“In a year,” he promised. “Maybe less. I want our wedding to be beautiful.”
Joy believed him with the full innocence of someone who had never learned how dangerous sweet words could be.
For a while, she was happier than she had ever been. She hummed while arranging vegetables at the market. She smiled more easily. Even Mama Nyamura noticed.
“You look like someone carrying sunshine in her heart,” her mother said one evening.
Joy blushed and looked away. “Maybe the future is finally opening for us.”
Mama Nyamura smiled, but gently warned, “Hope is good, my daughter. Just don’t give your whole heart to promises too quickly.”
But love has a way of making caution sound like fear.
Months later, Joy began to feel different. More tired. More sensitive. When the truth finally became impossible to ignore, she went quietly to a nearby clinic.
The nurse confirmed it.
She was pregnant.
Joy’s hands shook all the way home, but beneath the fear there was also something else—hope. Brian had already spoken of marriage. He had already said he wanted a family. Surely he would be surprised, maybe afraid for a moment, but then he would stand by her.
That evening she met him near the river.
“Brian,” she said softly, “I’m going to have a baby.”
For a moment, all the color left his face.
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “The clinic confirmed it.”
Joy waited for him to hold her. To say, Then we must start preparing. To remind her of every promise he had made under the stars.
Instead, Brian stepped back.
“This is sudden,” he muttered.
Joy’s chest tightened. “But you said we would marry.”
“I know,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just need time to think.”
That was the first crack.
The second came when he stopped visiting the market.
A few days became a week. A week became two.
Finally, Joy walked to the boda boda stage and asked for him.
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