Episode 5
‘Mummy Fiyin it is well o, I pray God help you sort out your family issues’ said Iyawo. ‘Thank you Iyawo, let me get back to my room’. She stood up and entered the room and met nobody, her kids were probably still putting the clothes on the line. She changed to a dry clothe and went to the kitchen she shared with the other tenants to prepare dinner. She thanked her stars that most of the other tenants weren’t around when the fight happened.
They ate dinner and she waited a while for her husband to come back home. The children were oblivious of what happened so she didn’t have any explanation to give them. He got back home and went straight to bed without touching the food she cooked. She begged and told him on how sorry she was but he gave her a silent treatment. She heard him snore so she went to sleep.
The Solomons carried out the same routine everyday but this day felt different for Dorothy. Her children were almost through with their exams and on this very day their morning devotion was quite lengthy because Shola led the prayer and she really prayed and touched so many areas. She felt the Spirit of God at work and was happy God was using her children.
They all prepared for school and left the house together leaving her husband behind who was still sleeping. She got to work and confirmed from her children’s class teacher by pulling a call through to her if they had gotten to school also.
Meanwhile Tayo left the house not quite long after, this time around he went from companies to industries searching for job. He wouldn’t mind been a cleaner or gateman, his friends already told him not to relegate himself that he’d find a job. He submitted his C.V in every company on his way, with those that weren’t part of his discipline. He hopes he would get a call from them very soon.
He returned back to his regular joint at his friends shop and sat talking with his friends. They discussed mainly about other places he could get a job and in case those Jobs doesn’t come through the other things he could do.
Tayo spoke on how he wasn’t enjoying his marriage anymore, he feels his wife is a threat all because she was the one providing for the home and doesn’t see an offense in that. His friend chastised him and cautioned him not to chase a good woman away because one will hardly find a woman who would solely feed a family and not complain for over a decade.
Tayo mentioned on how guilty he feels for fighting with her and hope to change. The sparks he used to feel before weren’t there any longer, he doesn’t even remember when last he prayed not to talk of attend a church service. He wondered on how his life had turned upside down and he hoped to retrace his steps back, but how?
One would think he was a madman because as he walked through to the path which leads to his house,he bagan to talk to himself. The battle which hadn’t just started today resurfaced as he kept reassuring himself he wasn’t a failure.
‘You’re a bad person, a cheat, a wife beater, you don’t have conscience at all, you’re a failure’. ‘I am not any of this’ he replied to the voice in his head. ‘It was as a result of anger and resentment I hit my wife and poured my frustration on her and I have conscience, I am looking for a job already’.
‘So it is after ten years you realised you would start looking for a job, you’re a failure, after you’ve drained that good woman,after you’ve made her sorrowful’. ‘I am not a failure’ he argued. ‘I am not and never going to be a failure in Jesus name’. He kept on repeating those words till he got to their face me I face you compound.
He greeted the people he met on the corridor and went into their room,he met his daughters drinking garri and retorted that all this would change the moment he starts working. He asked where their mother was and they replied with her being in the kitchen.
He saw the surprise on their face because he knew he hardly had any conversation with them. That was how bad it was, he’d never imagined it been that way. A whole him had always dreamt of a lovely family with lovely children and a lovely wife.
But this is life, life where the unexpected happens, life where one moment you’re this the next you’re the opposite. Life had really dealt with him and is still dealing with him. while he was younger,he had dreamt of having a duplex,a stable job, a car and other material things which makes one recognised in a society.
But no here was he,drowning in poverty,frustration,resentment. ‘What would make one hate a woman he once loved’ Tayo asked no one in particular. ‘What could make one resent a strong woman,the mother of ones children,a breadwinner’, ‘she has done nothing but loved him,she has been what any man will want as a wife’.
He remembered some days back and how he suddenly woke up at the middle of a night to see her pray fervently in tears. He heard his name in her mouth and thought she was calling him, they hardly ever communicated any more, he still ponders on how they could still be married. If it were him he would have left. He sure would have but here’s a strong woman who despite been fed up keeps being resilient.
He came out of his reverie and went to the kitchen they shared with other tenants and met his wife beside their kerosene stove talking to one of the tenants. Dorothy looked up and saw her husband but she noticed his countenance changed and then he turned to go back to their room.
She shook her head and thought he was a psycho. ‘Didn’t she see him laugh just now?’ she thought. She put down the rice from the stove and shouted to call Fiyin who was already half way to the kitchen.She collected the stove from her mum and carried it into the room while her mum followed from behind carrying the pot of rice.
Dorothy got inside and asked her husband what the problem was and he kept mute.
‘Didn’t I ask you not to talk to that woman again?’ he spoke some minutes later. ‘So because you’re fighting with her means I should not talk to her abi?’ Dorothy replied.
‘Don’t use such tone with me woman, I am not your mate you hear or else I will deal with you now’. ‘What tone did I use ehn,what tone, what you’re asking me to do is not possible, I don’t know where that is done’. ‘So now you’ll defy me because you’re the one bringing food on the table right?’
Story continues…..
Have you ever been in a situation where your friend asks you to stop being friends with someone all because they have an issue with the person?
How did you deal with such situations? Do you think it is cool or not? Does that feel like betrayal on your friend’s part? Or have you ever being in such shoes?
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