“He jumped into river, he jumped into river”
“He was pushed into river, he was pushed”, my mom kept repeating.
I jumped up as I was in a world of total confusion, but I needed a quick answer. It was obvious my mum was not in the right state of mind to answer me.
I needed not to think far as I already knew my dad has been pushed. But who could have possibly done that? My dad may be so tough but he doesn’t get into trouble with people. Who did this to my poor old man?
“I lost my marriage happiness, I lost my babies, my husband has left me, now my dad is dead or going to die. Why is this world against me, God why have you allowed me to always experience the sad part of life?” I cried out
King and dad were the last persons that had an argument in the sitting room, I can’t trust King of not been able to do anything worse. He looked into my dad’s eyes and I can’t doubt he pushed my dad, or possibly sent someone to do that. He must pay for everything this time. My sober state was slowly vanishing and replaced by rage inside of me. Even the passion to save my marriage wasn’t my concern anymore. Maybe I would be the next to die if Kingsley should return back into my life; so he is got to pay and rot in prison. While I was thinking, my tears couldn’t stop flowing heavily.
“Let’s go to the hospital” my mom’s friend said, pulling my mom and me towards the door. A journey of seventeen minutes seemed to be a seventeen hours one, as getting to the hospital was taking too long.
We asked for the man who was rushed in from drowning incidence but we were directed to the doctor’s office instead.
“I want to see my dad I asked”. The surprise look on the doctor expressed something like “your father?” Though I never cared because all I wanted was to see if my father was still alive or not.
We practically ran into the ward but what I saw was too much to believe. They very patient sleeping on the hospital bed was Kingsley. I became totally confused as Kingsley was my suspect, not knowing he was the victim.
We waited for three hours till Kingsley woke but at this time, as I was already calm.
Kingsley started crying as he sighted me. “Forgive me for all I have dragged you through Esther”, he said. This was the first time I would see passion, pity and sincerity on Kingsley’s face.
I was dumbfounded, I didn’t know if I should say “ok” or “I’m sorry too”.
We had nothing else to discuss through the week he spent in the hospital, but I was already taking up the job of a caring wife. I would check on King before going to my office, cook his food along, do the same on my way back from office and take his stained clothes home for laundry. Doing these for a week was strange as I never did them in years. I must confessed that enjoyed them though. I felt like a wife doing her tasks, but its all a mirage now, it is all illusionary. “How I wish I am doing all these things in a happy marriage”, I thought to myself.
The only words we repeatedly exchanged was “thank you” from King and “you are welcome” from me, and that was for my care sessions towards Kingsley in the hospital.
King was discharged the next Saturday, but we didn’t go home, we were told to see the woman who accompanied my mom the other day. It was then I realized she was a counselor and pastor.
AT THE COUNSELOR’S HOUSE
“I have been informed about all that happened in your marriage by Esther’s mother, but I would still want to hear your individual side of the story in case I was misinformed.
I was quick to mention all Kingsley did to me, while King really had not much to say, except how he realized his wrong doing when my parents had a meeting with us. How he had being continuously condmend by his conscience when I asked him: “why are you so bitter? Do you think I deserve all these?”
KING’s ACCOUNT
“I know you don’t deserve these and I don’t deserve you either. I decided to make amends. I blame me and my friends who dragged me into these. They were always advising me to do more because we spent the money you gave me together at club.
I called a meeting to accuse them about how they have caused so much problem for me and inflicted lots of emotional pain on my wife. They refuted my blame saying it was never their fault but mine. One of them said I did what I did because I enjoyed it. I was so furious that I had to hit him so hard as we walked along the road, he was the major person who masterminded the whole game and also got highest share of Esther’s money from me among my friends. Hitting him led to serious fight and it was in the heat of this that he angrily pushed me over the bridge. Luckily, I fell on a fisher man’s firmly tied net, but I passed out because I landed on my head, making me to have a little impact on my head. Esther, remember your dad called me for a meeting in your house, it was with his number as the last received call my rescuers used to contact your dad about how I was pushed into a river and rushed to a hospital,”
COUNSELORS ACCOUNT
“Your relationship started on a faulty foundation of deceit and I blame you Kingsley. You didn’t start well at all, and a faulty foundation must lead to a collapse. You have tortured and rubbed this lady in many ways and you deserve whatever decision she takes from here”.
“Esther, you have your faults too. You kept this to yourself when you had no slight idea on how to solve the problem. You lied to your parents about King’s financial status and about the state of your marriage, when it actually needed help. Worst of all, it really took you too long to forgive your husband. When we refuse to forgive our offenders, we become the greater offender, we are also likely to feel the larger part of the pain. I am not saying you should tell people about your marriage problems, but since you could not cry to God to help you, you should have met people who could lead you to God.
ESTHER’S CCOUNT
At this point, I was seeing myself on the same page with King, we both have our share of the blames in this game. The first thing we were told to do was to confess our respective sins to God, apologize to Him and repent, after which we apologized to ourselves. For the second time ever, I saw tears in the eyes of Kingsley, though I wore mine too. We helped each other to wipe off the tears on our faces as we were lost staring at each other.
We were brought back to consciousness as our counsellor made the sound “hun-hun-hun, now that you are now in reunion mode, it is like Kinglsey wants to kiss the bride afresh”, our counselor said out of jest. Funny to us, we could not do that because it sounded and looked strange. You can’t blame us, the last time we kissed was on our wedding night and what we had next was a rape scene in my terms.
“Ok, since you are both shy, go and do that at home”, she added. We couldn’t stop saying “thank you ma” till we left her office.
KING’S ACCOUNT
I was really hungry at this time, but I was too ashamed to ask for food. “I guess this is the another opportunity to make things right. I guess I need to make a delicious meal for us both.
“Please stop, you know you just returned from the hospital”, Esther said as she saw me trying to lite the gas cooker.
“No, let me do it”, I replied.
This led to another argument of “No and Yes” between us, but a sweet one this time. Esther tried to collect the match from me but I refused, this generated to a “police and thief game” and the rest was his history.
ESTHER’s ACCOUNT
The result of that game was Adaobi, our first daughter who look exactly like Kingsley. Uchenna came a year later, this was because our love grew so strong that our romantic and sexual lives were not even enough to contain it.
My mom already enjoyed it that way as she was already advising me not to wait for two years to have my third child.
“It’s my body ma, the first one was just by mistake”, as I laughed over it. I could not blame her, she had waited for so long.
“What is this I am seeing, what has gone wrong again”? I can’t just imagine…
What out in the final Episode
