The single mother

I have always held the opinion that church is a good place to find a partner. I have never believed that you will meet angels there but I have always considered it as a fair ground to start. I have always had an appreciation of church girls, mostly because of how smart, calm and composed they look—if observation suffices as measure to draw the conclusion. 

For long, I had fantasized about being involved with one and eventually, as luck would have it, I found one, although the timing wasn’t perfect. Still fresh from a heartbreak, I thought my scars were still visible for the world to see if one was keen enough to see through them. I felt a lack of enough emotional capital to invest in a serious relationship, and yet, I was also eager to put the stereotyping that surrounded church girls to a litmus test.

I first noticed her in church when we were seated in the same section, on the left side of the altar at Biina Church. I would go on to see her almost every Sunday, and if we were seated in proximity, we shook hands during the segment of showing each other a sign of piece—and if weren’t, we smiled in each other’s direction in acknowledgement. This was long before Covid-19 hit and perhaps forever changed the way we interact in church.

Our first actual interaction came after just over month in a post mass exchange that was as brief as you can imagine. Beyond the greetings and name exchanges, I would be lying if I said I know what we talked about that particular day. Her name was Nooren. That was the genesis of what literally became a ritual of exchanging pleasantries every Sunday after mass. If one of us missed mass, that would make the brief topic for the following Sunday.

That became our routine for quite some time until she popped up among my Facebook friends suggestions. Besides the hand of God, I don’t know how else to explain it because we had not yet exchanged contacts at this point. Our only point of interaction was at church. We became friends on the blue app and started exchanging routine greetings and a few reflections on each other’s day if the conversation went beyond a salutation. As we grew friendlier, on Saturday night, we would agree on what mass to attend, choosing between the 7 or 9 am mass. This became the inspiration we steered in each other’s direction even when one of us had been planning to skip church.

This went on for quite sometime and by now, I knew she resided in Kitintale although I had declined a one-time invitation to visit in a post mass chit-chat. My excuse was that I had some laundry and general house cleaning to do. One Sunday, I said to her; walk with me. “To where,” she asked. Home, I said. Why, she probed with her eyebrows raised, before reminding me of how I had declined to visit her place when she extended an invitation.

Albeit seemingly looking unconvinced with the idea, she came around to it. As we sauntered, she asked a bunch of questions that were to be expected in an insinuative manner that we laughed through most as I answered them. “Is it a single room?” She asked, expressing her fears of not wanting to be greeted by a bed as soon as she walks in. No it isn’t but whatever expectations you have, perceived or otherwise, keep them low—I noted as we smiled at a kid holding onto her mother’s leg as she attended to a customer at a local charcoal store.

Eventually we made it to my place. I served her a quick breakfast of black tea and buttered bread—and off she went. Whatever observations she noted about my living room, she was kind enough to keep them to herself. She would go on to tease me about some of them in the course of the week during our chats on Messenger.

It had been slightly over six months of friendship when we fell into what later became like a norm. We would walk to my place after church at least twice a month. On our way home, she would persuade me into buying either beef or fish, and at one time chicken so that she can prepare me a home cooked meal. She had a cunning way of making me call one of the grocery ladies to peel us some matooke that we would pick on our way home, and if she sensed any whit of hesitation, she offered to be the one to pay for it as if money was the issue.

In spite of having a fairly well-equipped kitchen, cooking actual food had been reduced to a rare occurrence in my household. I always found it easier to settle for quick meals like a home-made sandwich, French toast—which I was kind enough to make for Noreen more than twice or a home-made ghetto pizza (a combination of sliced chapati, eggs and veggies). 

By now she knew about my undeniable love for rice in which ever fashion it would be nicely prepared. And because of that, she had me hooked on her sumptuous pilau that she reserved to cook only once a month. So we would get home, have breakfast and I do the utensils as she switched her attention to preparing the best meal ever. She was intent on switching things up to give me a different taste at every attempt but also deliberate on kicking me out of the kitchen whenever she was cooking, not out of fear that her recipes would be stolen but rather her distaste for any criticism or unprovoked suggestions of how she should be doing something.  

I don’t remember when we finally came around to exchanging contacts but our exchanges on messenger had been effective enough not to warrant having each other’s digits. But even when we did, we still rarely called each other besides swapping messenger for WhatsApp.

To say that Noreen’s food was tasty would be an understatement. We watched a movie as we dined through lunch after which I would quickly attend to the dishes. I was keen on not letting her do any dishes, fearing that it was a little too much to ask or the very least expect of a friend.

Along the way in our friendship journey, we had tip-toed ourselves into a casual relationship. It felt easy as we had no expectations of each other. We still had conversations as friends, joked about everything, the nonsense and the sweet nothings in such a trivial manner.

We criticized one another knowing that emotions would not get in the way. Unanswered phone calls were never an issue, at least we didn’t feel the need to explain oneself as any form of accountability.

I remember one Saturday, on the eve of Palm Sunday when she had decided to spend a night. We were happily watching one of my favourite series, “All American”, having bavardages in between like we had often done during movies when she let the cat out of the bag. She revealed that she had a child, a five-year-old boy named Duncan. My nimble fingers pressed pause on the TV remote, eager to hear more without any distractions. I asked a few basic questions about the child’s whereabouts, the father and the circumstances in general as she showed me a few pictures on her phone, a Samsung S9+ that had a black spot in the top right corner of the screen.

By the time she flipped her book of revelations, my intuition had started to pick on subtle pulses that signaled her seeming desire to make it more than just a casual relationship. Like everything had been between us, I took it lightly and literally. But deep down inside, I knew it was a deal braker. That if, in the remotest of thoughts I had ever imagined us becoming a couple someday, this was it for me, a line not to be crossed.

My suspicions would later be confirmed to be true when she came up with a stunning disclosure of her supposed growing feelings, disguised in a lot of what if questions. I rebuffed it all, calmly, in a manner that wouldn’t hurt her feelings while reminding her of a conversation we’d had before all this started.

I don’t remember what our full justifications were, but I vividly knew that we had come to some form of consensus with the boys that single mothers were a no-go area as far as dating was concerned. We had somehow deemed those waters to murky to navigate. I precisely recall one of the boys saying that no single mother would pass the squad’s vetting committee, unless under extenuating circumstances that I will not divulge into right here.

Anyway, I knew I had to formulate a quick exit plan. But while I pondered through it all, how to break ties without causing any emotional havoc, what I now wish for an axe was fallen by wind when she moved. As a government employee, working as a midwife, she had been transferred to serve at a health centre in Kakumiro.

She eventually made that transfer and little by little, aided by distance we grew apart without having to formally break ties. Looking back now, I remember her kindness and caring endeavors—the life pecks she shared and her almost always jolly self.

My humble question to you all is, would you date or even marry a single mother/father? If yes, or not, what’s your justification?