Idiot" she adds lovingly.

Meanwhile on the road, a crazy driver pulls a stunt on the road and Dave swears. The conversation shifts to Kenyan roads and drivers who should have their licences revoked. We get to Ngong. That's when I realize we're going to Mel's home.

Dave pulls up to a gate that opens by remote control. Like those ghost mansions in scooby doo. The house doesn't look dark and scary though.  Orange and grey colour the walls outside and Mel invites me in to the coolest looking house I've visited in a while.

She walks right to the kitchen and Dave comes in with the brown bag we forgot. She removes plates and mugs from cupboards and removes neatly packed food from the brown bags.

"Are you hungry?" She asks me not waiting for an answer.

Mel serves Dave who then disappears.Then she pulls up a high stool from under the kitchen island, and I do the same. She recites a prayer for food I used to recite in class three and digs in.

I pull my Mac and cheese closer and wait for her to start speaking for me to start eating.

"I don't know where to start" she tells me "you'll have to guide me"

" How long did you and Martin date before he asked you to marry him?" I ask, picking that question out of thousands in my mind.

" Three years, although I was ready by the second month" she laughs. Her laugh by the way sound dainty and lady like.

"By that second month I was already doodling Martin and Mel everywhere I could. I practically proposed to him, but he wasn't comfortable with my arrangement. He thought I was too young. We had an age difference of four years. And we met when I was nineteen, so apparently, I had to get rid of the teen in my name first"

She looks at me waiting for a reaction and I'm not sure what my face tells her but she carries on.

" A month after I turned 21, he asked my parents if he could take me to take me to Nanyuki. That's where he proposed. I think my parents knew he was going to ask me though. I don't think my mother would have let me go otherwise. She's a ... Typical protective mum I guess.

Anyway we got married in the most beautiful place, still in Nanyuki, which is where he came from. And I couldn't have asked for a better set of in laws. His Mum loves me, still does. His dad, was, I guess like other dads, happy we didn't give them too much stress with bride price and all. My dad however, didn't like Martin. At all. Until the day Martin put a ring on my finger, he thought he would skip town and leave me broken hearted. He used to say,

"Melly, you're too young for this."

At some point I thought maybe he was right. I mean, at 21 everyone else was experimenting and getting to know themselves. But I realized I didn't want to experiment. I was sure."

I ask her what her marriage was like instead of the obvious question, the one looming over our heads. She tells me of hard days where they both got a flu and still had to go to school and work. Days where they were too tired to talk much. Days where he would surprise her with red velvet cake from her favourite place. And she would surprise him with chapos and they would eat and talk till morning. Times when they would visit their families and have barbecues and gatherings. Times where they would just sit and watch a movie or rub each other's feet. They were each others best friend. That much was plain on her face, and in the wistfulness in her voice, and in the way she rubs at where her ring used to be.

" We had each other's backs, and those were the best three years" She says. " These walls saw everything, and now I see him in everything too" she shuts her eyes.

"Some days it used to eat me until I felt like I couldn't live here anymore. In the beginning, I slept at my parents' house. But at some point I had to show them that I was healing. So I stopped. After, when I couldn't stand the memories, many times, I slept in the car. Or here." She pats the marble island.

I imagine her lying there wrapped in a blanket crying her eyes out. I can't imagine losing a husband and a best friend at once. I look down. Then ask how he died. I used to wonder what it matters how someone died if they're gone either way.

"Blood clot stopped his heart." She sniffs. And I wonder how I could possibly sit here and watch a type of grief I have never experienced. And  say something, anything into that space to make it better. My throat clogs up. I can't make it better.

She continues " It's been thirteen months, three days and a few hours since he died. His friends came and took some of his things since. But his toothbrush is still there, his shaving cream, his man scented soap.  His fuzzy towel. How am I supposed to throw them away, or give them out?

Grief counseling in church tells me that I need to feel everything as it comes. Not to hold anything back. But if I don't grieve little by little, I might never work again. I might break and never recover. Like Humpty Dumpty. As it is I don't think I can be fixed. It's too much all at once."

I sip my mug of juice, completely lost in her world.

"I mean, it's better than the day he died. Yes, but it's worse that it's better. You know?" I don't.

"In the beginning, through the pain, I felt like I could remember him more. I could feel his hand in mine, his hugs, every detail of his face. Now... I don't know. I feel like I'm missing some things."

She glances at the watch on her kitchen wall and tells me she has work she'll need to get to soon. She tells me she doesn't have a happy ending for this story. I would have to find one myself.

I walk out wondering where the stage is and she answers the question in my head by telling Dave to drop me in town.

As we head to town, Dave engages me in polite banter and when I'm about to get off, he shakes my hand and tells me,

"Thank you for coming today, please keep in touch with Mel okay?"

I walk away thinking of her.