“Those who don’t know how to suffer are the worst off. There are times when the only correct thing we can do is to bear out troubles until a better day.”
― Ming-Dao Deng, Everyday Tao: Living with Balance and Harmony
As you drove in into your compound in Noranda, the solution that you thought about had become concrete plans. What the plans were to do you quickly put into place. As a woman you know your husband very well and you thought of what you can do for him to unwittingly help you in carrying out your plans. You prepared his favourite dish. You put on the most seductive dress that he loved seeing you wearing. You were therefore not surprised about his reactions when he came home and see you.
What are we celebrating? Your birthday or mine?
None
Why all these? What do you want this time?
Nothing
Why then all these?
Can I not dress for my husband of more than thirty years?
Yes, I could see that but to where do we ascribe this delicious food and the bluesy ambience of romantic light and music?
I have been thinking lately. Our relationship had become flare and unappetising. I am trying to put some life back into it but you think that….
At this point, you burst into tears. You sometimes use this as a ploy and instrument but very rarely. You know that Mika cannot afford seeing your tears. Like a baby you cried and truly according to your prediction he came, caressed you and you led him to the table. As he eats and you opened the wine you wanted to use in celebrating this renewal of relationship you dropped a tablet into his drink. You have heard of the tablet while in the secondary school when it was used on one of your mates during a gang rape. It leaves no traces in the blood but it is a very potent aphrodisiac. Odourless and rarely leaving a trace in the drink, it was the best you can get. You are also aware of its potentials and you were not disappointed. The ravishing he gave you had no comparison. Mika had fun with you and you had with him since a long time gone and naturally, he could not stop. Your only fear was that he would terminate making love to you. This did not happen and on the next day, Mika couldn’t take his hands off you. For a period of two weeks after the monumental dinner, it was like a second honeymoon. Mika made love to you like someone who had fever but that notwithstanding, some weeks after he reverted to his old nature-the couch potato-once again. That however, had not bothered you since you have achieved your aim. The reactions on his face were not only amusing to you but also pleasing though they were worrisome to him when you dropped the bombshell.
What, what do you mean?
What do I mean like how?
It is impossible, unheard and it sounds miraculous
Is that? Am I not a woman?
Yes, you are but what you said happened couldn’t have happened
What do you mean? Are you God?
I am not God but you think of it. You think though what you have just told me. It is impossible at your age.
It is not impossible. There are exceptions to the rule.
Oh! Oh! This is an exception, an exception worth celebrating? Can’t you imagine what people will say about you outside? You a grandmother aged woman giving birth to a baby?
What is wrong with that? What am I to do if God gave me a child?
Flush it at your age.
Flush what? I can’t do that.
You can’t do what? I am not ready to be a father to a fifty-three year old woman’s baby.
You mean if it had been an eighteen or twenty-something year woman who had gotten pregnant for you, you could accept?
I do not mean that. I mean we do not need a child now.
The jive was what you needed. You held onto it as you made Mika to apologise and finally agree to your keeping the baby. If only you had known what was in stock for you. You would have aborted the baby and allowed the situation in your house to remain what it was, the graveyard peace.
ayékòótóFMD 