My friend Sally is a stunning woman. She has the most unusual features I have ever seen—so striking that I’d wager you’ve never seen anything like her. Her bone structure looks like it was plotted with a geometrical set—yes, the same one from those dreadful mathematics classes we all tried to forget.
Let’s get the preliminaries out of the way: my friend’s name is not Sally (this is a pseudo), and she was not entirely thrilled when I told her I wanted to write this piece.
I called her one evening while I was making dinner.
“What are you up to, friend?”
“I just finished dinner. Going to write some emails, then go to bed.”
“Where’s Jack?”
“Si unamjua—he’s out. Nairobing.”
“Just another day in marriage, I guess,” I replied.
She laughed nervously. The kind of laugh that is riddled with regret and unanswered questions—a laugh that masks nine years in a marriage that feels like a ship with a drunk captain.
“How’s the blog?”
“It’s not a blog,” I replied—perhaps too sharply.
“What is it, girl?”
“It’s a creative hub.”
She laughed and apologized dramatically. Now that she had brought it up, I had my opening.
“How would you feel if I wrote about you?”
Silence. Then that laugh.
“Me? What would you even write about?”
“About how they made you on the moon!”
We both laughed—loudly, too loudly—perhaps trying to outlaugh the nerves.
“I’m too boring,” she said. “I could never meet your word count.”
“In any case, can I?”
“Can I think about it?”
“Of course,” I said.
Then I let her go—so I could tend to my ugali as the water came to a boil. Or maybe I instinctively knew to give her breathing room.
At 11 a.m. the next day, as I sat through one of those meetings that truly could have been an email, my phone buzzed.
“Write,” she had texted.
“You might not like it.”
“I know.”
Now back to the point: Sally is oblivious to her beauty. And when beautiful people are oblivious, it is both fascinating and deeply puzzling.
One night at a Kwetu Collection restaurant, she studied her reflection in the ladies’ room mirror and announced, to my utter shock, “I’m thinking of getting my breasts done.”
I stared at her through the mirror. “Your breasts are sitting higher than my convictions.”
She laughed.
Two weeks later, I picked her up along Amboseli Road—we were headed to a friend’s bridal shower. She flipped down the visor mirror, studied her reflection thoughtfully, and said, “My eyes are droopy. I should do something about it.”
“What?” I asked. This woman has the most beautiful hazel eyes I have ever seen. The conversation didn’t get far; a poorly timed driver swerved into our lane, prompting us to yell at him and then burst into hysterical laughter at our synchronized outrage.
Later that night, we were all squeezed onto a couch at the after-party, doing what girls do best—gossiping. Sally announced drunkenly, “I’m getting lipo. Jack thinks my hips are too wide, and I can’t say I disagree.”
What followed was a chorus of reassurance. I didn’t speak. I was deeply bothered.
As we walked to the car, Sally noticed my silence. “You’re awfully quiet. Are you okay?”
We got in and shut the doors.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“What’s going on with you? Lately you keep finding fault with your body, and I’m worried about where it’s coming from.”
“Jack is cheating.”
Silence.
Then I gathered my thoughts. “How long? How did you find out?”
“Two years. They have a child.”
She laughed. That laugh. I have come to hate that laugh. It isn’t unique to Sally. I’ve heard it from too many women in similar situations—a laugh that carries resignation and disbelief in equal measure.
We sat in that car for nearly an hour and a half, exchanging truths and heartache. She told me about the messages, the weeks spent stalking the other woman online.
“She’s petite. Very active. And she must be at least seven years younger than me.”
I felt a deep sorrow for my friend. I imagined the long road of comparison she had been walking alone—measuring herself against a stranger. Then I felt a quiet rage toward Jack for placing her in that position. Jack, with his receding hairline, thinning beard, and permanently tired eyes. A week later, I ran into him in the underground parking lot of Lavington Mall. I did not give in to the urge to run him over.
“So that’s why you’ve been finding fault with your body?”
“Yeah. I think I let myself go.”
I love my friend deeply. She is dependable, grounded, and good. She is the friend you text during a layover in Addis Ababa when you suddenly remember you forgot to arrange a pickup for when you land in Nairobi. Sure enough, she is waiting for you as you walk out of the airport—not because she organized transport, but because she came herself. Standing there in sweatpants and a t-shirt, grinning, she says, “Welcome home, lady! You better have gotten hitched in Ghana!”
She is the friend who sends you flowers on your birthday—flowers you find waiting on your desk when you arrive at work, with a card that reads, “It’s time to start aging. You can’t look 21 forever.” I don’t. But I still smile and text her back, “I’ll try to age—so you people don’t feel threatened.”
She is the friend who makes you go to the hospital even when you insist your headache is just burnout. She will pick you up, drive you to the appointment, and buy you lunch afterward, saying, “For being a good girl and actually showing up.” You can tell she has been a mother for some time.
She is the kind of friend whose name appears on your screen and you smile before you even answer. When you do, she begins with the simplest, most loaded question of all:
“How’s life?”
In that moment, I wished she could see herself through my eyes—through all our eyes. That is the tragedy of toxic relationships: good people are broken down so gradually that they forget their own worth. The erosion is quiet. Painful. Invisible. And by the time you notice it, it has already rearranged your reflection.
“Listen to me,” I said. “You are a good woman in every sense of the word. You have been betrayed. Do not take ownership of someone else’s wrongdoing.”
She cried softly. I thought to myself that Jack did not deserve my friend. He deserved a wolf for a partner—an actual wolf. One that would maul him in his sleep once he finally went to bed, since he was behaving as though he had been raised by a pack of them. I did not share these dark thoughts with my friend.
Sometimes I think how much better the world would be if we could live parts of our loved ones’ lives for them—just long enough to help them take the first hard step, when logic fails and fear takes over. Because initiating change is the hardest part.
There are parts of that conversation that will not appear on these pages. We agreed they would remain between us.
As we drove into the Nairobi night, she asked softly, “What would you do?”
“I would leave,” I said. I surprised myself with how quickly the words came.
“It’s been seven years,” she whispered.
“It could just as easily become fourteen,” I replied. “People rarely change—and they almost never do things just once.”
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