Where is the gutless groom?

Their parents knew they were an item, their friends believed in the strength of their union, their church had announced the wedding banns, the pastor was ready to bless the biggest day of their love and a big feast had been prepared in their honour.

But when the day came, one of them chickened out and ran for the hills, leaving the other forlorn, angry and the talk of town.

When Edith Nkana met Erick Chomba a few years ago, she saw in him a man who could be the father of her children, a handsome prince who would make her the happiest woman in the ridge.

Erick, on the other hand, felt ‘something indescribable’ towards Edith, a feeling that confused him more than it lit the path towards her. And in the middle of all that uncertain excitement, a love as gentle as a dove blossomed.

Soon they were talking marriage, and the couple spent the better part of last year and this year preparing for the big day. Edith, like any other bride, was ectastic and preached the impending grand union to anyone who would listen.

Unbeknown to her, Erick had developed cold feet about it all but could not find the right words to break the news to her.

And so the planning went on. Edith, 33, ordered a gown and chose the best shoes for the day. Erick, 26, reluctantly followed suit, checking here and there to ensure all was well.

The village was afire, their parents over the moon. Rice had been bought by the kilos and their were murmmurs there would be a chapati-fest like no other.

And it was under this cloud of celebratory anticipation that, a day to the big day, Erick dropped the bomb. “Sorry, I will not be there.”

And, true to his words, he failed to turn up in church for their wedding vows. After friends and relatives failed to locate him, Edith decided a missing groom would not damp her spirits. She would go on with the ceremony nonetheless... alone.

“He is a coward,” she told DN2 last week in Nyeri. “I think I’m over him already, and all I can do is wait for a man who will be courageous enough to put a ring in my finger.”

But Eric, who fled to his Gathambi village of Kirinyaga County, says he is not yet over her, and would like Edith to give him just one year to think over it as he tends his maize crop.

“I’m very sorry for leaving you when you needed me most,” he told Edith, who had accompanied us in search of the man. “I need time off, about a year, to think about my life, build a house and tend to my crop. Once all is well, I’ll come to Nyeri to look for you. Heck, I’ll even call you over!”

“This is not the right time for you to say sorry or be repentant,” she responded, furious but controlled because Erick’s mother was listening. “I grant you the time to think about what you want, but kindly exclude me from your plans. Thank you for the embarassment, but it won’t break me. Life goes on.”

Of Erick’s farming ambition, she said, pejoratively: “That’s a very brilliant idea! Kenya needs more farmers now more than ever to boost its food security. I wish you well.”

For a woman who should now be on honeymoon, Edith seems to be taking things in her stride, but beneath that veil of indomitability is a woman hurting to the core.

“I have suffered unimaginable embarrassment,” she explains. “You cannot even begin to imagine the humiliation I went through after the man I was prepared to call my husband for the rest of my life jilted me at the eleventh hour.

“But after weeping over the heartache, I decided to go on with the ceremony without him. So I put on my wedding dress, made my hair and stepped out in style. The party had to go on.”

What hurts her even more is the fact that she had been with Erick the day before, and he had never bothered to explain to her that he was developing cold feet.

“I passed by his house on my way to Nyeri to buy supplies for the wedding and we agreed that he would go to my place and rearrange the furniture because my parents would spend the night there for the wedding the next day.

“After that he was supposed to come to Nyeri town to pick his suit from the dyrcleaner’s, get a hair cut and follow me home for the rest of the preparations.”

Erick rearranged the house as his fiancé requested, took all the pictures of him and Edith from her album and boarded the next bus to Kirinyaga. His suit still lay at the launder’s at the time of the interview in Gathambi and the state of his hair indicated he had skipped the appointment with his barber as well.

On the way to Kirinyaga, he called the wife of one of his cousins and told her that he was on his way home — then switched his phone off.

At the time, his mother was already on the way to Nyeri for the wedding, as were a number of his friends and relatives.

“When his cousin called to ask if the wedding was still set for Sunday, I immediately knew something was cooking because all my calls to Erick had not gone through,” Edith narrated, adding: “I then called Mum (Erick’s mother) and she told me she was also very concerned because she had learnt that Erick was on his way to Kirinyaga, but she decided to proceed with her journey to Nyeri anyway.”

She could not believe that the man who had taken her to his rural home on December 28, 2010 to introduce her to his mother as his future wife was now running away from her.

As the night wore on, Pastor Peter Mwangi of the Valley of Blessing Church, King’ong’o convened a meeting between the bride, her parents and Erick’s mother. He asked for calm, and prayed that Erick was well.

Come daybreak on Sunday, their big day, Erick was still nowhere to be seen, and it finally dawned on her that the man had run for the hills.

“I started crying and my landlord took me to a room where I could cry my heart out instead of doing it in front of guests. I called Erick but his phone was still switched off,” Edith explained.

In the midst of all this turmoil, her best maid, Ms Grace Githaiga, gave her hope.

“She told me that David fasted and lay in sackcloth when his son fell ill. But he astonished many in his courtyard when he heard of his son’s demise because, instead of mourning, he took a bath, dressed up properly and threw a feast for them. When people asked him why he did that, he told them that he realised he could not change God’s decision,” Edith remembered the wise words.

“It is then that I wiped my tears, took a shower, wore my wedding gown and partied the blues away.”

When Ms Githaiga finally managed to get him on phone, he told her curtly: “Hakuna harusi; watu waende kwao. (Kiswahili for ‘there is no wedding; people should go back to their homes.”)

“I asked him what happened to all the love he had shown Edith during courtship and he told me he didn’t love her any more. He then hang up and switched off his cell phone immediately,” Ms Githaiga explained.

Pastor Mwangi then told all the gathered guests to feast on as if nothing had happened, and to give Edith any gifts they had brought her and Erick so that she could feel like a proper bride.

They obliged, and so as Erick cooled his heels in Kirinyaga, his would-be-wife started redrawing her life, sure as one can be that her story would be discussed in thousands of homesteads and bars across the country.

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