MY DAUGHTER MY WIFE
Episode 29
ANDY’S POV
All my life, I’ve never felt as fuulish as I felt when I realized I had accused Sola so unjustly unmeritedly.
And in reaction, not only did she not get overly màd at me, she was mature and calm enough to talk to me in a way that made me feel more stupîd than I already felt when I listened to her speak with her cousin.
It became clearer to me that if I was going to live on and be the man I ought to be, I needed to work on the insecurity that had so bàdly eaten into me.
We made preparations to travel to Dominican Republic to get the divorce papers and with the help of Sola and her relatives who were so versed in knowledge of a good number of things, I got my divorce papers signed and returned to Chicago before I was missed.
Sola and I were celebrating my successful clinching of the papers and safe return to Chicago, when my phone began to buzz.
It was Chuks calling me for the fourth time that day. He had called me earlier to tell me he had good news, but I was in the arrivals at the airport the last time her called, so I told him I’d call him right back.
Somehow, after Sola picked me up from the airport, I didn’t remember Chuks again, of course I couldn’t!
Not when Sola was all over me with so much joy at the success of what took me to Dominican Republic and for the outcome of the pre-wedding tests I had given my blōōd samples for, before I travelled.
So when I saw Chuks’ call again, a wave of guïlt swept over me and I had to begin with explanations as soon as I took the call.
Sola walked into the kitchen when she found out I was talking to Chuks, and I smiled at how she still felt as if Chuks could reach out and touch her from the phone.
“It’s okay Andy, I reckoned you’d be trying to catch up with Sola after your trip to Dominican Republic.
“I would have let you two be for some time, but I’ve been restless all day. I’m so afraid of telling Meg how I feel for her like we agreed I should, and its driving me nuts” Chuks told me.
“Oh come on Chuks, we’ve been over this a thousand times. You’ve got to make the move and be sure of your standing
“She’s either going to give a ‘yes’, or a ‘no’! Your life won’t be lost, neither will your manhōōd” I told him.
“That the problem my friend. You know how I am, and you know like hêll how terribly it would affect me if she says no too
“I have a problem with facing rejèction, that’s one of the reasons I chose to run away from your department.
“She has been so friendly and everything, but I’m worried about ruining our friendship if things turned out the way it did with Sola” he complained.
“Chuks, there’s absolutely nothing wrong in being rejected. It doesn’t make you any less than who you are, because even though your proposition isn’t considered favourably where you wish it could be, there are a thousand and one places it could be!
“In the line of my job for example, you know how much rejection I had to face before I got the breakthrough that launched me to this height
“You know me Chuks, I don’t give up, and I expect you to have seen how rewarding it is” I replied.
“Andy, we’re not talking about your job here. You know like I do that matters of the heart aren’t measurable with other mundane things.
“What I need now are practical guides on how to make sure Meg doesn’t give me a “no” and not all the theories you’re dishing out now.
“I have made reseraches to know how I can overcome the anxiety I now have, but those things are easier said than done.
“I haven’t had much experience with the opposite sëx and even though I can’t say for sure what tomorrow holds, I don’t want to see that tomorrow without Meg” he told me.
I laughed so hard that I nearly lost some teeth. Sola even had to peep out from the kitchen to be sure I hadn’t gone insàne.
“Okay, here’s what you should do. Since you’re so afraid to ask her yourself, how about you let her get the question in a romantic, yet safer way for you?
“ Like you could send her a message to ask her to be your girlfriend, or you could make a paper graffiti that she can find by her car or anywhere you know she’ll see in record time” I suggested.
“Ah yes! That’s it. I’m going to use the graffiti and watch from a safe distance to see how she’ll react to it before I walk up to her. Thank you so much Andy, and congratulations on a successful official divorce with that Madonna. I’ll tell you what I heard about Madonna after I’ve asked Meg to be mine” he told me and hung up .
“Oh Chuks, the matters of the heart is indeed one thing that can reduce a man to what he should be above!” I soliloquized, shaking my head.
Chuks had told me of an old school mate, someone he had known since our University days, and how they met again on the day he sent Sola and I to the airport.
He told me how she had been almost too excited to see him than he was to see her, and how she had insisted on knowing his house before she went back to her hotel.
She had just returned to Nigeria after being in UK for her post graduate program.
Meg started working in the UK after her school business there, and was only back in Nigeria for a short while because her younger sister was getting married.
Chuks told me how he had to attend the marriage ceremony with Meg because she wouldn’t let him out of her sight for a moment.
From what I could sense already, Meg is in love with Chuks, but Chuks is still allowing the issue with Sola hold him back, and I am hoping that the girl doesn’t give him a reason to develop a permanent cold feet towards woman.
I told Chuks to hold on with the decision to ask her out immediately and be sure she was into him as much as he was into her before making a move.
And with what he had told me about Meg, and how she had opted to take a job in Nigeria, I could tell that she was creating the avenues for two of them to be together.
“Are you ready to eat now?” Sola asked me, emerging from the kitchen with the freshly cooked food she had prepared for us.
“Yeah, I’m so famished” I told her, salivating already as the aroma of the delicacy reached me.
We sat over the meal, and talked while we ate. I wanted us to decide which date would suit us for our wedding and to plan on how elaborate we could have it, but Sola wanted to know what plans I have in place for our lives after the wedding ceremony.
She had us talking about how we’d manage our finances and how many children we hoped to have.
We argued about the number of children for a while, until we reached a compromise.
I wanted four, but Sola wanted two. It seemed like a joke at first, but we nearly made a big issue out of it.
Eventually, we agreed three would be okay, and we talked about the pre-wedding tests that we had gone for.
“But what if the results had come out unfavourable? I don’t know why you even had to make us take the tests” I told Sola.
“You won’t believe it, but I was more nervous than you. I would have been sworn to a life of celibacy if the results had turned out bad.
“I wouldn’t have gone ahead to marry you when I know how mïserable our lives would become when the effects of our medical incompatibility would set in, and how our love would become a thing of the past when we keep facing one storm after the other
“Still, I wouldn’t have been able to consider being with another man.
“I guess that’s why God is gracious enough to have allowed the results come out the way they did” Sola told me, and I couldn’t agree less.
“It would have been a really terrible blow to my already fragile heart if we had to go our separate ways at this point of my life” I concurred.
Sola and I fixed a date for our wedding and made all the preparations for the big day. It was a good thing that most of her family members already had travelling papers, so I only had to worry about my mum and one of my sisters that didn’t have.
Sola has always been the religious type, but I never had to pray with her. But with our marriage already set to hold soon, she sort of compelled me into praying with her because she wanted our children meeting us as a praying family.
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❤️TO BE CONTINUED
