Second Death Of Husband

By Safari E. Ohumay

Joyce Malley, a grumpy housewife would have an unusual morning that began by an unexpected departure of her husband. Her husband Nick who was supposed to have told her details of his expected travel to Europe, ignored her, called a taxi early in the morning, and took off for the airport. In their five-year old marriage, Joyce had been quietly whining about her husband not spending enough time with her; This act and many others, seem to bring Joyce to the brink of questioning the value of her married life. She sulked as usual, but assumed that Nick would call her later after his arrival in Europe. But against inconceivable odds, she was about to receive news that would for a fleeting moment shock, but relieve her some how of her plaint.
Her sister Tina and Nick’s close friend Rodney, came home around noon that day with a somber message. News had quickly raced through the media and in small communities that a plane for Europe had crashed just before noon, and among the passengers reported dead was Nick Malley. Little did she know that her day would be turned upside down, not only by the sad news, but also by what would happen to her as she grieved.
Shocked but gracefully in control, Joyce took the grief with courage, and for a short while she came to terms with the widowhood, that fortuitously came with her new freedom. She confided to her sister what the next move might be, which would not exclude a high school boy friend from Brazil. By the end of that day Joyce's story would take a near-fatal twist that would land her in an intensive care unit of the town's cardiac center, being comforted by none other than her husband Nick.
Joyce and Nick would eventually triumph over their life-threatening crisis that required the precision of the medical professionals to turn it around, even as Joyce’s life was hanging by a thread. They would go on to plan a getaway vacation to Indonesia. Their adventures on the vacation would take them to a snorkeling expedition to witness the abundant marine life, and eventually to the world famous Komodo National Park to see the giant lizards known as komodo dragons. Something terrible would happen there, and for a while Joyce becomes a widow who ends up collecting a handsome insurance policy benefit. But Joyce's troubles do not completely go away before she solves a mysterious account of the scene of the accident as told by the local people of the island.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Safari E. Ohumay
• Release date: Jul 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310326394

Safari E. Ohumay

Safari E. Ohumay is a US citizen who was born in a rural village of Tanzania. He first came to the US as a graduate student in Development Management and returned home after graduating in 1976. Earlier on he studied Math and Economics and graduated with a BS degree from the university of DaresSalaam in early 1972. After a two year stint in senior management in two Tanzanian industrial processing firms he received a job offer from the World Bank Group in Washington DC through its Young Professionals Program.For the next 18 years he travelled extensively from Washington to many parts of Asia and Africa as the World Bank’s Program manager focusing in Infrastructure and Urban development under the theme of poverty alleviation. He spent most of his career in the World Bank working with countries such as Bangladesh, Burma, Indonesia, Pakistan and Srilanka in Asia, and Kenya, Malawi, Swaziland and Tanzania in Africa. Recently he joined the US Agency for International Development team in Afghanistan for one year as a Field Program officer at the height of the US campaign against Al-Kaida. Safari E. Ohumay lives in the Washington suburbs of Maryland and works as a freelance consultant.

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Second Death of Husband

Safari Ohumay

Second Death of Husband

Copyright 2015 Safari Ohumay

Published by Safari Ohumay at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Bearers of Bad News

Unchained

Fleeting Fantasy

Kalahari Desert Crash

A Heart Attack

Burning from Inside

Getaway Vacation

Newly Found Love

Rodney’s Health Scare

Flight Experience

Paradise Island

Manta Ray Chase

Komodo National Park Adventure

Death Money

A Meager Wedding

Mysterious Messages

Dramatic Rescue

About the Author

Other Books by this Author

Connect With Safari Ohumay

Prologue

Joyce Malley, a grumpy housewife and her husband, Nick, are the principal characters in the story. Nick as the breadwinner in the household has been working himself almost to the exclusion of all else. He would wake up very early in the morning and leave for work by six a.m., only to return frequently late, often after eight p.m. This pattern of their life has been going on for the entire period of their five-year marriage.

As a homemaker, Joyce seems to have plenty of time on her hands and in need of intimacy and more time with her husband. But, their social skills were at their lowest ebb after five long years of marriage; none of them would dare initiate a conversation to share their respective challenges.

Their concealed challenges reached a tipping point one day when, Nick who was supposed to have told Joyce details of his expected travel to Europe, ignored her, called a taxi early in the morning, and took off for the airport. Joyce took that act as the lowest point in their relationship, and brought her to the brink of questioning the value of her married life. She sulked as usual as she would whenever they had any of their conversations, which were few and far between. Nonetheless she assumed that Nick would call her later after his arrival in Europe.

