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Kola checked his phone for the uptenth time. To him, the time was unusually slow that day. He wanted it to go fast. He was billed to meet with Deaconess Beatrice by 7pm at Bolingo eateries.
He had been restless since she broke the unusual news to him the day before. How one earth is that supposed to happen? He asked himself. He concluded that Deaconess must have said that just to get his attention. She knew he was running away from her and she wanted him to come to her. That has to stop. He planned to warn her at the meeting today. She should totally stay away from him.
He wished he could go with his wife to the meeting. Past events have taught him to be vigilant and not to be secretive. If his wife had known about his alliance with Deaconess in the first place, things might not have deteriorated to how it is now.
He struggled on what and how to tell her that he was meeting with Deaconess in the evening.
” Babe, I have an appointment with Deaconess Beatrice,” he would begin. “I want you to come along and serve as a chaperon. You see, both of us are like animals that cannot tame themselves. The last time we met, something happened between us. And now, Deaconess is claiming that she’s pregnant for me. You see, we did it only once and at an unguarded moment.” Kola cringed at the thought of how Jumoke would react.
Peradventure the unanticipated becomes a reality? His life would crumble. If it turned out to be true that Deaconess is pregnant, there would be war. Kola was scared of imagining what could happen. They would have to do all in their power to conceal their secret. If not?
It’s one thing to tell your wife that you’ve been unfaithful to her and another thing to tell her that another woman is carrying your baby. Impregnating someone different from your wife is the height of it. It’s a sacrilege. No matter what, the other woman will always have a part of you. Having a child together create a kind of bond between people
Kola spent a restless night thinking of every kind of possibility. He was grumpy throughout the next day like a man with withlow on every of his fingers. His colleagues at work noticed his unusual moodiness and treaded around him with caution.
At a little past five, he picked his phone to intimate his wife that he would be coming home late.
” What’s cooking?” Jumoke curiously asked.
Kola felt a hollowness in his heart and a kind of dryness in his throat. He coughed slightly. He had expected his wife to ask him why he would return home late. Despite that, he had no ready answer for her and he lied.
” Some auditors from our head office will be with us tomorrow. I want to tidy up some things. I will be fast about it and get back home as soon as I am done.”
” You mean I will be all alone for the whole of the evening? When do you hope to finish up?”
” I can’t say. Would you prefer to come around and keep me company?” Kola said this on impulse. He never expected Jumoke to agree to come be with him, but he wanted her to have a feeling that he wasn’t hiding anything from her. So, he had to play that dirty card hoping that she would refuse coming.
” Noooooo.” Jumoke drawled. ” Come over to do what? Just make sure you return home on time.”
Kola sighed in relief. That end has been tied. He just needed to wait for the appointment with Deaconess.
—–
She was seated at the extreme of the restaurant, dressed in a black kaftan. She had a dark shawl wrapped round her head and even wore dark shades. She looked like someone that was either mourning or trying to hide her identity. Either way, she signalled to Kola when he entered the eatery.
She had deliberately choose Bolingo eatery for their meeting because it was a little distant from the town center and was mostly patronized by the high and mighty. At Bolingo, there’s less likelihood that someone would recognize her.
On getting to her, Kola greeted reluctantly and sat facing her. ” This place is too open,” he said and looked around.
” Do you prefer that we talk in the car?”
” Better.”
They moved to her car and stayed in silence for sometime until deaconess found her voice. As she began to speak, fat tears dropped from her eyes. She removed her glasses, cleaned her eyes with an hanky and replaced the glasses. Kola looked away.
She turned to him and begged. ” I’m sorry for everything that happened. Never in my wildest dream did I think that something like this would happen to me. All my life, I have always been sexually upright. I married as a virgin and uptil when my husband died, no other man has ever seen my nakedness. That is why I’m still confused on why this has happened to me. I keep on blaming myself at how I let my guard down and allowed lust to take over my thoughts and feelings. Now I’m pregnant. If the pregnancy becomes known publicly, people will think that we’ve been sleeping together all this while. They won’t believe that it was a mistake. You know, people always believe the worst about others. People that are not in the right position to talk to me will start casting stones. I don’t know if God is using this to punish me. I know of women that are living wayward lives and have never been disgraced, but look at me, just this one misstep and I’m pregnant.”
” So it is true.” Kola said under his breath. He dropped his head back against the car seat and placed a palm across his forehead. “Ha! I’m finished,” he said loudly. ” I’m done for.” He looked into the distance. ” When I saw the text message yesterday, I didn’t believe you. I thought that you lied in order to get my attention. I didn’t want to believe you. Me…impregnate you…haaaa. To think that my wife warned me about my closeness with you.”
” She did?” Deaconess removed her glasses. Her eyeballs were puffy and red rimmed. She looked like someone that had cried herself to near stupor.
” When you invited me for the auditing job, I didn’t tell her. She got a hint of me frequenting your house and objected vehemently. We had a major quarrel over the matter. We’ve never quarreled like that since we got married. On the morning of the last day that I came to you, we had another big fight and she cried. I wish I had listened to her and turned back.Now, my home might break because of the stupid decision that I made.”
” No. No. Your home will not break,” Deaconess said, placing a hand on his shoulder. Kola shrugged her hand off.
