“I can explain” that was all I could manage to say after almost 5 minutes of awkwardness.
“You don’t have to” Irene said and she reminded me of the ONLY thing she asked of me before she agreed to marry me. She was sobbing as she told me the story of a 'loud' girl that came to the Salon about an hour after she got there. The girl seemed to be good friends with the hairdresser as there were no details spared in all the gist she had for her. One could tell that they attended the same secondary school.
Irene said she wasn’t interested in the lecherous things they were talking about at first…but when the hairdresser asked where the 'loud' lady had been all the while and she mentioned a conference in Abuja, she (Irene) started to pay attention.
The lady asked the hairdresser if she remembered the cute 'corper', Mr. B, that ‘served’ when they were seniors at their secondary school in Ibadan…the hairdresser was still racking her brains when the lady added “Mr. Babs…my life crush”. At that point, the hairdresser remembered and asked for more details.
The lady then started the story of how they met in the plane, how he was even sexier and more handsome than he was back then. How fate put them in the same hotel, how she paid ten thousand naira to the man at the counter so she could get the room that was directly opposite his.
She talked about how Mr. Babs was playing hard to get at first, but finally fell for the old ‘flaunt what you got’ trick and played ball…hard. She shared everything that happened without sparing any details.
“At first I thought it was all a weird coincidence and I was trying to process the information in my head…but then she showed the hairdresser a wristwatch.”
“She said she took it as a souvenir…to remind herself, that if she set her heart to anything she could achieve it” Irene said.
She said there was no way she would not recognize the wrist watch because she bought it through a friend that travelled to the United Kingdom from her office and it was customized.
To be doubly sure, she checked the wristwatch on the lady’s hand while pretending to check the time.
At that point, I knew the game was up…I started to beg Irene, blaming the devil for my unfaithfulness.
I told her how hard I tried to keep away from the girl and all the things I did, to avoid being entrapped...but my wife just sat on the floor, sobbed hard and said nothing.
It was as if someone died in our house…I must have begged from afternoon till midnight. Nobody ate…she only got up to feed our son who was crying. Irene cried and cried till she slept off. I was thinking of what to do to pacify her or the gift I could get to make her forgive me. That night, I regretted everything I did at Abuja…I regretted the kind of company I had been keeping at work and how that contributed, in a way, to the mess I got myself in.
We couldn’t go to church on Sunday…Irene just stayed in the room and wouldn’t come out. My son sat with her and consoled her in his own little way. He was a little over 2.
“Stop crying mummy…who beat you?” he said as he put his right hand on her head (a gesture meant to console a crying child)
Irene held him and tried to stop crying but I could tell that her heart was shattered. I felt really bad…I even cried at a point.
I started to pray in my heart that God should let her forgive me. My mind went back to the promise I made when I cheated on her with Dammy.
Later in the evening, I went out to get some food so she could eat…I begged her to eat, even if it’s because of the baby. The mention of the baby even made her cry some more.
I must have slept off at around Midnight…it was a sad weekend in our house. I had to go to work the next morning because I had a presentation; Irene had called her boss that she wasn’t coming to work, because she wasn’t feeling too good.
I begged Irene that I would come as soon as I was done with the presentation…she looked at me but didn’t say anything. I got back home around 2pm but Irene was not there. I called out but nobody responded…I called her phone, it was switched off. At first I thought maybe she went to the Daycare to get our son since he didn’t really have to stay there all day
I sat in the living
room for a while and decided to go check the room...that was when I noticed she
had taken some of her stuff. I called the Daycare to check if she had been
there but they said our son was absent on that day.
I continued to call
Irene but the phone was still turned off…I sent her many text messages, hoping
she would get them as soon as the phone was turned on.It was as if my whole world was collapsing around me, the thought of what this could mean and where this could lead, pervaded my mind. I called a friend of hers at church but she said she hadn’t heard from her since Friday.
I didn’t want to call family members at first…I was hoping she would see my text messages and respond. I couldn’t sleep all night as I kept calling Irene hoping she would have switched on her phone. I realized, around 3 in the morning that she left her SIM card on the little dresser by the bed...
PART 13 PART 15
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
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