Jonathan

“Oh no….what have I done?” A dejected Jonathan dropped squarely on to the couch, one hand on top of his head, his mind reeling.

Light steps coming down the stairs helped to pull his eyes from the paper in his other hand. His petite wife came round the corner, her usual wide smile always there to greet him. He managed a pinched one as she came towards him.

“Hey, so were you able to get the document?”

He inadvertently looked down at the paper that was now crumpled and slightly damp with sweat. 

“Well…um.”

Leah jumped on to the couch, next to him. She always seemed to be bounding this way and that, her energy consistently between at 80 to 90%. He hesitantly looked up at her, Carol’s eyebrows raised, and then furrowed,

“Hmmm?”

Jonathan stood up, 

“Well I did go to the bank and printed our statement as Godana suggested”, his measured walk to the other side of the coffee table was too obvious to hide.

“What’s wrong?”

“I got the statement”, Jonathan stalled, “Then I had to wait to see the branch manager to talk about, there were many people for some odd reason and it was so hot. I even saw Peter there, he’s grown his beard and -”

“What has happened.” Carol’s terse voice stopped him mid-sentence. There was no going round this one.

“The money’s gone”

“What do you mean ‘the money’s gone?”

‘Just as I said, it’s gone, all gone…all of it’.

There he had said it, was she going to shout? Faint? Berate him? No, she wouldn’t do that. But what is with that weird look on her face, he had not seen it before. She seemed to be squinting with a confused look, not at him but somewhere through him, beyond him.

It was quiet for an eternity of moments. Finally,

‘I can see you are serious because you are sweating’.

And indeed he was, his polo shirt was sticking to his chest, the collar seeming to stick to his neck. Jonathan lifted his elbows away from his body in a way to try to air out his armpits. He thought it best not to say anything,.... not now anyway.

Leah finally spoke,

“I did tell you that guy seemed dodgy”.

Jonathan defensively looked away, 

“Remember that we both made the decision.”

‘Did I really have a choice?’

Although Jonathan knew what was coming, his pride wouldn’t allow it.

“Don’t pretend that I tied your hands, you were free to say no anytime.”

“Five. Million. Kenya. Shillings.’ Each word Leah said seemed to make his mouth drier and drier. ‘Gone…..nowhere to be found, without a trace, into thin air. Five million. FIVE MILLION JONATHAN!”

He had never seen her like this, flustered, disoriented, loud - disappointed.

Jonathan knelt by her, he needed to make this right,

“Look, at least we hadn’t paid for everything”, he offered. Leah shot him a side glance that made him wince.

‘It’s just the two of us, no kids so we’ll be fine’. With an exasperated sigh, Leah stood up and walked out of the room. There was no need to follow her, again, not right now. Jonathan clasped his hands on top of his head, unconsciously pacing to the beat of his heart which at least was slowing down now.

“Men… what am I going to do.”, he whispered.

Tadi seemed to be legit, had the website, office, car, the look, he was an influence - anyone could have been fooled. Jonathan tried to console himself but he knew very well that he had been blinded by the glitz and glamour, the need to be seen, recognised, admired.

Now he couldn’t reach Tadi, the website was down, the office locked, and he seemed to have blocked Jonathan on social media. He remembered the bank statement and looked down to see where he had dropped it. Where was it? I got down on his knees and checked under the table, Nala the cat was sitting on it, he hadn’t even noticed, ‘I wonder how it got there?’, he thought.

If there was anyone he was going to take financial advice from, apart from his mother, it would be his friend Godana. Going way back to high school, they had been like brothers from different mothers. Although they studied in different universities, Godana abroad and he locally, they always seemed to continue when they met like they had never been apart. Now in their late twenties, they were trying to establish themselves before they hit thirty, not a tall order but a bit too ambitious, particularly by Jonathan as he wanted to be earning like Godana. This real estate investment opportunity was going to do that, Tadi’s reports looked real, he even had celebrities backing him up. 

‘I did do my due diligence, did I not’? This nagging thought had been slowly but surely began pushing itself to the forefront of his mind as he began to question a few things; lack of specificity of about the current project Tadi’s company was doing, unsatisfactory reasons as to why he was not using local banks, unfulfilled promises for certain information, urgency in asking for the investment to get in early to get early bird benefits, he guess he had had to have seen it coming.

‘Wow. This is all my fault.’

Grudgingly, Jonathan realised that he had been a bit pushy with Leah, accusing her of not trusting his decision making, poking holes in his dream, just not believing in him, now that last statement, that’s what made her back down.

‘I am not a good person’.

He decided not to disturb the cat and heavily got up. He seemed to have aged a decade in a few minutes. He could hear Leah’s muffled voice talking agitatedly to someone in the kitchen. He could not hear a response and figured she must be talking to someone on the phone.

‘Now everybody’s going to know.’

‘I need to change this shirt.’