MY SPIRITUAL WIFE
EPISODE 4
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Oluchi was livid after I told her that my step mother had left those marks on my body.
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Oluchi’s jaw was on the floor when I told her that this was nothing compared to what my step mother was synonymous for.
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“This is nothing jare. Ha! If this is usually what I get, when that woman is angry, I won’t even have a course to complain. I thank God that no part of my joint was dislocated this time around” I muttered, still very obviously in pain, from both my step mother’s beating and uncle P’s.
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At this point, Oluchi was enraged.
I didn’t understand why.
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I know that Oluchi and I had become very close but I just didn’t expect her to have seemingly cared about me as much as she appeared to.
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Oluchi asked to know in detail what had happened; what I’d done to have deserved this beat down from my step mother.
“What did she say you’d done this time around?” Oluchi asked, with a facial expression that now depicts keen interest.
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I didn’t know what to say or how to say what Oluchi seemingly couldn’t wait to hear.
How could I have?
Where was I even supposed to have found the voice? I was too shy to tell Oluchi that it was because I’d urinated on my stepmother’s bed.
Where do I begin to tell a girl that’d been bringing me food all this while because she’d probably assumed me a “big boy,” that I was still bed wetting?
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“Was it because you wetted her bed?” Oluchi asked with a straight face to my utmost amazement, after what must have seemed like “forever”, waiting for me to say something.
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“What?” My eyes almost popped out of their sockets, out of shock. “How did she know? Who told her? How will she perceive me right now?” I wondered. “But I didn’t wetted the woman’s bed na. I only urinated on it”. I thought to myself.
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“No! I didn’t wetted her bed, Oluchi. I only mistakenly urinated on it.” I muttered, very ashamed. “My stepmother found out and the beating had been as a result”. I said, this time, with a dampened mood.
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Again, I could see it on Oluchi’s face. She’d never seen an idiot like me before. In her mind, I was sure that she must have been wondering what the differences were (in urinating on a bed and wetting it); how terrible my English was but at the time, I wasn’t even seeing their relativeness.
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“Paul, tell me about your father and how he handles your step mother treating you in this manner” Oluchi inquired.
“Hmmn. That man never complains. Since my mother left; since he literally fought to get custody of me, my step mother has been running the affairs of the home, unchallenged. This woman beats me at any; every slight provocation. You’ll be amazed at the kind of work that woman makes me do, at my age. She sends me out on very ridiculous errands even at very odd hours. Most of which would be right there, in my father’s presence and he’d never say anything about it.”
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Oluchi heaved a deep sigh, then looked into my eyes and said “Paul, don’t worry, all that is about to change”, with total conviction.
I didn’t know what Oluchi had meant by that but something deep within me believed every word she spoke.
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I got home that day and just like every other day before it, I met my step mother in the parlor watching a movie with her children. As usual, all the chores she could think of, had been piled up for my tiny hands to attend to.
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I walked in trembling; reeking of fear because on my way inside, I’d noticed that the bedsheet I’d washed earlier and hung to dry, was no longer on the line.
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You’ll have assumed that this shouldn’t have been a big deal, as the betsheet probably got dried while I was away and my stepmother simply helped me pack them inside, but how I wished it was that simple with that woman.
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“PAUL! COME AND STAND HERE!” my stepmother commanded, thunderously. “I am now your house girl, abi? Who did you leave that bedsheet outside in care of? You left it lying out there for so long, you want the sun to kill it for me, ehn? You couldn’t even come back home earlier, to take it inside because you knew for a fact that you had a servant at home that would do the job for you, right?”
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Before I could open my mouth to say something; anything (even though I definitely had no rebuttal for this one) my step mother began to rain down slap on my skinny body.
I had no idea that my Daddy was even at home that day. He was usually never at home by this time of the day so you’ll understand my shock, when I heard his thundering voice charging out from inside.
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I was even more terrified at this point.
Whenever my stepmother was beating me for an offence, if my father was around, without asking what I’d done to know if it was justifiable for the kind of beating I was receiving, he’d usually join in the beatdown.
I’d presumed that my father was getting set to be my step mother’s “tag team” partner on this, as usual, but I was wrong.
He was charging at my step mother instead, demanding to know what I’d done wrong to have deserved this kind of beating, still in my school uniform.
My step mother tried to “paint a story” but to my utmost bewilderment, my father shut her up before she could even complete her thought.
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All these were certainly a side of him I’d never seen before, not since my mother left this house.
To be continued…
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Moshood Avidiime,