When Nick got to the airport, he received a call from his boss who was supposed to be going with him. A major piece of operating equipment at work had stalled; their trip had to be canceled. Nick and his boss worked on the equipment the whole day until after seven in the evening. Nick and his boss were not aware of the reports of a plane hijacking that day, which ended up in a crash in the Kalahari Desert. But that news of a plane hijacking would reach his wife, Joyce through her sister, Tina and Nick’s best friend, Rodney.

It was against those inconceivable odds that Joyce received news that would for a fleeting moment shock, but relieve her plaint, some how.

Her sister Tina and Nick’s close friend, Rodney, came home around noon that day with a somber message. News had quickly raced through the media and in small communities that a plane for Europe had crashed just before noon, and among the passengers reported dead was Nick Malley. Little did she know that her day would be turned upside down, not only by the sad news, but also by what would happen to her as she grieved?

Shocked but gracefully in control, Joyce took the grief with courage, and for a short while she came to terms with the widowhood, that fortuitously ushered in her new freedom. She confided to her sister what her next move to fill the void might be, which would not exclude a discreet contact with a high school boy friend from Brazil. By the end of that day Joyce’s story would take a near fatal twist that landed her in an intensive care unit of the town's cardiac center, being comforted by none other than her husband Nick.

Joyce and Nick eventually triumphed over their life-threatening crisis that required the precision of the medical professionals to turn it around, even as Joyce’s life was hanging by a thread. The couple would go on to plan a getaway vacation to Indonesia for a well deserved time to away from home. Their adventures on their vacation would take them to snorkeling expeditions for a close encounter with the abundant marine life, and eventually to the world famous Komodo National Park to see the giant lizards known as komodo dragons. Something terrible would happen, and for a while Joyce becomes a widow who ends up colleting a handsome insurance policy benefit. But Joyce troubles do not completely go away before she solves the mystery of a dramatic rescue by local people who saved the life of her husband who was presumed to have fallen prey to the komodo dragons.

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Bearers of Bad News

On that unforgettable early morning of an otherwise humdrum day, Joyce Malley was awakened by the shuffling noises of her husband Nick who was packing in a rush to dash for the airport. She had just heard Nick make a phone call for a taxi to take him to the airport. Nick had made only a passing remark the night before, about his boss’ trip to a European city for an expected import of a new piece of equipment they need at their job. The boss had asked Nick to stand by in case he might need his company on the trip. But it was not until late in the night when Nick’s boss confirmed the trip. Nick went to bed that night without telling Joyce about the trip. Joyce was not the least amazed with Nick’s attitude after she found out later, and to make matters worse, Nick did not even leave behind the details of the information about the flight he was taking. Nick said, albeit in passing as he was getting in a taxi, I will tell you later once I arrive in Europe. However, grudgingly Joyce trusted that once he reached his destination, Nick would communicate. Joyce never received a call from Nick that day.

Later on that day just before noon while Joyce was relaxing in her porch, she saw a couple in a car that was backing up for a parking space a few steps away from her house front. It was her sister Tina and Rodney. Rodney was a long time friend of Nick’s. Joyce noticed something in their walk that was reminiscent of a somber mood. They were unusually slow as they walked towards the house, their eyes glued to the ground; she wondered if they were going to stop by. How and why did they meet at this time of the day when each would be on the job? she wondered.

What Joyce did not know was their poignant discussion of the somber message they were bearing and how to deliver it to her. Troubled deeply by their genuine concern that Joyce was afflicted with an intermittent heart trouble, Rodney and Tina were going to great lengths to break the sad news of her husband’s death to her.

It all began when Rodney called her sister, Tina, to tell her the sad news of the death of her brother-in-law. Rodney knew he had the unenviable task of delivering to Joyce alone, the news of the death of his longtime friend. The gravitas of the news forced him to think through his next move carefully. Rodney, who had been dating Tina on- and off, asked her if she could join him on that somber mission. Tina was shocked, but more than ready to be the first to meet her sister. Moments after the call, Rodney picked Tina up from her job at a real estate agency, and both of them agreed that Tina would deliver the message artfully while Rodney would be close by. On arrival at the Malley’s house, they saw Joyce sitting in her porch, and joined her; without spending much time, they asked her if they could go inside in the living room. As a sneaky aura of foreboding was engulfing the room, Joyce’s ears were ringing with silent sounds. Once they arrived in the living room, Tina took the courage to face her sister with the news in a rather convoluted way.

But before long, Joyce concluded that something terrible had happened and her sister was attempting not to tell it directly. After much speculation as to what might have brought this couple at that time of the day, it ultimately dawned on Joyce that something had happened to Nick who had left for an overseas trip that morning. Tina continued to describe the news report; all the while Joyce and Rodney remained ostensibly silent, listening attentively. Joyce noticed that husband’s friend Rodney, was by her side as though to ready him for her support in the event the weight of the sad news caused her to lose posture.

