Once in Love
Episode Twelve
When Anna woke up, she was back to reality for a while, at least her brain was calm, and she could really understand the outside world.
The cab man was right, she needed rest, she thought.
“Where is everyone? Oh my god, I dropped my boxes outside,” she suddenly remembered. As she just stepped out of the room, she saw her mother making breakfast in the kitchen, it was already morning.
As her mother spotted her, she called, “Anna, come here.” As Anna drew closer, without saying a word, her mother gave her a hug.
It was as if she knew that was what Anna needed at the moment. Of course, she was her mother, she knew her daughter.
As she hugged her, Anna allowed the tears she had been holding to flow freely. “Mum, everything is not fine,” she finally said the words her mother wanted to hear.
Seeing her daughter in tears moved her mother to tears too.
“You are home now, everything will be fine,” her mother said. Just then her mother’s phone rang, and Mr. William was on the phone.
“Don’t answer the call, mom,” Anna said, wiping the tears from her eyes. Her mother just nodded and let out a deep sigh. Truly, something was going on in her daughter’s marriage, she thought.
She held Anna by the shoulders.
“Tell me everything that is going on, my dear. I can’t bear to see you cry,” her mother said.
As Anna sat down on the chair, she had been waiting for the time she would at least tell someone what was going on in her life.
She could not get herself to trust anyone else, her own mother would not hūrt her.
“Mom, Isabel has been kidnāpped for two days now,” she did not even continue when her mother scrėamed.
It attracted her husband who was reading the newspaper in the sitting room.
He rushed to the kitchen, thinking a knifė had cūt his wife’s finger or something else had happened. But as he got there and saw her standing still, just staring at Anna, he gave a sigh of relief.
“What is wrong?” he inquired, removing the glasses he used for reading the newspaper, he even carried the paper in his right hand.
His wife stood still, trying to figure out how he would react to the shocking news.
The doctor had advised them to avoid telling him anything thrėatėning due to his illness. She tapped her feet on the ground and said, “Isabel has been kidnāpped.”
This news brought another round of tears from Anna. “Come here, my daughter,” he stretched out his hands.
Anna held onto them, drawing closer as he hugged her. He handled the situation perfectly, knowing they looked up to him for strength.
“How much do the kidnāppers want, and when did this happen?” he asked Anna. Anna, still trying to hold back her tears, finally mustered the courage to say, “Kemi kidnāppėd my daughter.”
Her mother loosened her wrapper, “Kemi, Kemi, it can’t be the Kemi I know,” she said, making the sign of the cross.
She had to understand the Kemi her daughter was referring to, as she couldn’t believe it was the same person she had praised.
“Kemi was a good girl, she was this, she was that,” she would always say. She hīt her head with her hands, as if trying to process the information.
“You mean Kemi, your friend, kidnāpped Isabel, our Isabel, why?
Anna’s father asked, unable to believe it either because Kemi was all shades of good. He had even supported the friendship between the two, it was as if he had just sold her daughter to dānger.
Anna just nodded, no time for questions at that point.
She needed her daughter back and even her husband back, she couldn’t even explain things to him. Then her mother asked the question she had been avoiding, “Does your husband know about this?”
Anna shook her head, which angėred her mother.
“And you decided to cūt us out too. Are you now a superwoman to solve this problem on your own? We are your family. I understand you are an adult, but you are still my child.
Besides, you are a young girl. I will call him myself and tell him everything.
But what I don’t understand is why your bags are in the house,” her mother said. Anna refused to say more as she was lost in thought about Kemi not contacting her since leaving her husband’s house.
“Where will she keep my daughter? Is she even feeding her well?”
Anna asked herself, still pondering, until her mother screamed her name, “Anna” It was when her father shook her that she suddenly became conscious.
“Oh, my poor daughter, you are already experiencing such betrāyal at a tender age.
This is just too much for you. Come, sit down,” he said as Anna sat down, breathing heavily. Anna did not even hear when her mother said she would call her husband Mr. William.
It was when her mother picked up the phone and dialed William’s number that Anna rushed to end it.
“I don’t see your husband as part of the problem here. Why have you decided not to call him?
Is there something I need to know?” her mother asked in a low tone.
Thessycute Ekene
