PROSE: IF YOU GO by Akpadolu Chioma

 

She was cheating on him. He had known the first night he heard her whispered voice, he had seen it in her jerky motions, but he had been sceptical, not wanting to read meaning into things. Now though, he was sure. The hour met with the minute and they both kissed 12:00 yet, no sign of her. 

There was the car horn. He heard Musa open the gate, and quickly hurried outside, only to stop abruptly on his tracks. His wife was leaning heavily on a young man with a belly nothing like his protruding own. The lean man who was now closer still supporting his wife was saying something, but he couldn't understand what. His gaze was fixed at his hopelessly drunk wife. In all their 23 years of marriage, it was the first time seeing her in such a state. He didn't know what to make of it. His wife now drank to stupor, kept late nights and cheated with boys that could be their son. 

When the boy pushed past him to get into his house, his feet moved on their own accord. He stopped the boy, transferred the weight of his wife on himself.

"Musa throw this thing out." He bellowed. The night made his voice echo even louder. The boy opened his mouth as though to say something but decided against it— with a slight nod, he let himself out. 

He undressed his wife and laid her down. He had been angry, ready to rain down his furry but the sight of her disarmed him. She kept muttering and giggling. Sometimes he caught the words, 'leave him, won't.' The imbecile was probably trying to convince her to divorce and marry him rather. He should have had the boy arrested instead of letting him go! 

He laid beside his wife who had finally settled in her usual soft snores after much soothing and ceiling gaze. Did she find out? Was that why she had doing this?  He thought of the first time he met her, of her saying yes, of her working her ass off with him to build the empire they now had. She didn't leave him then, why was she doing so now? He pulled her sleeping frame closer and held her. He couldn't think of life without her and he would make sure it didn't come to that. Soon, he fell into a restless sleep. He dreamt of the slender girl that called him daddy, of his wife running off with the boy that probably called her mummy, of the slender girl choking him in his sleep and taking off with his money.

***

The rays felt like needles piercing her eyes, forcing her to squirt. She was at home, in her room. She couldn't remember how she got there but trying to think of it made her head bang even more so she didn't. She looked at the other side of the bed, wondering what she would tell him. She couldn't tell him yet. Not yet. 

"My love, you are up." Her husband said as he entered with a tray of food. "How do you feel?" He asked, feeling her forehead.

She blinked, maybe to clear her eyes better. "You cooked?" 

"Yes, I did." He popped two Paracetamol and handed it to her. 

"What really happened last night?" She blurted. His reaction was far from what she had expected. Did he know? Was that why he was acting all strange?

"You came home  drunk, on the arms of a young boy." She saw his already big nose flare at the 'young boy' and sighed.

"Yes I know," he ran his hands through his face, his eyes crinkling as though he too felt the banging in her head. He then began pacing. "I also know it's my fault." 

She looked at him, now very confused but he continued before she could say anything.

"I don't know what came over me. That weekend she spent in the house, she kept wearing all those...those obaraofuu clothes. Clothes that exposed her body, teasing me. Somehow... somehow I was in her room. "

One second. Two seconds. "What?" She said, realization dawning on her. 

"I swear it was a mistake." He ran his hands through his face again.

"Was it?" Her voice was a whisper. Her mouth tasted like it was filled with bile. She was on her feet even though she still felt shaky, "Was it just once, tell me!" She screamed when he had not replied. The tears stung her. She knew the answer. "How could you? She is a child for Christ sake and my niece and in our home! Olisa have  you no shame?" She cried.

"Don't you dare act all saintly with me!" His sudden loud voice stopped her next outburst. "The man you were with last night, isn't he a child too. If you had borne me a child when you should have, would he not be his age!"

"What? Yo-u yo-u..."  Was that how lowly he thought of her? After all, they had been through together? Her head felt heavier like someone was building on it, hitting nails in place to hold the weight. The rays no longer pierced her teary eyes, they seemed to dim gradually which was okay for her. She was tired. Too tired to catch herself from falling. Too tired to fight the two tumours growing like ripe tomatoes at the base of her skull. Too tired to try and stay alive or act healthy for a husband she had thought would be distraught by the news. She heard her name. It was the voice of the husband that had played her a fool and it sounded so far away. And that was fine by her too. Something soft and warm cushioned her fall and wrapped around her, like some blanket and that was perfect. 

She knew she still had to say thank you to her doctor Shola, who had been with her from day one of discovering the bumps that didn't think to grow in her belly as baby bumps. Shola had even been with her that last night, leaving his family when she had called. Maybe though, she could visit his dreams as she heard ghosts did. Maybe she could even make some dreams of his come true. Just maybe, she was better off dead, for Shola, for her husband and her obaraofu dressed niece, for her barren self. Maybe.

What she didn't see, was her pot-bellied fine boy husband pacing the hospital corridor, prayers opposite from all her maybes tumbling from his lips, flowing like two streams from his eyes, till they met at the beards she so loved.

Akpadolu Chioma is a 200 level student of Federal University of Technology, Owerri and a content writer for the Upwrite magazine. She has various short stories and poems to her name and when she is not lost in the pages of a book, creating an escape of hers, or being an aspiring engineer, she spends time with nature, her creator and her friends.