” I’ ve had my own time,” she said. “I had a blissful marriage. No woman ever threatened my home throughout the years that I was married to my husband. I was that lucky. I have no right to break your home.”
” I have been indecisive about telling my wife of what happened. I had to lie to her that some auditors would be coming to our office tomorrow and that I needed to tidy up things, in order to make this meeting. This is not my lifestyle. I’m always open to my wife.” He looked at his wristwatch. ” I should be heading home now. I don’t want her waiting for long.”
” You love your wife.”
Kola placed a palm.on his chest. ” Yes I do. With the whole of my heart. The s@x with you was a big mistake.”
” A terrible mistake. I also loved my husband. If given the chance, I would choose him over and over again.
Keeping this baby would bring plenty trouble, both to myself, to you and others. The first decision that I made after I discovered that I was pregnant was that I would kill myself. When I called you yesterday, I had a bottle of sniper and a suicide note by me. I couldn’t go through the process. I was too much of a coward to open the bottle and gulp the poison down. Moreso, I didn’t live a righteous life all this year’s to end up in hell. That’s where anyone that commits suicide will go. I had a restless night weighing my options. If I keep this pregnancy, I might break your home. Even if I leave this place, go to hide somewhere and have the baby, I would still be doing a world of disservice to your family. Secrets have a way of leaking when we least expect them to do so. If it leaks out to the church that I’m pregnant, so many people that look up to me will be disappointed. Some of them may even backslide. I will become a laughing stock in the society. I will taint the image of my late husband. What will my children think of me? That my husband had just been gone for a year and I have started sleeping around. No! I will rather terminate the pregnancy and afterwards, ask for God’s forgiveness. Whereas, the doctor said either I keep or abort the pregnancy, I’m still taking a risk. I prefer the latter.”
Kola sighed deeply. ” That will be better for everyone,” he said.
Deaconess watched him closely and murmured. ” I know that’s what you will say. You men are naturally selfish.”
Kola raised an eyebrow. ” What do you expect me to say? To beg you to keep the baby? No! I’m happy that you have made the wisest decision. Everyone’s back will be covered.”
” Everyone’s back but mine. What if I lose my life in the process? You are not even bothered that we will be commiting a great sin by ending the pregnancy.”
” We’ve already sinned. It’s not like one kind of sin is heavier than the other God is merciful and always willing to overlook so many things You suggested the abotion yourself. You said you are willing to take a risk. Why are you going back and forth. I think you should be straight forward with me.”
” And you should act more responsibly. See the way you are even talking to me, as if I’m a child. Is this the same Kola that used to call me mummy in the church? I have indeed fallen. You act as if I forced myself on you. Both of us are adults. You knew that what we were about to do was wrong but you consented.”
Kola shrugged. ” You placed me in a tight corner. I never knew that you had an amoral feeling towards me. You seduced me.”
” I won’t take that from you.” Deaconess pointed angrily. ” I have been straight forward the whole of my life.”
” It shows.” Kola smirked and opened the door. She drew him back and asked. ” Where are you going.”
” Where else do you think I’m going? To my house of course. I’m returning to my lawfully wedded and pregnant wife. She’s waiting for me at home.”
Deaconess felt as if a hammer had hit her on the chest. She dropped her head on the steering. “Did you say that your wife is pregnant?”
” Yes.” Kola replied arrogantly. ” We discovered on the same day that…”
Deaconess pushed a palm at him. ” It’s okay. I will abort the pregnancy. It’s just that I don’t know where to do it. I have never done anything like this.”
” You can look for one of the good hospitals around.”
” You speak as if it is as simple as that. You expect me to just walk into a hospital and be like; “hey, I wanna have an abortion.” As if it’s the most simplest thing to do in the world. For crying out loud, you should be remorseful. We are about to kill a child that God is bringing into the world for a purpose.”
Kola shrugged. ” Did you say purpose? Me and you know that the only purpose that the baby in your womb is coming to fulfil is to cause chao. With all due respect ma, we both don’t need this child. I personally don’t want want any child apart from the one that Jumoke will birth. She’s pregnant with my baby.”
” It’s okay. I will abort the pregnancy, but it has to be somewhere far from here. Maybe in another state. If you know of any doctor that is competent, reliable and could keep our secret, please contact him. I will take care of the cost.”
” I will think about it and give you feedback.”
———
Kola met Jumoke at the door on his return home. It looked like she had purposely stayed there to wait for him.
” Why are you here?” He asked pecking her on the right cheek. She drew back.
” I thought you said you have auditors coming to your office tomorrow.”
” Yes?”
” And you stayed back to tidy things up.”
” Yes, what’s the problem?”
” Kelvin and Tosin just left the house now. They paid us a visit.”
” That’s good,” Kola said.
” Kelvin was suprised that you were still at the office. When I told him about the auditors, he seemed not to know anything about them. If someone should know, I think it should be Kelvin because he’s the next to the ogapatapata. The worst is that he left the office by 6:30 and saw you driving out. He presumed that you will be at home and he and his wife paid us a visit. So, where are you coming from?”
TO BE CONTINUED
Β© Bosede Fagbemi
It’s like Deaconess Beatrice and Kola are trying to hide behind a needle. What do you think?
He who hides his sin shall not prosper, but he who confess and forsake them will have mercy.
