DNA Test
Episode 3
Olaedo pulled her wig off her head and threw it at one corner of the large room. She already yanked off her hand bag and dropped it behind the door immediately she opened her room.
She threw herself yakata on the bed and fell into a very deep sleep.
For a moment, Olaedo almost felt the absence of any problems, as if everything was fine, as if what was happening to her was just a normal tiredness from her tedious nursing job. It was more than that and she knew it.
Yet, she actually had a good sleep, but her human mind soon traveled back to reality as soon as the wall clock in her room chimed 12am in the middle of the night.
“I can’t remember cheating on my husband.” Olaedo said to herself as reality rang home. The spacious room was well-lit but she felt darkness in her mind and inside her head. There was no clue to where she went wrong.
“Olaedo think, think harder!” She told herself, slapping her head as she stood up from the bed and paced around the floor. The milk-coloured floor tiles were supposed to be cold under her feet at that time of the night, but instead, it felt hot like coal. And despite the Samsung air conditioner that cooled the room, Olaedo was sweating profusely. It is a bad omen to sweat under AC.
“When did I cheat on my husband? Na who give me belle for this Ogbanje pikin called Miracle?” She asked herself. Hot tears were beginning to roll down her beautiful cheeks.
Olaedo walked to the fridge beside her bed and produced a bottle of chilled McDowell’s No 1 and opened it with the speed of light. She sat on the floor and took a gulp. Olaedo cannot be considered a heavy drinker, but she drinks to clear her head when she feels her brain is cloudy. That night was definitely one of such moments.
When the McDowell’s fell on her throat and traveled down to her stomach, Olaedo felt a strong flare of remembrance flash across her mind.
“I now remember where the rain started to beat me.” She whispered to herself like a mad woman.
Olaedo’s mind traveled back to seven years ago. That year, she had felt she was not getting enough s*x from Ikenna her husband who was always travelling.
One night when she was lonely and her husband was away to Abuja, Olaedo had gone to Oshodi Under Bridge to visit her ex-boyfriend who works there as agbero.
Chudo, for that was her ex’s name was a handsome man and Olaedo’s delight in the other room. But Chudo lacked just one thing: he had no character. And maybe, he also lacked money. Olaedo had married Ikenna after rejecting Chudo, but if she were to tell the truth, she always missed him. Memories of Chudo’s energy remained with her.
And so it happened that Olaedo picked Chudo that night sevens ago and they slept at a hotel in Victoria Island. Of course, Olaedo footed the bill and she enjoyed every moment of that night. But the result of what happened that night seems to be haunting her now, or so she felt.
“But Chudo told me he used protection and I also took something after that night.” Olaedo recalled as she took another gulp of the McDowell’s.
“That idiot failed me.That agbero got me pregnant.” She said as reality shook her.
“So Miracle got his bad character from Chudo? I knew it! That motor park tout got me pregnant. Chei! I’m finished.” She shouted in her mind as she struggled to keep calm so as not to be heard by her husband whose room is just next door.
“My husband will kill me if he ever finds out.” Olaedo said with a pitiful tone.
After a long pause, and a moment of soul-searching, Olaedo decided she was going to confess to her husband.
“It’s better I tell Ikenna myself. If he fails to forgive me, then I will visit the lagoon and end it all.” She said. The McDowells which is almost empty is beginning to take effect so she lay on the floor. She concluded that she will go to her husband’s room and confess early in the morning but she slept and didn’t wake up till 12pm the next day.
