Some recognised me, others didn’t. But when I reached the front, everything went quiet.
“I have something to say,” I said, holding the microphone steady. The woman sitting next to the coffin—his other ‘widow’—stopped moving. I took a deep breath. “This man was my husband,” I announced. “And this”, I turned a bit so everyone could see my baby on my back, “is his daughter.”
Gasps filled the air. I pulled out our marriage certificate from my purse and then a copy of our baby’s birth certificate. I held them up. “You don’t have to believe me. Look at these documents.”
He had legally married me six years ago. We lived in a small apartment in Kisii while he worked on different construction sites. He often said he was travelling, sometimes for weeks, and I never questioned it. I trusted him.