When Chief Okondo married a second wife, the whole of Mosobeti came to see her.
She was not from Kisii. She was light-skinned, tall, with eyes that did not smile even when her mouth did. Her name was Lilian. She came from Nairobi. She did not speak Ekegusii. She did not go to the river. She stayed inside the Chief's big stone house and closed the curtains.
The first wife, Mama Moraa, had been married to the Chief for 23 years. She had given him five children, three cows, and respect in the village. When Lilian arrived, Mama Moraa did not cry. She just moved her cooking stones from the main kitchen to the small kitchen behind the chicken house.
People said, "Chief has brought a town girl, his house will have no peace."
For three months, there was peace. Too much peace. Lilian never quarreled. Mama Moraa never quarreled. The Chief was happy and fat. He walked in the market with Lilian holding his hand like a young man.
Then the Chief started getting sick.
First it was his stomach. Then his legs. Then he could not wake up in the morning. The doctor in Kisii said it was ulcers. The pastor said it was prayer. Mama Moraa said nothing, but she stopped eating food from the main house. She cooked only for herself and her children in the small kitchen.
One night, the Chief's last-born son, Brian, who was 9, came running to his mother at 2am. He said, "Mama, I saw Lilian putting something white in Father's tea."
Mama Moraa did not shout. She went to the main house the next morning and told Lilian, "From today, I will be making tea for Mzee."
Lilian laughed. She said, "You are just a jealous old woman."
That afternoon, Chief Okondo drank tea made by Mama Moraa and slept well for the first time in months. He woke up strong.
Lilian was angry. That night, she packed a small bag and told the Chief, "I am going to Nairobi to see my mother for two days."
She never came back.
Two weeks later, police came from Nairobi. They came with a photo. The photo was of Lilian, but her name was not Lilian. Her real name was Faith. She was wanted for killing her first husband in Kitengela the same way - slow poison in tea, so that it looked like ulcers. She married rich men, waited for them to write land for her, then killed them slowly.
Chief Okondo had already given her two acres near the road.
When the police left, Mama Moraa went to the small kitchen, made strong tea, and gave it to her husband with both hands. She said, "Drink. No one will poison you again while I am alive."
The Chief looked at her, the woman he had almost left for a light-skinned girl from Nairobi, and tears came. He said, "Moraa, I have been a fool."
Mama Moraa said, "You were not a fool. You were a man. Men like shiny things. But shiny things cut."
Today, Chief Okondo still has two wives on paper. One lives in Nairobi in Kamiti prison. The other lives behind the chicken house, but she is the one who holds the keys to the main house.
In Mosobeti, they still say, "Do not marry a woman whose eyes do not smile."