It all began in a newsroom of a media company that shared office space with Rodney. Rodney was talking with a maintenance manager when he saw press news reeling out, headlining an airline plane crash that had over 200 passengers on board on a route to a European city. He saw the news flash as it came on a small flat screen, which showed Nick Malley’s name was leading the list of killed passengers. Rodney was in utter disbelief and frantically tried to while away time by taking refuge in faith and hope; for a while he was wishing it was a misprint or some error on the part of a reporter who would soon make corrections.

Moments later, a second news reel flashed in a stream of fast moving words that only corroborated the previous release and thus hastened to overcome Rodney’s nascent temptation to forestall his unenviable job of being the bearer of the sad news to his friend’s spouse. To Rodney Nick Malley was more than an ordinary friend: He was a classmate in high school, but he was also his best buddy who had shared the same hometown with him in the longest time.

It is about Nick isn’t it? Joyce opened her mouth and asked as her eyes were glued on Tina’s face, while still standing in the living room. When Joyce heard the sad news in its full scope, she took it in her own unique way which was contrary to the expectations of the bearers. She did not react when she heard the story unlike many women would regress into a paralyzing inability to accept its reality and significance. Moments later, she took a posture of a person, frozen stiff with eyes in a blank stare on a plain wall of her three bedroom rambler. She then eased out herself and made a sudden uncontrolled move, her legs wobbly, and leaned on her sister’s shoulder. Her sister Tina turned gently towards her, giving her room to quickly bury her face between her sister’s arms looking down. Tina was holding her ground, but personally shaken for fear of what damage this news might inflict on Joyce’s weak heart.

Joyce Malley sobbed in an eerie moan that could have invoked tears from anyone one near who could see and hear. In time, the tempo of the sobbing noise began to descend at a steady speed until it stopped completely after about five minutes, which seemed like eternity for Tina. For Rodney and Tina who had braced them for the worst reaction, the storm of grief appeared to have spent itself. Not long after a much welcome calm, Joyce went to her room alone in a swift walk, and shut the door behind her, letting no one to follow her, not even her sister. There, in the room stood, facing an open window, a comfortable roomy armchair. Into this she plumped her tall body frame, showing unmistakable signs of a physical exhaustion that taunted her body outwardly and seemed to reach into her very soul.

Torture Chamber Memories:

She was in the only room where she could be alone, the only place in the house where she learned how to overcome her loneliness and the constant pain arising from within her. In that room she watched days come and go, often pondering how she might end her loneliness. It is one of the two rooms right next to the master bed room which she dreaded as her emotional torture chamber where she would spend her mostly sleepless nights with her husband Nick whom she married five years prior. For now, she might have thought she needed that quiet moment, in spite of the company of people who surrounded- two most loving people she could hope to have around in times like this.

Joyce lifted her head gently up and looked out of her window in a southwesterly direction into the woods. It was the beginning of the Fall season and tree canopies were gradually disappearing; most leaves still up on trees were parading their color patterns day by day at the same time allowing gravity to assemble them on the ground below. As Joyce sat in her chair, there in the middle of the room, the rays of sunlight pierced through partially opened window curtains, and warmed the bare pine floor. She gently took off her flat-heeled shoes and placed her long toenailed feet on the warm pine floor in utter oblivion. She gazed out the window at the spectacular transformation of the autumn colors. It seemed she had weathered the torrent of emotional trauma that the news of the tragic death of her husband could have unleashed.

The scene was seemingly 'perfect', but there was something long suppressed inside of her which she dared not speak out to anyone. It was beginning to find space in the streams of her unchained thoughts. A feeling so profoundly deep in the inner core of her heart, it still managed to flood her mind every second and dominated her mind on every thought.

Everyday Joyce would reach her absolute limit of rationality, but was determined to not act on her feelings. And it was truly overpowering her, but now the weight of the tragic news seemed to have stirred up that feeling in a way she never thought possible. It is the whole feeling about their relationship as husband and wife, rooted in her from the day they were married. It had kept taunting her for almost every day of her life.

She would recall the routine of every day of their life for the last five years. The clock alarm would go off at twenty past seven every morning of a weekday. And it would be another day that she would face by herself all alone the whole day. May be I should speak out and share my pain with my loved ones, she would occasionally say to herself. Then again, it really didn't make a difference to her whether they chose to believe it or not, she found no problem convincing herself that way. Her friend Rachel who lived half an hour away from her home would occasionally come by, to collect her for a ride and shopping of some sort women do when they are together and just gossiping. But she had to put on an act to avoid offending Rachel, for deep in her heart, secret pain was trumping any joy she could derive in the company of her friend. Inside her, she felt abused and stripped of her dignity, but on the outside, in front of her friend, she would act calm and would wear a face that said, We had a fantastic day, and what more could I ask of it!

Eight years ago when she was a senior at high school, usually, just as almost everyone her age would do, she would come home from school, drop her school bags and sit down in front of the television to watch her favorite programs that all her friends also watched. She and her school friends then all felt watching a favorite television program after school reinvigorated their energies after a long day before turning to the dreaded homework humdrums. Back then; she loved the television stories they shared because they easily became points of conversation, especially for girls her age who were looking for opportunities to break into a relationship with boys. She was satisfied her life was exciting and full of great expectations for the future. But all that bliss of school years seemed to have vanished since she got married to Nick. She reckoned her life had become an unspoken misery that rolled with passing time. She had never been able to solve this misery until that day. Once she was alone in the house after Nick was long gone to work, she would go straight to the master bedroom, take a good glance at her face in the mirror. She would convince her eyes that she was no longer good looking. She would see lines of wrinkles streaking across her forehead and below her eyelids like those of a woman past her menopause. She would immediately burst out of the room crying. When that happened, she would enter the next bedroom that had a nice armchair, and would sit smack in it in the middle of the bedroom; salty tears would flow down her egg-shaped cheeks; as she would wipe her tearing eyes, she would ingest her saliva which made her cough hard occasionally causing an awkward constriction in her throat, taking her on the brink of choking. She was frequented occasionally by the realization, that years of sulking at her own life unmistakably were taking their toll on her once pretty face. She wondered how so fast the marriage had stolen away her radiant face.

As Joyce steadfastly stared outside her window, the ambrosial breath of rain -soaked air was quietly whispering in her face. On the opposite side of the woods she could hear a peddler in the street hollering out his merchandise as she would expect at this time of the day when women, mostly house wives, are at home attending to sundry chores of the home. The humming of a distant song note of someone in the neighborhood singing reached her faintly; the occasional swarming of birds in synchronized twitters would claim her view as the birds perched on the tree branches, which were baring their leaves, covering fallen acorns as they reached the ground. She would see four legged creatures like squirrels and raccoons busy burrowing through the fallen leaves as they searched for acorns.

Up in the skies, she could see patches of blue sky showing here and there, through the clouds, dominated by overpowering cumulonimbus which towered over occasional stratus and scattered altocumulus that would meet and pile one above the other before they cruised away in the west past her window. There she was, seated with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair quite motionless as she was slowly sinking into a sense of comfort on the inside, except when an uncontrolled sob came occasionally up into her throat as a child before bed time who has cried itself out to sleep, continues to sob in its dreams. For a while she was oblivious to the presence of her two guests out in the living room- her sister and Rodney, only separated by her bedroom door. She was beginning to be transformed from within her soul in a tranquil way for the first time in a long, long time.

Putting her repulsive look in the mirror aside, she said to herself: I am young with a fair looking, calm face albeit saggy and a little more than my age would warrant; those lines bespoke a wear and tear of a silent repression, but now amazingly a certain spark of strength is coming my way. Then she had a burst of an awakening in her mind as though a heaven-sent emissary spoke into her ears. The dull stare outside her window which fixed her mind away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky, was not a mere glance of reflection, but rather a much needed profound suspension of intelligent thought which had been trapped in the depth of what she described as irreversible misery for a long time.

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Unchained:

Joyce began to sense the gentle coming of something unthreatening into the depth of her soul, and even though she couldn't figure it out right away exactly what it was, she was waiting for it to perk up any way any how. What could it be? Though a few competing scenarios were racing in her mind, she could not put a finger on a particular one for sure, she mused. But her heart knew it though, in its inner depths; yet it was too subtle and elusive to start crying it out. There was no speckle of doubt that her mind was filled with imagery of something creeping out of the sky, and through that long gaze it was reaching towards her via the invisible waves of the sounds, the evocative scents, the shapes and movements of the clouds and colors that filled the air and its surrounding. Now she gasped and took in a deep breath of air and her bosom raised her shoulders up gently; then it fell tumultuously like a deflated balloon. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, but she was not yet sure she was ready for it as part of her still strived to beat it back as she had been doing in the past.

When she finally succumbed to this irresistible force, a little whisper word escaped with curious ease through her slightly parted lips. Powered by pure instincts, she said it over and over under her breath: Free, free, free! Free at last! The vacant stare and the look of terror, the sobbing and near choking trances that had followed the news of Nick’s death went away with the clouds; instead she felt a wind of fresh air blowing in her way revealing in her the glimpse of what should have been, what could be, and what has to be for her life- for the first time, a free and happy future for her.

The tempo of her pulse rate, which overworked her heart started to calm down, and seemed to warm and relax every inch of her body. She began to